The Tapestry of American Manufacturing with Rachel Slade

In this episode, Kate sits down with author and journalist Rachel Slade to discuss her books Making It In America: The Almost Impossible Quest to Manufacture in the USA (and How It Got That Way) and Into the Raging Sea: Thirty-Three Mariners, One Megastore, and the Sinking of El Faro. Rachel’s books are incredible explorations of humanity and she deftly weaves together complex threads. We focus on Making It In America in the episode. The book is so much about where trade, manufacturing, farming, immigration, the textile industry, unions, and the history of the hoodie itself meet. We start by exploring how manufacturing made America and touching on the complex series of events that led to the offshoring of the majority of American manufacturing after NAFTA. This episode is about grit and determination and a commitment to vision by American Roots, the hoodie company featured in the book, and what entrepreneurship means and what it might mean to manufacture in America once again. It’s a wide-ranging conversation about history, geopolotics, economics and the externalities of focusing solely on the bottom line. It’s about building and re-building community and networks of support and it’s about what it means for us, as humans, to make things by hand.

We also talk about;

Men’s mental health

Supply chains

Find Rachel:

Making It in America

Into the Raging Sea

Articles + Essays

Instagram: @rachelmslade

Made in USA Brands

Resources Mentioned:

Fields of Gold by Madeleine Fairbairn:

90% of Everything by Rose George