Factory Man Macy Analysis

Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local-- And Helped Save an American Town displayed the incorporation of many African Americans into the workforce of the Bassett furniture factories during the early twentieth century, despite the horrific instances of racism that plagued the American South. During the 1900s, the American South was synonymous with Jim Crow laws and segregated facilities for African Americans and whites. However, since the establishment of Bassett Furniture African Americans were allowed to participate in the economic growth of the factories. In Factory Man, Beth Macy stated, “Unlike the employees in the white-only mills in nearby Martinsville and Fieldale, Bassett’s workforce was 20 percent black from the very beginning” (48). Likewise, hiring African Americans during this time period was a rarity. Many African Americans in the 1900s American South would not dare contemplate working in a factory with white men. For example, Macy expressed, “That was unusual for the time, black and whites working together at industrial jobs. In many Southern cities it was illegal for blacks to live in certain neighborhoods, and Jim Crow laws throughout the former Confederacy prevented biracial gatherings in barbershops and baseball parks, at circuses and domino matches” (49).
Similarly, many Bassetts treated African Americans with a sense of dignity and respect. This was best exemplified when Macy declared, “When a white doctor who worked for the company refused to treat black employees, Mr. J.D. told the doctor to pack his bags…its all jaded with the reality of racism, but Mr. Bassett did believe the doctor had to take care of everybody” (51). Additionally, many other races were faced with the same prejudices as African Americans in the early 1900s. For example, many Chinese immigrants were harassed and even excluded from entering the United States. This was clearly illustrated in Him Mark Lai, Genny Lim, and Judy Yung’s book Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants and Angel Island 1910-1940. Lai, Lim, and Yung stated, “I intended to come to America to earn a living. The Western styled buildings are lofty; but I have not the luck to live in them. How does anyone to know that my dwelling place would be a prison” (165)? Similarly, Mexican Americans faced many of the same instances of racism that African Americans endured.
This was depicted in Ernesto Galarza’s Barrio Boy, which described the difficulty in regards to the assimilation from Mexican American culture to American culture. Galarza declared, “Although we, the foreigners, made up the majority of the population of Sacramento, the Americans had by no means given it up to us. Not all of them moved above Fifth Street as the barrio became crowded” (194). This signified that Americans displayed no sense of hospitality toward immigrants, and were unwilling to provide them with the basic necessity of
shelter. Lastly, the heinous treatment of other races who were inferior to whites was very evident in Bernardo Vega’s book Memoirs of Bernardo Vega: A Contribution to the History of the Puerto Rican Community in New York. Bernardo Vega illustrated the many hardships he faced as a Puerto Rican immigrant to the United States. In particular, Vega detailed the less than adequate working conditions that he experienced while working in the United States. Vega expressed, “The work in the munitions plant was very hard. Only those hardened by rigorous labor could stand it. They would work us for eight hours with no break. Never before had I experienced, or even witnessed, such brutal working conditions” (253). Ultimately, many races faced mass amounts of discrimination in their efforts to establish residency in the United States. However, the workforce proved to be one of the main sources of contention for most minorities. Factory Man not only proved minorities, in particular African Americans, were given an economic opportunity, but were also treated with an unparalleled amount of dignity and respect by their employer.