CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Now that political ads are on TV, we have been getting several emails asking us to fact-check these commercials. One commercial we have gotten a lot of questions about is Bill Graham's ad. He is a republican running for North Carolina Governor.
This is the part of the commercial people are asking about:
"Cannon Mills, I worked there in the weave room. Now it doesn't even exist China shut it down and laid off thousands."
THE QUESTION:
Did China really shut down the Cannon Mills Company?
THE ANSWER:
China did play a role in the shutdown of not only Cannon Mills but other textile companies, but China certainly wasn't the only reason.
OUR SOURCES:
WHAT WE FOUND:
To understand why Cannon Mills shut down, let's open the history books.
According to the NC Encyclopedia Cannon Mills was founded in 1887 and, at the end of World War 1 became a large producer of towels. In 1906, the company bought land in Kannapolis to open a mill.
"I grew up in high school here and NC State during the summer I would work at the mill," Trout said.
In 1968, Scott Trott became Vice President of the Bedding Division. Cannon Mills changed hands and leadership for several years after. In 1997, the company was sold to Pillowtex, which went bankrupt in 2003, eliminating 4,800 jobs in North Carolina.
But there is a lot more to the story.
According to NCPedia, The North American Free Trade Act," or NAFTA went into effect in 1994, allowing a free trade zone between Canada, Mexico, and the United States.
"All this free trade started and the mills had to spend a lot of money buying new equipment and taking care of smoke coming out of smokestacks," Trout said.
NCPEDIA explains NAFTA, and later treaties with African and Caribbean nations led to a vast increase in textile and apparel imports.
At the expense of mills and factories in North Carolina.
"It wasn't definitely all China. It was a lot of our own people in our country who were willing to let free trade take over," Trout said.
A 1995 Bureau of Labor Statistics report on textile and apparel trends warned that in the next ten years, the competition would only get worse, and it did.
"The main thing was the prices went down, and plants started shutting down cause they couldn't afford what was coming in all over the country," Trout said.
So, while Chinese imports did play a role in the demise of Cannon Mills, there were many other factors at play. Environmental requirements, new equipment, changing of leadership, and free trade all contributed to the closing of this one great Kannapolis manufacturer.
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WCNC Charlotte's Verify series is all about trying to make a difference in the Carolinas by making sure the community has the correct information. WCNC Charlotte outlines concisely what we know and what we don't know. Sometimes the answer can be surprising. Watch previous stories where we verify social media claims in the YouTube playlist below and subscribe to get updated when new videos are uploaded.