Reinventing A Beleaguered Mill Town

How Kannapolis, N.C., is adjusting to the loss of thousands of textile jobs abroad.

1 minute read

November 3, 2004, 7:00 AM PST

Kannapolis was the mill "that made the sheets that America slept on and the towels that hung in her bathrooms...But the town that, with its cheaper labor and proximity to cotton fields, helped bring down the big mills of New England, has now itself been outsourced" to Pakistan.

"...When the Pillowtex Mill gave some 7,000 workers - 4,800 of them in North Carolina - two hours to get out in the summer of 2003, it became the biggest mass layoff in state history. And as workers disassembled antique looms and shipped them to Pakistan, it also became a rallying cry for critics of global outsourcing. Suddenly, this mill town was in the maelstrom of economic and social flux."

Thanks to Chris Steins

FULL STORY: A beleaguered mill town struggles toward reinvention

Wednesday, November 3, 2004 in The Christian Science Monitor

Community / Economic Development North Carolina

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