Janesville: An American Story

This is a well researched and extremely readable book about life in Janesville, Wisconsin, from 2008 through 2013, in the years following the closure of what had been the longest-running GM plant in the country. Literally generations of Janesville residents had made their livings from the plant and the many manufacturing companies that existed to supply parts to the cars built there. Interestingly, Janesville is also the hometown of Paul Ryan, Republican champion of governmental austerity and former Speaker of the House, a somewhat ironic fact given how solidly Democratic and pro-union the town has always been.

In the wake of the plant closing, the town's economy and lifestyle were devastated. Amy Goldstein skillfully and compassionately show more details the rising and pervasive unemployment, the lowering of standards of living of previously solidly middle-class families, to near the poverty line. School systems begin struggling, with students often going hungry and short on basic supplies, parents working two jobs just to try to get half of the income their union jobs had paid or driving four hours each way--generally staying away from home from Monday through Friday--to take jobs in still running plants. Goldstein also chronicles the efforts of local agencies to provide help in the form of job training and pro-active economic boosterism that tried to bring new corporations to town. In the midst of this came the election of Scott Walker-an avowed enemy of unions and government subsidies alike--as the state's governor. Soon the teachers' union was under attack from above, as well.

Goldstein's reporting method was, in addition to providing a comprehensive overview of events, to tell the town's story through the eyes of several families, people she clearly got to know well. In so doing, Goldstein was able to paint detailed portraits of the day to day lives and struggles of the people of Janesville during these extremely difficult years. She also chronicles, although not in great detail, the ways in which these events gradually created "two Janesvilles," as the interests of the still thriving upper class and the increasingly desperate middle and lower classes began to diverge more and more dramatically.

At one point, soon after Walker's election, he visits town and attends a banquet where a leader of the town's business community asks him in a one-on-one conversation, "Any chance we'll ever get to be a completely red state and work on these unions and become right-to-work? What can we do to help you?"

Walker's response is, "Oh, yeah. Well, we're going to start in a couple weeks with our budget adjustment bill. The first step is, we're going to deal with collective bargaining for all public employee unions, because you use divide and conquer."

The business leader's response: "You're right on target."

A sad aspect into all of this is Goldstein's reporting, and documenting, that job retraining, as hard as people worked at making it available and as hard as people worked to receive it, in the end did little to improve the lives and incomes of most of the people who took such training.

This book does a lot to bring all of these issues--for those of us not living in areas like Janesville--into sharp, human-dimensioned focus. I suppose one of the drawbacks is that the viewpoint of many of her sources is somewhat self-selectiong. By that I mean that the blue collar families that moved into conservatism and eventually, perhaps, into Maga territory, were probably nowhere near as likely to agree to spend quality time with a reporter.

I feel strongly, however, that this book is an extremely valuable resource for understanding the economic and cultural issues besetting so much of American society today. show less

In 2008, General Motors closed its production plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, laying off thousands of people. Goldstein chronicles the direct impact, and less dramatic reverberations, this has on the community - from laid-off workers trying to pay the bills to teachers trying to help students suddenly dealing with uncertainty and stress at home.

The strength of this chronicle is the manageable but diverse group that Goldstein chooses to follow over the next five years. There is the bank president/community booster, the school social worker, several laid-off GMers who take different paths to forge a new life, the head of the local job resource center, and a few others. The group provides Goldstein a large canvas to trace various effects, show more but never becomes unwieldy. She also includes a few more meta themes in the book, particularly the widening political divide, and the election and recall effort of Governor Scott Walker is included, as are the fortunes of Janesville's native son, now-former Rep. Paul Ryan. But she always returns to the "regular" people and tells their stories with genuine care and empathy.

Janesville reminded me in some ways of The Unwinding by George Packer, particulary in the emphasis on the decline of the middle class and widening political and economic divisions in America. Both are worth reading, but Janesville is probably more accessible. It's an important read, and certainly a worthwhile one. show less

What happened to Janesville is what has happened to America and is why America is not what it once was.

I was especially drawn to Janesville: An American Story by Amy Goldstein because I grew up in Rockford, Illinois, about forty-five minutes or so south. Throughout my time attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 2002-2005 I would drive through Janesville; I would occasionally stop for food or such like on Milton Avenue on the north side of town.

Otherwise, however, I would rarely venture up there, and even though I lived within an hour, I clearly did not know much about it. Before reading this book I was not aware of the major GM factory there, or that it was the home of Parker Pen.

And when I lived there, and drove through show more there, the GM factory was still going. This book chronicles what would happen to Janesville beginning in 2008, with the announcement of the closure of the GM plant and its hastened demise, until 2013, chronicling how the town and its citizens would respond to their changed environment.

