Henry Ford was the poster child of the Industrial Revolution. Before Ford, laborers built automobiles one-at-a-time. But Ford changed all that. He built the industry’s first moving assembly line, enabling “workers to stay in one place and perform the same task repeatedly on multiple vehicles that passed by them.”
Ford made cars faster than anyone before him. This allowed him to pay his workers better than his competitors, while also dramatically elevating the vehicle quality. He introduced standards and consistency never before seen in his industry. Parallel innovators to Ford emerged in other industries. Isaac Singer invented the sewing machine. Charles Goodyear created a method to harden rubber. Alexander Graham Bell made it possible for people to talk to each other over wires.
These titans of American industry electrified the world, accelerated transportation and created ways for stuff to be created faster, cheaper and standardized. Today, however, we celebrate innovators who do exactly the opposite. We’re in the midst of the Deindustrial Revolution.
If Detroit served as the epicenter for the Industrial Revolution, Denver might play that role in the Deindustrial Revolution. In Denver–and even moreso in Boulder, our hippy neighbor to the north–“manufactured” is a near profanity. We don’t brew coffee, Coloradans correct, we French press fair-trade, hormone-free, machineless coffee.
Henry Ford and his compatriots built things quicker and standardized, but today’s revolutionaries are compelled to build things slower and customized. If you don’t believe me, consider these examples:
- The hottest coffee products right now are those allowing everyday folk to brew coffee like it was meant to be brewed. “Manual coffee-making methods are becoming an increasingly popular option for home enthusiasts and coffee shop baristas alike…This new popularity has prompted the birth of several new methods and devices, as well as the resurrection of older methods.” Folgers is so 1995. Deindustrializers posit, “OK, but we want to know: How did people brew coffee in the Roman Empire?”
- The beer brewing scene is also exploding. Small “craft” breweries produce nearly twice the beer they did just six years ago. Four times more home brewing clubs exist than did just twenty years ago. Deindustrializers debate how big is too big. The “craft versus crafty” debate surges between brewers who are truly small and brewers are who faux small. The drama!
- A popular destination on Denver’s Broadway Avenue is Fancy Tiger. It’s a top-shelf craft store (and my first stop when Christmas shopping for my wife). Not only can you buy homemade goods and clothing, but you can also buy all the supplies and tools you need to stitch your own wardrobe, knit your Christmas gifts and outfit your free-range toddler. British retailer cites 500% year-over-year growth rates on its most-affordable sewing machines (quite a paradox, really, that sales of the cheapest sewing machines have grown fastest, but I digress).
- I recently read the label on the water bottle at a hotel where we stayed recently. I can’t remember the exact language, but it essentially said, “We’ve got a guy who climbs the Colorado mountains each morning, finds untouched rivers, and fills up hundreds of these bottles by hand. Also, we have another guy who rescues plastic bottles out of trash cans, scrubs them with organic cleaning products and repackages them for your use. Also: Local and organic.”
- In Colorado, it’s almost a mark-of-shame to buy mass-produced celery, wheat or chickens. We even owned shares in a community supported farm last summer. In a brilliant Portlandia skit, the lead actor presses a waitress to reveal the true identity behind the chicken sandwich. “Could you tell us a little bit more about the chicken? …Is it USDA organic or Oregon organic or Portland organic? …and how big is the area that the chickens are able to roam free?”
http://youtu.be/l2LBICPEK6w
There is so much to love about the Deindustrial Revolution. I love craftsmanship. My grandpa was a builder. And so was his grandpa. It’s in my blood. Just last fall, we built our first raised vegetable beds and will be planting our tomatoes any day (but my farmer “cred” pales compared to my San Diego farming friends!). I’m all for learning and replicating how people did stuff hundreds of years ago. But, we need assembly lines as much as we need handcrafted thingamajigs.
There are a few reasons cars aren’t built by two dudes in a repurposed brick warehouse. There are reasons we love mass-produce smartphones. Consistency and cost might not be the exclusive values Henry Ford thought they were. Customization and craftsmanship are important too. But, our world needs estate-grown hipsters and process-driven industrialists.
I’ve started writing more letters recently (not with the remarkable artistry of my friend, Jake Weidmann, however). It’s my favorite Deindustrialized flavor-of-the-month. What’s your favorite?
Chris,
I love this post and the term “deindustrialized revolution.” I think you totally hit the nail on the head. There is a natural draw toward the handmade and the authentic, which does not point to a pretentious demand for something more exclusive but for a greater connection to our fellow man. Thank you for your words on this topic. Good luck with the letter writing, my friend!
Jake – Thanks for the encouragement! Great insights. Looking forward to seeing you soon.
Nice post. I like the term deindustrial revolution. Portlandia has a bit they do about the 1890s. Brilliant.
There does seem to be a return to craftsmanship and community. Both are a departure from the big, faceless, mass-produced, throw-away box store products. I prefer quality over quantity. I like the idea that someone who is an expert in one thing invested his time in whatever I just purchased. It’s got a story behind it. And it’s better when I know the guy to made it. I can honor him and support him because I know him. Sure, things might be cheaper elsewhere, but that’s not the way it’s meant to be. That personal side of creating (cultivating) goods that make your place in the world better place is at the heart of what I think it means to work.
Brandon – Thanks for the comments. I agree with you. Even though we can get a bit silly with it, there’s something about recapturing the story of work and craftsmanship that is deeply human. I think it’s really compelling when big companies communicate the story behind their products. Because even if it’s mass produced, it can still be done with beauty and innovation. This GE commercial is a great example of that – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySwp12Rp8Jk
Chris,
Love this post, with it’s gentle thread of snarkiness. 😛 I also love this Portlandia clip. So great, and as with the whole show, eerily real. And Fancy Tiger, such a fun store.
This idea of “deindustrial revolution” is so hot right now. In fact, I wish that we had integrated learning more about small businesses and entrepreneurship in our MBA program. (I think we discussed that in one of our many “constructive feedback” times. Miss you guys.)
Lest the hipster, crafty Portlandia-type people get all the credit for this trend, it really is just a refashioning of the traditional “mom and pop store”, don’t you think? One that completely ordinary, hard-working, often non-majority communities have excelled at (immigrants particularly) in providing a livelihood for their families, and jobs for their neighborhood.
There is so much debate about returning to a “localized” economy, and what it would do to the global economy if that happened (particularly about local food, etc.) I don’t buy all the fear-mongering surrounding those debates, and actually believe that we could return, in many ways, to a much … local-er? economy, if we also accepted paying higher prices for things we value (and should pay more for) and lived in more moderation.
That being somewhat unlikely, there definitely is a cool both-and approach happening, with some return to local buying, and then more emphasis on positive business practices for the “big guys” (when Wal-mart or Costco provides organic products, what a huuuuge market share that affects!)
Also, training urban entrepreneurs to start their own businesses, they are almost all small, localized concepts, and I think have more success when following some of the marketing strategies of the “Craft” industries.
Good reflections, Sarah. I think there’s more promise in big companies “going small” than “becoming small.” I love the approach we see from companies like Chipotle (full disclosure: I love Chipotle) who are growing big *because of* their emphasis on craftsmanship, hand-crafted, farmer-driven food. In each industry, there are big companies who are innovating in this way.
Hi all,
Making your own greeting card, write you own message, glue a little picture in it etc. is far more personal than buying a printed card and just signing you name to the flowery message above it.
Dieter, Adelaide, Australia