Combined and Uneven Development in the Men's Clothing Industry

By the 1920s the production of men's clothing was clearly divided into two sectors. The first consisted of a relative handful of large firms, technologically and organizationally sophisticated and engaged in the manufacture of better-quality garments. The “secondary sector” included a great many small and technically more primitive enterprises producing mainly lower-priced and lower-quality clothing. In this article, Dr. Fraser examines the development of the industry from the period following the Civil War through the post-World War I era in order to explain why this dualistic industrial structure emerged. In so doing, he draws on a thesis developed by Michael Piore and Alfred Chandler regarding the relationship between industrial organization and the structure of the market. Fraser argues that the expansion of the mass market does not necessarily lead to the concentration of production. It may, on the contrary, and especially in those cases where demand is particularly unstable, encourage the growth of a “secondary sector” whose minimal fixed investment makes it well-suited to handle the more variable component of demand.