Farah Stockman, American Made

A conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Farah Stockman and Senator Sherrod Brown about Stockman’s new book American Made: What Happens to People When Work Disappears.

In 2016, not long after Donald Trump was elected president, the Rexnord Corporation announced it was closing its ball bearings factory in Indianapolis and relocating it to Monterrey, Mexico. In American Made: What Happens to People When Work Disappears, Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and New York Times editorial board member Farah Stockman weaves together rich and compelling narratives of the lives of three people who worked at the factory—Shannon, Wally, and John—and how the factory’s closure impacted them. Stockman recounts their experiences as both workers and human beings with families, describing how they overcame racial and gender discrimination on the job and how policies stretching back decades shaped their lives. More broadly, American Made is the story of how global and market forces affect workers in ways that are often unnoticed and not fully appreciated.