This week Kimberly-Clark announced the impending closure of
2 manufacturing plants in Neenah, Wisconsin. While this sort of thing happens
all the time in the business world, it marks the end of an era for this town.
K-C was founded there in 1872 and has had manufacturing plants there ever
since. Over time the corporate office presence became larger and larger
compared to the manufacturing presence, but as recently as the 1990’s K-C still
had 2 tissue mills, a diaper plant, 2 nonwovens sites, and a feminine care plant
there for manufacturing. These closures will bring an end to production sites
there though the corporate locations will still be a very large employer there.
Corporations have historically had a connection to a place,
both for manufacturing and offices. For K-C that place was Neenah, WI, but many
others come to mind. Ford was connected to Detroit, Dow to Midland, MI; P&G
to Cincinnati; Anheuser-Busch to St. Louis. The founders started the company in
a place, and as human beings they had ties to that place. It made sense for the
factories to be in that place as well. Both the people and the corporation that
were extensions of those people had a sense of place. People have a natural
love for home, and work has a natural connection to home. Chesterton wrote that
“men did not love Rome because she was great; she was great because they had
loved her.” Benedictine monks make a vow to stay in one place, one monastery,
for life. This blog from First Things is good commentary on that: https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/05/on-the-importance-of-place
. Perhaps Israel is the best example of this: God’s promises to Abraham and his
descendants are not only spiritual promises but also promise of a place, The
Land.
That seemed to hold for corporations until after World War
II. The economic expansion that followed the war and which had been pent up
during the Great Depression resulted in many corporations opening new places of
production first all over America, then later all over the world as the global
corporation came to be common. The sense
of place began to be diffused and corporate leaders became vagabonds as they
moved from place to place to build a career. Those who would reach the top of
the corporate ladder often had a much less definite connection to the historic
community where the corporation began. Over time as corporate leaders began to
come from outside the company, the sense of place also seemed to fade even
more.
There are economic reasons of course. It may be better for
logistics or energy cost or raw materials to be in a different place. And often
the reason for the starting place of a company was the resources available in
that place. I am sure there were various economic challenges in the past, but
the sense of place seemed to be the impetus to innovation in approaching those
problems. Today the focus seems to be more about wanting a target market to be
the impetus rather than a desire to stay in a place. The love of a place seems
less vital now.
Some think this is a good thing, promoting the idea that we should be ‘global
citizens’ and not so locally oriented. I
am not convinced that is altogether a good thing. I agree with C. S. Lewis , G.
K. Chesterton, and Wendell Berry that connection
to a place is one important way we learn to respect and care for creation. As a
Christian my ultimate loyalty cannot be simply to a place, but a sense of place
contributes to my role as a steward of the land and of life.
So I am saddened by these recent events. Perhaps these were
economically necessary moves, but I cannot help thinking that they are
nonetheless additional signs of the loss of our sense of place.
