Christopher Payne
Still Made In USA: Textiles. In this era of service jobs and office work, most of us have never been inside a factory. Several decades of overseas competition, unequal trade policies, and a flood of cheap imports have decimated American factories. Since 1990, job losses in apparel and textiles have...
Still Made In USA: Textiles. In this era of service jobs and office work, most of us have never been inside a factory. Several decades of overseas competition, unequal trade policies, and a flood of cheap imports have decimated American factories. Since 1990, job losses in apparel and textiles have been greater than those in any other type of manufacturing, and today we have little idea where, or how, the shirt on our back is made. In 2010, I discovered an old yarn mill in Maine that was still functioning as it had for decades, using vintage equipment now prized for producing the “genuine article”. From there I learned of other mills in the northeast, many of them family owned for generations. Over the past five years, I have gained access to an industry that continues to thrive, albeit on a much smaller scale, and for the most part, out of public view. With my photographs I aim to show how this iconic symbol of American manufacturing has changed and what its future may hold. I also wish to pay tribute to the undervalued segment of Americans who work in this sector. They are a cross section of young and old, skilled and unskilled, recent immigrants, and veteran employees, some of whom have spent their entire lives in a single factory. Together, they share a quiet pride and dignity, and are proof that manual labor and craftsmanship still have value in today’s economy.
Read More
Bartlettyarns, Harmony, Maine
Duster and picker, Bartlettyarns, Harmony, Maine
Wool carding, S&D Spinning Mill, Millbury, Massachusetts
Conrad-Jarvis Corporation, Pawtucket, Rhode Island
Burling and mending, Woolrich Woolen Mill, Woolrich, Pennsylvania
Junior, S&D Spinning Mill, Millbury, Massachusetts
Circular knitting machines, Fall River Knitting Mill, Fall River, Massachusetts
Tubes filled with yarn for loom, Bloomsburg Carpet, Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania
Creel for warp beam, Langhorne Carpet, Penndel, Pennsylvania
Polartec, Lawrence, Massachusetts