The Woolen Industry of the Midwest

Book excerpt: Through the study of a regional industry, the book illustrates the impact of an expanding national market on a previously isolated market, offering new insights into a pioneer industry in the West and into the business methods and procedures of the time. The book discusses the growth of a myriad of small processing and manufacturing plants which drew raw materials from, and geared production and sales to that local economy, enjoying as they did, protection from eastern competitors who were saddled with high freight rates. The book demonstrates that once urbanization occurred in the region, bringing it into the national market, the local industries declined rapidly, disappearing in less than a generation. Perceptive, challenging, the book opens new possibilities for the study of manufacturing on the regional level.