The North Shore of Massachusetts used to provide a home for many skilled workers who toiled in factories making shoes and textiles. As winter rolls in, the weather has an awful tendency to hover around the freezing point while stuff with the consistency of a slushy falls out of the sky. I’ve had my eye on one of those new jackets that I’ve seen around: the ones with the thick, stretchy, weather resistant fabrics.

I recently went into the Patagonia store in NYC to return a sweater and a pair of pants. I’ve bought their clothes for years. I still wear things from Patagonia that are more than 15 years old. My Patagonia luggage has gone all over the world with me and it still looks brand new. So when my year-old sweater and pants pretty much fell apart at the seams, I took decided to take Patagonia up on its warranty. My old gear was all made in the USA, except for one sweater that was made in Italy. The two items I returned were made in China. I mentioned this to the very helpful sales clerk at the store and he confirmed my suspicions. “The quality just isn’t the same”, he said. I got the feeling that he was as much an enthusiast as an employee. A lot of people I know have an unusually strong feeling about Patagonia. Maybe it’s because their clothes kept me alive when I used to spend a lot of time in the mountains at sub-zero temperatures. When a company makes clothes that sturdy, you start to rely on them, to trust in them. I have a Patagonia fleece jacket. I can’t ever remember being cold in it, no matter what the weather. Like a pocket knife or a good watch, I expect that jacket will last for decades. It’s about ten years old now and it still looks pretty good.

The sales clerk told me that the company can’t find manufacturers here in the states for technical clothing. Patagonia isn’t alone. On a recent trip to REI, I found absolutely nothing in the men’s department that was made in this country.

So where are the people who made my old fleece jacket? Have they left the workforce over the last ten years? Have they found better jobs? Did they move to China to find work? I’d actually like to know the answer to this question. The people who made that jacket possessed great skill. They worked with quality materials and probably took pride in their work. Do factories sit empty somewhere, or have they found a new purpose making something else?

Consider the high-end companies that have moved their manufacturing processes to China over the last several years: Patagonia, Arc’teryx, North Face, Marmot, Outdoor Research, Sierra Designs. These companies have not dramatically dropped their prices. Their products are pretty expensive. Do American companies really lack the ability to compete? Have all those garment workers taken jobs as investment bankers, mortgage brokers and Google programmers?

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