Blood, Sweat, and Tears

 The Economy in the 2000’s

 

Deindustrialization:

decline in industrial activity in a region or economy.

 

But how and why did it happen in the rust belt, and what were its consequences? In the 1990s, the internet was quickly becoming very profitable, and many people invested in it. However, in March of 2000, the dot-com bubble burst, so to speak, leaving many internet based companies bankrupt. This, in the end, caused deindustrialization across the rust belt, to save costs. The rust belt is actually called that because of all the rusting factories left in the wake of this event. But what does this have to do with Sweat?

 

Sweat and the consequences of deindustrialization.

 

In Sweat, Lynn Nottage shows the effect on the working class directly, through the closing of a textile mill in Pennsylvania. I feel that the effects of deindustrialization are most clear in the character of Tracey, a middle aged lady, who got laid off at the mill in 2000. When we see her next in 2008, she’s addicted to painkillers, wasting most of her money away. “She grows antsy. She needs a fix…she snatches [the money] from him, desperate. This reflects the rise in drug use after deindustrialization in many cases. Suicide rates also increased around that time. This shown through the mention of Freddy Brunner, a guy who was “up to his neck in…debt.” He ended up burning his house down and trying to shoot himself. Both of these stories paint a stark picture of the way deindustrialization affected the working class.