The book follows a few families and town professionals and their stories throughout this period. Overall, it’s devastating. Those who retired from GM and could enjoy their pension were fine; so were those who were already well-ensconced in higher level white-collar work, like running the local bank.

But everyone else suffered all kinds of levels of diminished life quality. The best off financially were the “gypsies” who transferred to work at other GM plants but whose families remained in Janesville: they were able to maintain about the same standard of economic living, but the breadwinner would be gone for most of the week, and the families would acutely feel the lack of their presence.

Many others refused to do that to their families; they would thus suffer economically. Many bought into the general premise of retraining and finding new careers; most who did so found themselves in new jobs paying half or so what they made previously. Such retraining led one woman into a very dark place with a terrible end. Most of those who did not go the retraining route ironically ended up doing economically better than those who did, but still encountered a lot more job insecurity and wages were still far less than before. Teenagers end up working two or three jobs and their incomes help support their families, and it still really isn’t enough. All of the forms of charity are overwhelmed: they all experience greater need and have all lost significant sources of revenue and manpower.

By 2013, according to the numbers, it might seem like things had recovered: the unemployment rate was lower than it had been. People had jobs; but the quality of jobs were nothing like what existed before. There had been a stable middle class in Janesville, and all that attended to it; most of that was hollowed out.

And it wasn’t that Janesville workers were lazy or not motivated to work; they all wanted to work, and many were working multiple jobs.

What is most distressing about this story is how “normal” it was. It all took place after I had left the area and was living in northern Ohio and then in Los Angeles. But the story of what happened in Janesville from 2008 to the present is the same story as which took place in Rockford beginning a few years earlier than that. It was the story of the town in which I lived in northern Ohio, and really the whole area, highly dependent on the automotive industry. It’s probably the story of way too many areas in the Upper Midwest and around the country in general.

This book does not present itself as having a specific agenda save to chronicle and detail the fallout of the loss of a major employer in a small town. It does its job in a well and devastating way. If you want to know why America is as it is today, this is a good place to start. show less

Well worth the time. This is well written with short succinct chapters that focus on the results of the GM plant closing in Janesville, and follow several families within the community as they deal with the changes that this brings to this blue collar hometown of the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan. I found it fascinating, yet very sad.
I would recommend this to people interested in the nitty-gritty lives of prior middle class families that are still struggling to regain their standard of living following the recent recession.

A fascinating, detailed, wise accounting about what Janesville did when the GM plant and suppliers closed, a disaster for the economy and livelihoods of most residents. But I just couldn't keep reading when Paul Ryan came up -- the current Ryan vs (the appearance of) the former Ryan was just too disgusting. I can't help but think of the Ryan who MISREAD an article about a waitress saying her extra $1.50 (purportedly because of tax cut) would help her "cover her Costco annual fee." She was actually pointing out how ironic -- criminal? -- it was that corporations got the lion's share -- which they are investing in buying back their shares, not in increased wages or "bonuses" (i.e. crumbs). So yea -- a great book, but I'm just too show more disgusted to take "former Ryan" seriously as a public servant. show less

Sometimes, at the library, I’ll pick up a book at random based solely on the cover or the title and start reading it, ignoring the dust jacket and blurbs on the back. That’s what I did with Janesville—and I’m so glad I did. Were I asked, “Want to read a book about a town in Wisconsin that suffered after a GM plant closed?” I would have passed, not out of coldheartedness but because there are only so many hours in the day to read what grabs us.

This book is a great achievement for several reasons. The structure and interweaving narratives are handled skillfully—and by focusing on this array of people. Goldstein offer a mosaic of life after the plant’s closing. It’s also, in its style, an example of the clarity that show more Strunk and White urged on all of us.

What I found most remarkable, however, was the nearly-apolitical stance from which the tale is told. So much writing about economics and the nation’s current challenges is marked by finger-pointing. I never got a sense of that from this book. She doesn't point fingers; she gestures towards a display of people. I was surprised to read the blurbs on the back, which (I think falsely) characterize Janesville as a political anti-Trump screed. It's not, so if you're hoping to read something you can use as ammo against your cousin who's a Trump supporter, you'll be disappointed. The book is so much better than that. show less

Janesville is about the loss of GM car manufacturing jobs in this Wisconsin town and all the long term effects. Goldstein really does a good job of showing how General Motors let these people down and at the same time shows the rise of Scott Walker and super, labor busting conservatives. It was quite pleasant to have just finished it before Walker finally went down.