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Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local - and Helped Save an American Town

Author:
Beth Macy
Read by:
Kristin Kalbli
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Unabridged Audiobook

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Ratings
Book
1
Narrator
1
Release Date
July 15, 2014
Duration
14 hours 0 minutes
Summary
The instant New York Times bestseller about one man's battle to save hundreds of jobs by demonstrating the greatness of American business.

The Bassett Furniture Company was once the world's biggest wood furniture manufacturer. Run by the same powerful Virginia family for generations, it was also the center of life in Bassett, Virginia. But beginning in the 1980s, the first waves of Asian competition hit, and ultimately Bassett was forced to send its production overseas.

One man fought back: John Bassett III, a shrewd and determined third-generation factory man, now chairman of Vaughan-Bassett Furniture Co, which employs more than 700 Virginians and has sales of more than $90 million. In Factory Man, Beth Macy brings to life Bassett's deeply personal furniture and family story, along with a host of characters from an industry that was as cutthroat as it was colorful. As she shows how he uses legal maneuvers, factory efficiencies, and sheer grit and cunning to save hundreds of jobs, she also reveals the truth about modern industry in America.
Reviews
Profile Avatar Nicole Bartner Jul 2025

Look. I tried to gut it out. I really did. I kept listening despite the fact that this white woman author doesn't even remotely comprehend the existence of, let alone ongoing relevance of; The Middle Passage, chattel slavery in the American South, Jim Crow Segregation in the American south, institutionalized racism and white supremacy in the American south (and these United States) - DESPITE describing how all these factors work (to create the socio economic realities she claims to be focused on) in MINUTE detail. I kept listening bc, although the author clearly doesn't understand anything she was still, actually, describing it. that is until she claimed WHITE PEOPLE BROUGHT THE BANJO AND FIDDLE TO VIRGINIA. This book is a work of white supremacist propaganda. I will be removing this author from my reading/listening library. no one has time for this kind of ridiculous ignorance at this late stage in America.

Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local - and Helped Save an American Town

Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local - and Helped Save an American Town

Author: Beth Macy
Read by: Kristin Kalbli
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