Spotlight Lecture: Rachel Slade and Jill McGowan Discuss “Making it in America”

Join Portland Public Library and its partners for a conversation between Rachel Slade and Jill McGowan about Slade’s new book Making it in America. Registration required.

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About Making it in America:

A moving and eye-opening look at the story of manufacturing in America, whether it can ever successfully return to our shores, and why our nation depends on it, told through the experience of one young couple in Maine as they attempt to rebuild a lost industry, ethically.

Meet Ben and Whitney Waxman, two tireless idealists attempting to do the impossible: produce an American-made, union-made, all American-sourced sweatshirt—an American hoodie.

Ben spent a decade organizing workers in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Wisconsin, fighting for Americans at a time when national support for unions had sunk to an all-time low. Struggling with depression and a drug dependency, Ben lands back in his hometown of Portland, Maine, desperate to prove that ethical manufacturing is possible. There, he meets Whitney, a bartender wrestling with her own complicated past. In each other they see a better future, a version of the American dream they can build together.

Making It in America is a deeply personal account of one couple’s quest to change the world. As they navigate private struggles, international trade wars, and a global pandemic, their story carries us across the nation and across time, from the cotton fields of Mississippi to New York City’s hollowed-out garment district to a family-owned zipper company in Los Angeles to the enormous knit-and-dye factories in North Carolina. Throughout, we grapple with what “Made in the USA” really means to Americans in the twenty-first century.

Making It in America also offers a unique look at global politics, economics, and labor through the story of textile manufacturing. It was the demand for cheap cloth that sparked the industrial revolution. It was the brutality of the textile industry that first drove workers to organize.

Making It in America reveals how profoundly manufacturing shapes all of us. Each twist and turn of the Waxmans’ quest tells us how we got here, where we are now, and where we’re headed—through the people that produce the fabric of our lives.

About the guests:

Rachel Slade is the acclaimed author of Into the Raging Sea, a national bestseller, New York Times Notable Book, and winner of the Maine Literary Award for nonfiction. She spent a decade in the city magazine trenches at Boston—first as the design editor, ultimately as executive editor. Her editing and writing have won national awards in civic journalism, reporting, criticism, and reader service. She has been a lecturer in political science and journalism at Tufts University. She splits her time between Brookline, Massachusetts, and Rockport, Maine.

Jill McGowan founded Jill McGowan, Inc. in 1994, starting with a series of white shirts. This line was inspired by Jill’s work as a patternmaker for the famed menswear manufacture, Hathaway. After comparing her work on men’s shirts to women’s clothing of equal price, she realized the genuine need to improve the standard of women’s clothing.

Jill’s shirts and seasonal collections are now available in over 300 speciality stores around the country and her work has been featured in several publications including Women’s Wear Daily, Harper’s Bazaar, The New York Times, Victoria, Real Simple, Rescue, and More magazines, and the online fashion site: Daily Candy.

Jill has appeared on The Martha Stewart Show and Martha has blogged about her visit to the studio. Her shirts have been worn in many feature length films, and the television shows SportsNight, What Not To Wear, and Martha Stewart. Jill McGowan was selected as one of the fashion innovators for the television show, Main Floor, sponsored by Cotton, Inc.

This Spotlight Lecture is presented by Portland Public Library with Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, Mechanics’ Hall, MECA+D, A Gathering of Stitches, and Back Cove Books.

Portland Public Library Spotlight Lectures bring authors into engaging conversation with their peers. This year, these conversations follow the theme “Fashion + Sustainability”. Hear about the effects of fast fashion and how what you wear has can have impacts on society, the economy, and the environment.

Conversations are followed by audience Q&A and a book signing.

The series is presented by Portland Public Library with Back Cove Books, MECA+D, and A Gathering of Stitches.