bwparker1 wrote:Shame on me for not checking the date.
They appear to be still in business but they do not appear to have a retail operation. Strictly wholesale.
Are the just doing the seams on these blankets, and importing the fabric? I can't believe someone is still actually making something in Maine!
L.L. Bean actually moved their boot production
back from Arkansas several years ago to Brunswick, ME. They were not satisfied with the quality that was coming from their operations down there.
New Balance of course still makes some enormous percentage of their entire production in Skowhegan, ME.
There are plenty of other smaller craft operations, like Jack Traps in Monmouth, ME. But the fact of the matter is that is exactly how L.L. started his business in the first place.
What we don't have a lot of anymore is gobs and gobs of low skill high wage industrial labor positions. But for the most part that doesn't really exist anywhere else either, unless of course you're in China and then those jobs certainly can't be described as "high wage".
The postwar era of prosperity in Maine was a historical anomaly (in its size and scale). Our task and problem is to replicate our great-great-grandparents success in the 19th century when they essentially forced blood out of rocks to make a living in Maine.