All this nostalgic talk on X about factories from people who never saw one from the inside.
Posting this video from 2021 (directed by my daughter!) for my book from @oxfordunipress.bsky.social
Filmed in Chicopee, Massachusetts, in the neighborhood where I grew up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdNUtX-lRDc
Posting this video from 2021 (directed by my daughter!) for my book from @oxfordunipress.bsky.social
Filmed in Chicopee, Massachusetts, in the neighborhood where I grew up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdNUtX-lRDc
Comments
It was hard miserable work but paid fairly well with good benefits. The only reliable group of workers were the immigrants.
Coal miners die of black lung. Cotton workers die of brown lung, and their hearing is damaged from the machines, and they earn a pittance.
IT WAS NOT "THE GOOD OLE DAYS"
Most contemporary designs for warehouses and factories seem to have eliminated floor to ceiling windows, sucking the joy out of work like taupes/grays in offices.
A new toothbrush factory will have 10 people, not 500. The machines do the work. If it did employ 500 people toothbrushes would be 5$ not 5 ea cents to make.
Had grueling jobs after that (Unemployment at the time was 20%) but none were as disturbing.
Isn't Elon supposed to be the "genius" who is going to automate all that?
There has been some effort put into equipping rural America to be able to run those robots and such, but gutting the Dept of Ed isn't going to help.