Tag: employment

Stealing American jobs

A slightly foggy day at the modern general store — John Messeder photo
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When I was a kid vacationing with Mom and Dad in Maine — we moved there when I started fourth grade — our ride home to the Big City was punctuated by a stop at the Bates woolen mill, in Lewiston, Maine. The mill on the banks of the Androscoggin River was where Mom picked out fabrics that would keep her sewing machine busy making clothing for her family.

Back in the day, a person could save a ton of money by purchasing stuff where it was made; why pay transportation costs when you were making the trip anyway. In particular, that mill was what turned Lewiston from an agricultural town to a fabrics manufacturing center.

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Where’s the money?

“Operator, will you help me place this call.” The opening line of a Jim Croce song reminds me of the days when my aunt was a Bell telephone operator – one of those women without whose assistance one could not make a telephone call to a town 15 miles away. Telephone operators in those early days had their fingers on the pulse – and the actual wires carrying the conversations – within their domains.

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