Look at the tag on your T-shirt. It likely reads “Made in China” or “Made in India.” One could bet the tag reads anything but “Made in America.” Although this fact may seem trivial to most in the modern world, its consequences are far from insignificant. For the American apparel manufacturer, it represents a slow but sure forty-year decline in employment opportunity and the steady disappearance of industrial labor.[1]

The United States’ embrace of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)[2] accelerated this transformation, leading countless American manufacturers to disassemble domestic operations and outsource production to foreign countries, hanging American industrial communities out to dry in the process. To some economists, this “foreign outsourcing” is no more than a “buzzword” in America’s broader fight to maintain a competitive edge in a globalized economy.[3] Yet for workers and families who bore its costs, outsourcing was not theoretical. It was personal and concrete.

Against this backdrop, Origin USA, an American-born company incorporated in Maine, has charted a different course. Adopting a tagline of its own—a phrase on the tag of every one of its products—which reads, “Built by Freedom,”[4] Origin has committed itself to rebuilding supply chains on American soil. This phrase embodies Origin founder Pete Roberts’ multifaceted mission to reemploy American manufacturing knowledge,production.[5] While the cultural significance of this mission statement may be evident from its face value and has led the company to notable economic success,[6] beneath this cultural draw lies a profound spiritual longing of Americans—a desire to restore rich community life in their own neighborhoods. Even if unintentional, Origin follows principles of the Catholic Social Teaching tradition, which helps explain why its secular mission to rebuild American manufacturing resonates so deeply with Americans. In fact, several aims of the company’s mission mirror tenets of Catholic Social Teaching, specifically subsidiarity, the universal destination of goods, and the dignity of human work.[7]

The principle of subsidiarity lies at the foundation of Origin’s efforts to restore the American apparel manufacturing industry following the United States’ entry into NAFTA. Pope Leo XIII described this principle in his landmark writing Rerum Novarum.[8] “The limits [of government intervention] must be determined by the nature of the occasion which calls for the law’s interference—the principle being that the law must not undertake more, nor proceed further, than is required for the remedy of the evil [afflicting a community].”[9] In essence, the government should refrain from intervening, or if intervening, only doing so when a social problem cannot be resolved at a lower level of governance.

Reflecting the principle of subsidiarity, Origin chose to act at the most local level possible through direct, community-based action. Rather than seeking redress through legislative lobbying or political advocacy, the Origin team capitalized on the resources around it in Farmington, Maine and in doing so, Origin invested in local talent, existing resources, and already-present infrastructure.[10]

Origin saw particular potential in the nearby town of Wilton, which was still haunted by the façade of a defunct factory formerly operated by shoe giant G&H Bass.[11] This facility was shut down in 1998 as part of Bass’s corporate strategy to compete against shoe manufacturers who were outsourcing their labor.[12] Loss of the largest taxpayer in Wilton meant the scrapping of 350 jobs, utterly decimating the town’s economic and cultural heart.[13]

Although Origin’s staple products were initially blue jeans and jiu jitsu gis, the company expanded into leather boots and footwear specifically because so many workers laid off by G&H Bass remained in the area and retained valuable manufacturing knowledge.[14] This local-minded approach eventually produced great dividends: while the company’s initial output was limited to ten pairs of boots per day, the integration of the new workforce, fortified with former G&H Bass employees, quickly increased efficiency until the same number of boots were sewn in just an hour and a half.[15]

The Origin boot factory sits ten miles from the one abandoned by G&H Bass[16], a testament to the power of local citizens handling community crisis at their level. The industry of the Wilton natives working at Origin demonstrates Pope Leo XIII’s profound yet simple observation that “[m]en always work harder and more readily on that which belongs to them . . . [indeed,] they learn to love the soil that yields . . . an abundance of good things for themselves and those that are dear to them.”[17]

The second principle of Catholic Social Teaching realized by Origin’s mission is the universal destination of goods, which the company implements by refurbishing industrial facilities and equipment to create economic opportunity. Pope Saint John Paul II expounds on this concept in Laborem Exercens.[18] There, the Holy Father explained that the means of production ought to be employed with good and conscious intent because “the only legitimate title to their possession . . . is that they should serve [people], and thus, by serving [people], that they should make possible the achievement of . . . the universal destination of goods.”[19] Put simply, this means that a company’s accumulation of capital and financial goods exists to benefit the labor force as a whole and the broader community. Consequently, companies have a moral and social duty to use them responsibly.

