UNE Center for Global Humanities presents ‘Making It in America’ on Dec. 2
As manufacturing in America continues along a steep decline, Ben and Whitney Waxman — owners of Westbrook, Maine’s American Roots — set out to prove union-made, 100% American-sourced apparel manufacturing is still possible in the 21st century. And then COVID-19 swept across the U.S., shuttering factories and bankrupting businesses.
But American Roots didn’t follow the expected script. At a time when the American economy was in absolute freefall, this scrappy Maine company began adding shifts, hiring new workers, and projecting an inspirational portrait of American adaptability and resilience in the face of unprecedented adversity.
This is the story New York Times best-selling author Rachel Slade will tell when she visits the University of New England Center for Global Humanities to present a lecture titled “Making It in America” on Monday, Dec. 2 at 6 p.m. at Arthur P. Girard Innovation Hall on the UNE Portland Campus for the Health Sciences.
The story of American Roots will take attendees from the cotton fields of Mississippi to the hollowed-out garment district in New York City, to a family-owned zipper company in Los Angeles to the enormous knit-and-dye houses in North Carolina.
Along the way, Slade will offer a new take on free-trade economics and manufacturing history, while discussing the essential role of textiles in shaping capitalism and explaining how demand for cheap cloth sparked the industrial revolution and how the brutal conditions in New England’s textile mills first drove workers to organize. As she tells this still-evolving story, Slade will explain how individual choices shape America and a compassionate look at what came before, where we are now, and where we’re going — through the people, places, and ecologies that produce the fabric of our lives.
Slade spent a decade at Boston Magazine — first as the design editor, and ultimately as executive editor. In 2015, she helped steer Boston to a top national award from the City and Regional Magazine Association. In 2016, Yankee Magazine ran her long-form narrative about the sinking of the container ship El Faro. A CRMA finalist for reporting, the story led to the national bestselling book, “Into the Raging Sea.”
Slade’s second book, “Making It in America: The Almost Impossible Quest to Manufacture in the U.S.A. (and How It Got That Way)” was published earlier this year. In addition, her editing and writing have won national awards in civic journalism, reporting, criticism, and reader service. Since 2021, she had been a lecturer in political science and journalism at the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Studies at Tufts University. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Barnard College and a Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania. She splits her time between Brookline, Massachusetts, and Rockport, Maine.
This will be the fifth and final event of the fall semester at the Center for Global Humanities, where lectures are always free, open to the public, and streamed live online. For more information and to watch the event, visit: https://www.une.edu/events/2024/making-it-america