WASHINGTON (AP) – Much of U.S. manufacturing has been decimated in the past decade by less expensive imports from China, but it didn’t necessarily have to be that way, according to a compelling new book by journalist Beth Macy.
Macy’s book, “Factory Man,” tells the story of one manufacturer who fought back. John Bassett III, a wealthy scion of a furniture dynasty in southwestern Virginia, responded to a flood of overseas goods by modernizing his factory and restructuring its products. More controversially, he successfully petitioned the U.S. government for protective tariffs on imported Chinese furniture, alienating many of his retailer customers. Those efforts kept his company, Vaughan-Bassett, in business.
Still, small factory towns in southwestern Virginia and North Carolina were decimated, as Macy illustrates. Forty percent of residents in Galax, Virginia qualify for food stamps. Old factory conveyor belts are now used to distribute groceries in food pantries.
Yet perhaps even more interesting is the book’s vivid resurrection of the little-known history of the region, which dominated global furniture manufacturing for most of the 20th Century. That history includes intense family rivalries. Before taking on China, John Bassett was kicked out of his family’s namesake company, Bassett Furniture, by an ambitious brother-in-law, who had help from Bassett’s own sister.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Macy discussed the colorful history of the Bassett family and the larger lessons of the book: