Last week the venerable New Yorker got into the "Made in the USA" conversation with an excellent piece from Patricia Marx.  Of course at Longshot Apparel we love all the chatter around the topic since we believe products made in the USA are better.  Late last month Diane Sawyer put in her two cents with a weeklong series on Made in America.  Wired jumped in the same week with an article focusing on small businesses bucking the offshore trend.  And yesterday, Newsweek weighed in with Made in the USA Gives Small Business an Edge.  The party line is a buzzin’.  Below is a excerpt from the Patricia Marx's New Yorker article referenced above.  It  gives really good background on manufacturing in America and what’s happening in that arena today.  Enjoy!

Buying American is a shopping challenge.

by Patricia Marx March 16, 2009

ABSTRACT: ON AND OFF THE AVENUE about buying American. What does the label “Made in the U.S.A.” mean, anyway? According to the FTC, it designates that “all or virtually all” of the product and its components were made in the fifty states, D.C., or any American territory or possession. Where else to begin the search for indigenous stuff but at Lord & Taylor, the first major emporium to spring up on Fifth Avenue? The retailarchy Bloomingdale’s has yet to go multinational. Mentions St. John Knits. What could be more American than Early American furniture? Shakers who can’t afford Shaker can acquire dovetailed pieces for their meetinghouses at Thos. Moser Cabinetmakers (699 Madison Ave, at 62nd St). Simon Pearce’s eponymous emporium (500 Park Avenue, at 59th St) has for decades specialized in glassware, ceramics, and sundry other breakables, most of them handmade in the company’s workshops in Vermont and Maryland. In 1950, nearly a third of employed Americans worked in factories. Today, it’s about ten per cent. Mentions Sephora, Guitar Center, Kaufman’s Army & Navy, American Apparel, An American Craftsman, Etsy.com, American Girl Place, Anna Sui, Oscar de la Renta, Fresh Meat, Lingo, Idil Vice, Jacques Torres, Kee’s, The Container Store, and Dave’s New York.

Read more here.