Closing: The Life and Death of an American Factory

by Cathy N. Davidson, Bill Bamberger, William L. Bamberger

Book Overview

Bill Bamberger took his revealing and powerful photographs during the last four months of operation on the factory floor, working side by side with the White employees. Cathy Davidson's text focuses on six people who represent every economic level in the American workforce: CEO, executive assistant, middle manager, supervisor, skilled artisan, and manual laborer.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393319229
• ISBN13: 9780393319224
• Release Date: August 1999
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 228 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.0" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A Very Realistic Approach from a Former Employee

This book does an excellent job of demonstrating the effects of a factory closing in a small southern town. As a former resident of the town (childhood home) and a former worker in the machine room and rubbing room of White's Furniture Factory, I was amazed at the depth of analysis and truthfulness in this book. This book demonstrated how the closing of a factory not only affects the workers, but prior workers, and the entire population of the town. I was surprised to see the pictures that were included that told a story all to themselves. This book is highly recommended for college professors wishing to pursue the effects of a factory closing and other downsizing efforts on a small town's population. A great story line supplemented by outstanding pictures as the authors take the reader through the last years of a 100+ year factory that the entire town centered their lives around. Highly recommended for those interested in the effects of a closing on the local population.

Makes large economic forces take a human face

a reasonably balanced view of a factory closing that doesn't make the owner out to be a devil (although some former workers clearly feel that way). Shows the human side of what happens when decisions are made based on the aseptic "bottom line". If anything, the book is not hard enough on the original family, the 1st generation that admirably built the company and the second generation that let it deteriorate (the book details how the 2 family members at the top didn't even talk to one another and used separate entrances to the building! Is it any wonder the financials deteriorated and they had to sell?)The only thing missing is an interview with the capitalist that closed the plant. If they tried and he refused the book ought to say so, otherwise it seems that at least a few pages could have been devoted to his side of the story.All in all, though, a great book to read, as a counterbalance for all of us that invest thru our 401Ks and retirement accounts expecting great returns and divorced from how those returns are obtained (and at what cost to some people).

Extremely touching photos on a poignant subject.

This book, and a traveling exhibit due at Yale this fall and The Smithsonian in early next year, captures the feelings and human aspect of what happens when a family owned furniture factory is closed due to a hostile takeover. The pictures and accompaning text document from an historical and extremely personal perspective the lives of workers in a small town in North Carolina, dependant on each other and the factory, and the devastation that occurs when big city, outside forces make an impersonal decision regarding people 1000 miles away.