The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global

Economy; Book Summary

Chapter IV
Cotton growers have learned how to not spare any piece of the cotton, cottonseed, or even the
junk that goes with it to the gin. Only 24 percent of the material brought to the gin is cotton.
Forty percent of it is what everyone sees as junk, sticks and trash. They are able to mix the sticks
and trash with molasses and feed it to cattle. The seeds are 36 percent of what goes into the gin,
and all of the Bt cottonseeds are used as cattle feed as well. Regular cottonseeds however are
taken apart to make cottonseed oil, which is used as a replacement for corn syrup in a lot of
snack brands, seed meal, which is used as animal food, the seed hull, which is put in fertilizers,
and "linters", which are used in a lot of hard plastics and cushioning.
Growing cotton in other parts of the world is much harder than growing it in the U.S., not
because of the climates, but because of the prices. Farmers in the United States are usually paid 3
to 15 percent more than the average cotton price, but in places like West Africa farmers are
usually paid half of the average market price. Plus, in West Africa the crop yields per acre are
half that of Americas.
When the Bt cottonseed was introduced to China, farmers were able to reduce their
pesticide/herbicide usage from around 20, to about 8. Though, when pests that were minor
problems before became major problems because there was nothing to stop them from growing
and spreading, their pesticide/herbicide count went to around 18. With no one to tell them that
they needed to plant some regular cotton with the Bt cotton the farmers who used the Bt cotton in
China began losing money because they had to buy new seed every year.
Chapter V
American cotton usually leaves the compress in a truck, or by train. It is taken to the coast where
it is put onto a ship and sent to china. When it gets to China it is put in another truck, and driven
to a cotton yarn factory where it is cleaned and smoothed into a soft flat blanket. Then, it's
carded, and drawn into a rope about an inch in diameter, called a sliver. The slivers are wound
onto a can, and from the can are fed into the spindles and twisted into yarn. The yarn is spun onto
large bobbins and is then shipped to a garment factory. In the garment factory the yarn is woven
into long strips of fabric, which are cut into pieces that will soon be sleeves, fronts, backs, and
collars. Those pieces are sent to the sewing room, where they are sewn into the T-shirts that we
buy in our stores today.
As more and more of Americas T-shirts are made in China, their price has been going down, so
there has been some concern about how the shirts are made. Most people who have done in-
depth research about China's clothing production think that there are some concealed sweatshops
in China. Sweatshops are places where people work long hours for little money. They are illegal,
but whoever owns the sweatshop(s) make a lot of money because their prices and costs are lower
than all of their competitors.
Chapter VI
The first country to produce a smart system of making cotton cloth was China. They held the
lead until at least 1750. By the late 1700s Britain took the lead, and by creating new inventions
that made more cloth in the same amount of time they were able to hold the lead for quite a
while. They maintained the lead by keeping their cloth making technology a secret. They were so
determined to keep it a secret that they wouldn't even let skilled textile operatives leave the
country. Though, in 1810, Francis Cabot Lowell, an American, traveled to England with the
hope of bringing back the textile technology. He was successful, and America became the new
world leader in producing cotton cloth in 1820. By the 1930s Japan became the new leader, and
though it faltered during WWII, it remained the leader until the 1970s. Then, Hong Kong was the
largest exporter of clothing, but not for long because China was waking up from the Cultural
Revolution, and with much lower wages they were able to sell their clothing for less too. China
still leads in clothing exports today.
The reason that a country that had just received the textile technology after another country has
had it for years (ex: America and China) could become a world leader in the export of clothing is
because they can offer it for much cheaper, so people would buy it from them instead. This race
to make cheaper and cheaper clothing started in America, where the mill owners would give low
wages to women who were tired of farm life. That is why Japan became the next world leader in
clothing exports, because the mill owners were able to pay their employees less, so the clothing
was less, which in turn caused more demand for the cheap clothing. This is why there are
believed to be so many sweatshops in China.