An argument that America's economy needs a strong and innovative manufacturing sector and the jobs it creates.

In his new book, Bill Killingsworth documents the decline of economic and intellectual wealth caused by the loss of U.S. Manufacturing. His thought provoking analysis of this empirical data leads us back to the answers to save ourselves and generations to come. —Rick Jarman, President and Chief Executive Officer, National Center for Manufacturing Sciences Exceptional book—timely and insightful. His analysis is spot on, examples persuasive, and recommendations worth consideration at the highest level. A call to action we cannot ignore. —James Rogers, Major General (Retired), U.S. Army Drawing on his extensive experience, thorough research and obvious sense of responsibility, Dr. Killingsworth provides a comprehensive and provocative case for the importance of American manufacturing. This timely work should be required reading for anyone engaged with forming or leading economic policy. —Ralph L. Resnick, President and Executive Director, NCDMM, Founding Director, America Makes Dr. Killingsworth presents clear arguments as to why manufacturing is essential to the United States, and how our nation can capture, benefit, and drive the future of the world economy via embracing global concepts of manufacturing and taking the lead on innovating its future. —Thomas R. Kurfess, PhD, PE, Professor and HUSCO/Ramirez Distinguished Chair in Fluid Power and Motion Control, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology Dr. Killingsworth paints one of the most definitive pictures of what has been happening over the last several years in the U.S. manufacturing sector. His statistical analysis and compelling anecdotal evidence contribute invaluable insights for scholars and policymakers alike. This is a must-read in Washington and around the country. —Neal Orringer, Vice President, Alliances and Partnerships, 3DSYSTEMS

Community development expert Ilana Preuss explains how local leaders can revitalize their downtowns or neighborhood main streets by bringing in and supporting small-scale manufacturing. Small-scale manufacturing businesses help create thriving places, with local business ownership opportunities and well-paying jobs that other business types can't fulfill.

In August, 2017, the death knell sounded for yet another troubled American manufacturer: Appleton Coated, a historic paper mill in the Wisconsin village of Combined Locks. The mill and its parts were sold to a receiver who planned to sell them for scrap, eliminating hundreds of jobs and devastating a community. But then the unlikely happened. Dedicated union workers teamed with a lone local official to leverage an obscure legal strategy proposed by a community-minded attorney to stop the sell-off, enable a profitable new business plan, and save a cherished way of life. Now that local official tells the story behind this remarkable turnaround. As county executive of Outagamie County, Thomas Nelson is a progressive Democrat fighting for workers' rights in one of the Republican-leaning areas that have made his home state a battleground in national politics. One Day Stronger is an inspiring saga of how people power can triumph even in the face of indifference and outright hostility from powerful political forces. As the Appleton Coated mill and its workers struggled, Governor Scott Walker and his allies in the state legislature focused instead on channeling billions in state funds to Foxconn, a Taiwanese electronics firm offering job promises that would soon prove hollow. It took a groundswell of community anger-along with creative legal and political maneuvering by the United Steelworkers union and their local supporters-to force the receiver who'd taken control of the mill to change course, reviving its business prospects rather than shutting it down forever.Today the mill in Combined Locks is going strong again. But similar companies continue to face threats like the one that almost destroyed the mill. Author Nelson explains the crucial role that labor unions have traditionally played in making prosperity widely available to American families-and how they can do the same in the future through partnerships with forward-looking businesspeople and political leaders committed to economic justice.In a world where corporate greed and financial engineering have crushed the dreams of countless Americans, One Day Stronger offers a road map for fighting back-and winning.

The instant New York Times bestseller about one man's battle to save hundreds of jobs by demonstrating the greatness of American business. The Bassett Furniture Company was once the world's biggest wood furniture manufacturer. Run by the same powerful Virginia family for generations, it was also the center of life in Bassett, Virginia. But beginning in the 1980s, the first waves of Asian competition hit, and ultimately Bassett was forced to send its production overseas. One man fought back: John Bassett III, a shrewd and determined third-generation factory man, now chairman of Vaughan-Bassett Furniture Co, which employs more than 700 Virginians and has sales of more than $90 million. In Factory Man, Beth Macy brings to life Bassett's deeply personal furniture and family story, along with a host of characters from an industry that was as cutthroat as it was colorful. As she shows how he uses legal maneuvers, factory efficiencies, and sheer grit and cunning to save hundreds of jobs, she also reveals the truth about modern industry in America.

"While much has been written about the industrial revolution," writes Lawrence Peskin, "we rarely read about industrial revolutionaries." This absence, he explains, reflects the preoccupation of both classical and Marxist economics with impersonal forces rather than with individuals. In Manufacturing Revolution Peskin deviates from both dominant paradigms by closely examining the words and deeds of individual Americans who made things in their own shops, who met in small groups to promote industrialization, and who, on the local level, strove for economic independence. In speeches, petitions, books, newspaper articles, club meetings, and coffee–house conversations, they fervently discussed the need for large-scale American manufacturing a half-century before the Boston Associates built their first factory. Peskin shows how these economic pioneers launched a discourse that continued for decades, linking industrialization to the cause of independence and guiding the new nation along the path of economic ambition. Based upon extensive research in both manuscript and printed sources from the period between 1760 and 1830, this book will be of interest to historians of the early republic and economic historians as well as to students of technology, business, and industry.

A riveting, behind-the-scenes account of the near collapse of the Ford Motor Company, which in 2008 was close to bankruptcy, and CEO Alan Mulally's hard-fought effort and bold plan--including his decision not to take federal bailout money--to bring Ford back from the brink.

How manufacturing textiles and guns transformed the United States from colonial dependent to military power. In 1783, the Revolutionary War drew to a close, but America was still threatened by enemies at home and abroad. The emerging nation faced tax rebellions, Indian warfare, and hostilities with France and England. Its arsenal—a collection of hand-me-down and beat-up firearms—was woefully inadequate, and its manufacturing sector was weak. In an era when armies literally froze in the field, military preparedness depended on blankets and jackets, the importation of which the British Empire had coordinated for over 200 years. Without a ready supply of guns, the new nation could not defend itself; without its own textiles, it was at the economic mercy of the British. Domestic industry offered the best solution for true economic and military independence. In Manufacturing Advantage, Lindsay Schakenbach Regele shows how the US government promoted the industrial development of textiles and weapons to defend the country from hostile armies—and hostile imports. Moving from the late 1700s through the Mexican-American War, Schakenbach Regele argues that both industries developed as a result of what she calls “national security capitalism”: a mixed enterprise system in which government agents and private producers brokered solutions to the problems of war and international economic disparities. War and State Department officials played particularly key roles in the emergence of American industry, facilitating arms makers and power loom weavers in the quest to develop industrial resources. And this defensive strategy, Schakenbach Regele reveals, eventually evolved to promote westward expansion, as well as America’s growing commercial and territorial empire. Examining these issues through the lens of geopolitics, Manufacturing Advantage places the rise of industry in the United States in the context of territorial expansion, diplomacy, and warfare. Ultimately, the book reveals the complex link between government intervention and private initiative in a country struggling to create a political economy that balanced military competence with commercial needs.