Throughout most of the twentieth century, Rhode Island led the nation in the manufacture of jewelry. At its peak, the industry, mostly comprised of small family run operations, employed close to thirty-two thousand five hundred workers. However, by the year 2000, foreign competition in the form of cheaper labor and less stringent regulations regarding environmental protection and worker's rights, brought the industry to its knees. Today, the factories have gone dark and Rhode Island has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the country.;Through the genre of oral history, this thesis tells the story of the jewelry industry's decline in the words of those who lived an witnessed it, highlighting the unique "American Dream" culturally oriented nature of the industry and how those involved were helpless in the face of competition from foreign firms half a world away. At the same time, however, they convey a sense of the American spirit as they strive to survive, prosper, and rebuild, albeit in a different capacity.;The voices captured in this work simultaneously convey loss and, at the same time, hope. Heartache at the loss of a way of life is accompanied by American optimism and honest confrontation about the need for evolution in a globalized world.
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