Abstract

"The French Textile Industry and the Search for Fibers in a Time of Crisis, 1938-1962"

Emilie Pack, Canisius College-Université de Valenciennes (packe@canisius.edu)

The period 1938-1962 was a volatile era for French textile manufacturers. Heavily dependent on the import of raw materials, they faced extreme variations in the organization of production, the near disappearance of imported sources of fiber, heavy restrictions under the Vichy regime and the German occupation, and constraints on monetary convertibility in the decade following the end of the Second World War. How did individual firms and industry associations adapt to the dramatic changes in fiber sourcing and supply dynamics wrought by a series of global crises? This paper examines business and government responses to the disruptions in textile fiber supply chains, disruptions which ultimately resulted in the concentration of the industry, the increased reliance on synthetic fibers, and the subordination of the international supply chain to Cold-War-era imperatives. The diversity of archives considered permits an analysis of the situation on several levels: diplomatic (archives of international negotiations concerning fibers [MAE, OECD] as well and French and American diplomatic archives [AN, NARA]), and business archives (archives of organizing committees, import and distribution groups, OCRPIs for the recovery of materials, of trade unions and professional groups [ANMT, Union des Industries textiles in particular]).