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

Cathy N. Davidson; Bill Bamberger

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393045684 ISBN 13: 9780393045680

Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc, 1998

Synopsis

A powerful collection of nearly one hundred full-color and black-and-white photographs and an elegiac text portray the workers and managers of the White Furniture Company, a family business that was forced to shut down after a century in business. Tour.

About this title

About the Author:

Bill Bamberger's work has been widely published and exhibited across the country. A recipient of the Lyndhurst Prize, he teaches at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and lives in Mebane, North Carolina. Cathy Davidson is the author and editor of over a dozen books and a recipient of numerous grants and fellowships. Past president of the American Studies Association, she is currently Ruth F. DeVarney Professor of English at Duke University. She lives in Durham, North Carolina.

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

About this edition

• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0393045684
• ISBN 13: 9780393045680
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 223