Rebuilding the American Clothing Industry

In the early days of the nation’s history, most clothing worn by Americans was made at home. Mass manufacturing of clothes didn’t take off until the late 1880s, rapidly growing into a booming industry centered in New York City. Apparel companies soon began to crop up elsewhere, including in distant rural communities with a nearby supply of cotton or with other industries whose workers needed certain types of clothing.

David Antosh, co-owner, Round House - Shawnee, Oklahoma: “We started in 1903. Shawnee, Oklahoma was a big railroad town at the time. It had two different railroads: the Rock Island and the Sante Fe railroads both met here. And the railroad workers needed something to wear and so we got started by producing jeans for the railroad workers to wear.”

In recent decades, however, the once-thriving U.S. clothing industry has undergone a disheartening historic shift. Thirty years ago, there were more than 741,000 production employees below the level of supervisor. That number has since slid over 92 percent. The job count hit a low point during the COVID pandemic, with just 49,100 apparel workers in April of 2020.

David Antosh, co-owner, Round House - Shawnee, Oklahoma: “Apparel manufacturing in the United States has always been important for rural America and it’s something that probably reached its high point in the 1960s and 1970s and since then we’ve really been losing a lot of apparel factories. The majority of them.”

However, there is reason for cautious optimism. Other than that dip during COVID, the industry’s apparel manufacturing employment levels may have begun to level off in recent years, hovering around 65,000. What has been left behind is a kind of camaraderie among those who have survived a period when most clothing manufacturing moved overseas.

David Antosh, co-owner, Round House - Shawnee, Oklahoma: “The industry for American-made products probably is growing more and more amicable. More and more people see it as something that we want everyone to thrive in. So probably in the ‘60s and ‘70s, you had a lot more competition where people were fighting and actually trying to steal sales from other people. But we think it’s great when anybody that makes something in the United States has sales and we want to encourage other people to start a company.”

Today, over 98 percent of the clothing sold in the U.S. retail market is imported, the majority from Asia.

Round House, which has about 30 employees, survived by keeping expenses carefully under control. The company, which David Antosh owns with his father and brother, made it a priority to keep their American-made jeans and overalls affordable. They sell over 100,000 pairs of jeans annually, using 100 percent American-grown cotton. They don’t advertise and the owners can often be found working on the factory floor.

David Antosh, co-owner, Round House - Shawnee, Oklahoma: “We have employees here who have spent their lives working here and know how to make jeans as quickly and efficiently as possible. Because our whole goal is to make affordable American-made jeans. …We try to keep everything here at $59.”

Round House has found consumers are seeking out American-made clothing as it becomes harder to find. Over 90 percent of the company’s international sales are done in Japan, where customers are willing to pay for the heavier denim and the attention to detail. 

Seven hundred miles to the north, Fox River Mills in northern Iowa continues to manufacture its socks and other apparel in the community of Osage, which has a population of about 3,500.

Bobby Warren, CEO, Fox River Mills - Osage, Iowa: “Fox River Mills is the oldest operating sock mill in the United States. So it was founded 120 years ago, along the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin. And ended up here in Osage, Iowa, continually operating. Never stopped. It didn't stop for any of the major events that we've seen throughout our history. It continued to knit products. So I'm very proud of that heritage, for sure.”

Warren says their niche market of specialty and high-quality socks - ranging from military to high tech to casual - as well as knitting products for other companies has helped them survive.

Bobby Warren, CEO, Fox River Mills - Osage, Iowa: “With the globalization of trade and trade agreements and the impacts of those through the 80s and 90s, we saw a lot… filter offshore…. And you fast forward to today, I think maybe only 3 percent or somewhere in that range of apparel is manufactured in the United States. So dramatic change, certainly a global economy, certainly a competitive open market, for the most part.”

Fox River relies on the town and surrounding area to keep their 170-person workforce strong as they turn out 5 million pairs of socks annually. In turn, the town counts on those Fox River jobs to help keep the area economically viable.

Bobby Warren, CEO, Fox River Mills - Osage, Iowa: “A lot of apparel manufacturing started in small-town America. You see a lot of that in the southeast: through Alabama, the Carolinas, you see small-town America with manufacturing plans that sustained those communities and sustained those families for many, many years…Some towns still have manufacturing but it’s just a fraction of what it used to be.”

Both Round House and Fox River struggle to find experienced workers in rural areas with smaller populations. However, smaller communities do provide some marketing benefits.

Bobby Warren, CEO, Fox River Mills - Osage, Iowa: “One example would be our ‘knit in Iowa’ is really the moniker that we claim; we’re made in the USA and we’re knit in Iowa and we're very proud of that heritage. And you can create, you know, an identity, which we have over the course of many decades that connects and resonates with many consumers.”

Both companies are hopeful due to the hint of a small resurgence in U.S. apparel manufacturing.

Bobby Warren, CEO, Fox River Mills - Osage, Iowa: “It's not huge but you're seeing a lot of smaller entrepreneurial operations that are coming into, in some cases abandoned locations that still have old equipment, and renovating that equipment and established brands and establishing a brand proposition around specialty.”

And should the U.S. apparel industry continue to grow stronger, Fox River and Round House expect to be right there, pushing the needle, for another hundred years.

For Market to Market, I’m Colleen Bradford Krantz.