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Farewell to Factory Towns? A film by Maynard Seider (Produced by Seider & Amherstmedia.org, 2012)
Retired Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts sociology professor Maynard Seider has written and directed a film that explores both the history of North Adams and the city's complex relationship with the Sprague factory complex. Using strong images and an often powerful narrative, Seider has crafted a highly watchable documentary about the rise and fall of a factory town. Throughout the film, Seider asks serious questions about the economic history of Sprague, an electrical capacitor factory that arrived in the 1930s, and its replacement, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), which opened in the Sprague factory space in 1999.
Farewell to Factory Towns? is divided into three parts exploring the history of North Adams, the rise and fall of the Sprague factory, and the lobbying efforts that led...