Closing: The Life and Death of an American Factory (The Lyndhurst Series on the South) [Hardcover]

Cathy N. Davidson (Author), Bill Bamberger (Author), Duke University Center for Documentary Studies (Corporate Author)

Book Description

Series: The Lyndhurst Series on the South | Publication Date: April 1998

Through the personal stories of American workers in a small town, this book explores the meaning of work at the end of the 20th century - what it means when you have it and what it means when you don't. It follows the story of the White Furniture Company, a family owned business that was bought out by a corporate conglomerate and closed. The book aims to put a human face on the economic realities of the 1990s. Bill Bamberger took his photographs during the last four months of operation on the factory floor, and the text focuses on six people who reflect every level in the workforce - chief executive officer, executive assistant, middle manager, supervisor, skilled artisan and manual labourer.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Davidson, who wrote 36 Views of Mount Fuji (1993) and coedited The Oxford Book of Women's Writing in the United States (1995), offers thoughtful commentary, including interviews with six individuals, and Bamberger supplies probing photographs; together, they create a telling portrait of the last six months of the White Furniture Company of Mebane, North Carolina. A 111-year-old firm specializing in high-quality reproduction antiques, White was family owned until 1985 and employed more than 200 people. Davidson researched economic factors and the furniture industry and talked with a range of former White employees (a mill worker, shop-floor supervisors, an executive assistant, and the CEO who decided to close the plant). Bamberger spent days at the factory in its final months, capturing on film the commitment and skill of these six and other workers, as well as their reactions to the elimination of jobs many had held for decades. An eloquent essay on the human cost of downsizing and globalization. Mary Carroll

Review

...[a] handsome book ... The book isn't particularly scholarly; Davidson's writing, though sometimes affecting, is often quite simplistic, especially when it comes to economics. But the book offers an unusual glimpse into the lives of working-class Americans, and by providing a close study of one plant closing, it subtly debunks some trendy myths about deindustrialization.... -- The Nation, Kim Phillips-Fein

A beautifully composed elegy of words and images celebrating a vanishing way of life. These understated, evocative photographs by Bill Bamburger and this poetic text by Cathy N. Davidson ask, in effect, 'Does one have to sell one's soul in order to survive in contemporary America?' -- Joyce Carol Oates

Blending thoughtful text and 98 photographs, "Closing" is the best kind of documentary--telling a specific story about specific people in a larger context that means something....In a better world, "closing" would be on the reading lists of every corporate board and business school. -- USA Today

Cathy Davidson's writing is clear-sighted and intelligent and establishes why this is a national, indeed an international story. It is not artful prose; there is not a trace of existential angst to it, thank goodness. If only James Agee had written about the Alabama tenant farmers in the same way....And in all these photographs, there is a powerful intimacy with the photographer, the kind of intimacy only achieved by a person who has showed his seriousness, earned trust, staked out a life in common with the people he is portraying. This is "Closing's" real achievement: the making relevant of documentary art in daily life. -- Brightleaf, Raleigh, NC, David Cecelski, December 1998

Eloquent and elegaic, Closing is a testament to the human spirit and to the dignity and importance of work. -- Lee Smith

Here is a stupendous book, a complete answer to any who believe that all that counts in a company is its bottom line, and that the only people with a stake in it are its shareholders. -- The Economist

If there are executives out there who are facing the seemingly inexorable logic of plant closings, they could do worse than to spend a few hours with this book. Not that it would necessarily change minds, but that it might help them walk into it with their eyes open. And if they haven't got time to read it, just looking at the photos will do. -- Duke Magazine, Paul Baerman, November-December 1998

The photographs capture the shock, uncertainty and despair of what Davidson calls the 'human spirit... downsized.'... Bamberger preserves the spirit of its employees and their pride in their craft. Davidson's eloquent text describes, in concise, vivid detail, the stories of five employees who 'represent a cross section of the American work force.' An unflinchingly fair analysis. Hard-edged and realistic. "Closing"... issues a bold challenge to 'business as usual.' -- The New York Times Book Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 223 pages
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc (April 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393045684
• ISBN-13: 978-0393045680
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 8.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,121,328 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Very Realistic Approach from a Former Employee, March 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Closing: The Life and Death of an American Factory (Paperback)

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.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Makes large economic forces take a human face, September 30, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Closing: The Life and Death of an American Factory (The Lyndhurst Series on the South) (Hardcover)

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).

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely touching photos on a poignant subject., September 14, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Closing: The Life and Death of an American Factory (The Lyndhurst Series on the South) (Hardcover)

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.