Factory Man

On the tail end of the industrial revolution, the early 1900s were marked by innovation in technology and manufacturing. Computers, automation and global networks were yet to come, and people willing to break a sweat were the driving force of new potential.

It was the ideal climate for traditional American industry, such as furniture-making.

As people relocated from rural areas to towns and cities, to be closer to the new factories and industry in which they worked, demand for mass-produced furniture boomed.

The expansion of the railroad networks made it possible to transport these large pieces of furniture easily, such that a furniture manufacturer could service customers across the United States.

John David Basset Sr., who began making bedroom furniture in Virginia in 1902, profited greatly from the era’s economic climate.

Seeing the potential of using his family’s land and forests to build furniture, he procured a loan from his uncle and began producing bedroom furniture, shipping it as far as Canada.

At the time, furniture-makers profited from cheap labor, which kept the production costs at bay.

Although factory jobs offered low, often unfair wages, they were preferable to the alternative jobs of the time – working outdoors in fields or mines. The first workers in Basset’s factory worked for only five cents per hour!

African-American workers were a cheap source of labor, having been freed from slavery only half a century prior and still subject to discrimination, alienation and unequal treatment.

Until 1933, the Basset Factory was one of the few that hired black workers, albeit at a fraction of the hourly wage given to their white counterparts. In any case, employing cheap labor allowed the Basset family to produce at a lower cost than its competitors.