HN Reader

NYTimes, I don't care how much you pay photographer Christopher Payne and the rest of your photography staff (and contractors). No way is it enough. This is incredible work.

A quick internet search tells me Payne -- who shot the article -- specializes in large-format photography focusing on industry, and the samples on his website are breathtaking: https://www.chrispaynephoto.com/ Seems like the kind of thing that would be right up HN's alley.

Might be interesting to compare with the Mitsubishi Pencil & Tombow factories in Japan. :)

for something purely American, and just as eduring there is

https://www.edenkazoo.com/museum.php

not just a museum, also a working factory

which by pure accident I encountered, while traveling to see the GD,

I was astonished to discover (via HN) that the pencil was invented (patented) in 1795, I has always assumed that it was from antiquity

Musgrave Pencil Co [0], in Shelbyville, TN is one of the only other ones in the country I'm aware of.

The biggest challenge for a lot of these is that they essentially require full-time machinists to keep the old machinery running, as the manufacturers typically have gone out of business decades ago. Tremont Nail Co [1] is another one I'm aware of, because they manufacture nails with old processes (cutting instead of wire).

Which really tells the story of US manufacturing decline. When all supporting functions of an industry no longer exist, or have migrated to other countries, or have been surpassed by new technology, why should we romanticize and pine for an era that has been passed by? Why shouldn't we have a vision for a new era and double down on the things we are best at?

[0] - https://musgravepencil.com [1] - https://tremontnail.com

The company featured - https://generalpencil.com/

No one knows how to make a pencil.

  --Milton Friedman

The truth is that a lot of current American manufacturing sees little investment / engineering towards the automation that could save it and is in a holding pattern where it will eventually be shut down or moved to a country with cheaper labor costs.