In the case of the repurposed plant in Wilton, Maine, although some of Origin’s refurbished capital had been abandoned by outsourced companies, other assets were acquired from apparel manufacturers unable to survive in the post-NAFTA economy.[20] Either way, Roberts and the Origin team consciously stewarded their resources by repurposing facilities and equipment to provide lasting employment opportunities locally and durable clothing to many Americans. American manufacturers.[22] These facilities now employ over 400 employees from the surrounding region.[23] Origin also provides a renewed source of business for some remaining heritage American manufacturing companies, such as Mount Vernon Mills, which weaves the denim that is cut and sewn into jeans by Origin.[24]

As for Origin’s smaller scale of production, it results in part from the lack of domestic manufacturing knowledge and equipment. But this constraint also compels the company to hire industrious workers, offer wages and a workplace culture that encourages long-term retention, and invest in sustained maintenance of equipment and facilities. This is the intentional use of capital that Pope John Paul II said “serves labor [that is, laborers]” and facilitates a great number of people sharing the fruits of capital well into the future.[25] Indeed, Origin’s understanding of the relationship between capital and labor closely aligns with Pope Saint Paul VI’s teaching that “[e]conomics and technology are meaningless if they do not benefit man, for it is he they serve.”[26]

Beyond the universal destination of goods, Origin’s mission embodies one final tenet of Catholic Social Teaching: respect for the dignity of human work. According to Popes Leo XIII and John Paul II, work has two distinct dimensions: the personal and the necessary.[27] Work is personal insofar as “the force [exerted] is bound up with the [individual’s] personality and is the exclusive property of him who acts.”[28] Work is necessary because “without the result of labor a man cannot live, and self-preservation is a law of nature . . . and to be wanting therein is a crime.”[29] In essence, this means that a person’s work is both practically necessary and the exertion of his unique knowledge and technical skill. When a community is entrenched in a particular industry and its people develop specialized skills unique to that industry, that type of work shapes both the local economy and culture. Thus, if a company is to respect the dual dimensions of its employees’ work, it must consider both the economic and cultural impact of its operational decisions.

Contrary to many American apparel companies, the Origin team has chosen to prioritize respecting the dignity and character of American towns historically shaped by industrial work.  For example, the community around Greensboro, North Carolina, once home to White Oak Cotton Mills, the largest supplier of American-made denim for Levi’s, Wrangler, and Lee, now provides Origin with many experienced manufacturing craftsmen.[30] By the early 2000s, the last of these legacy companies’ manufacturing had been outsourced, leaving the community to bear the economic and cultural consequences. Origin helped to purchase and refurbish equipment from White Oak Cotton Mills, and just thirty minutes north of Greensboro, in Asheboro, North Carolina, Origin reestablished operations sewing and dying blue jeans and other clothing made from exclusively American materials.[31] Today, a mix of older and young local employees now proudly work for Origin in the same trade which employed their fathers and grandfathers and once sustained the life of their communities.[32]

The unique skill set of manufacturing workers, what the Popes would call the “personal” dimension of their trade, was and is still a source of great pride to these small communities.[33] Unfortunately, those who dismantled domestic manufacturing disregarded the “necessary” character of this work. To them, it appeared immaterial that workers who were put out of a job by the large-scale outsourcing were either unable to find work at all or were forced to seek jobs which required learning an entirely new skill set.[34] In contrast, the Origin team viewed these same people as future Origin employees, as workers with respectable and rare expertise in creating beautiful, durable, high-quality apparel from raw material.[35] Origin prizes the great skill of apparel manufacturing while also respecting the right of workers to make an honest living in a vocation they love. In short, the company’s model respects the dignity of American apparel manufacturing work and workers.[36]

Origin founder Pete Roberts designed the company logo as a wave, representing its mission to jumpstart a “wave of reclamation” of domestic American manufacturing.[37] Much of the modern American economy and culture remains to be reclaimed in the wake of NAFTA. What sets Origin apart from its competitors is that its mission embodies key tenets of economic justice as conveyed in Catholic Social Teaching.[38] Domestic manufacturing cannot prevail in the United States without reemploying workers with the necessary skill and knowledge. Given the federal government’s neglect over the past four decades, this can only be achieved through subsidiarity, that is, small-scale entrepreneurs and local citizens. Additionally, the increasingly rare infrastructure and equipment required for domestic production must be refurbished and responsibly deployed to benefit the greatest number of workers and local communities. Undertaking the venture to bring this equipment back to life is arduous and time-consuming, and thus it will take companies committed to the universal destination of goods to see such a project through.

Ultimately, the dignity of the manufacturing worker ought to be respected, and to do so, companies must respect the cultural and economic identity of communities historically shaped by industry. By incorporating these principles into its business model, Origin USA serves as a model for companies seeking to restore American manufacturing in a way that is both economically sustainable and morally grounded in Catholic Social Teaching. Its “Built by Freedom” guarantee offers a blueprint to revitalize and reshore domestic industry for years to come.

[1] U.S. Dep’t of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Fashion, SPOTLIGHT ON STAT. (June 2012), https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2012/fashion/#:~:text=Source:%20Current%20Employment%20Statistics,the%20apparel%20manufacturing%20component%20industries.

[2] North American Free Trade Agreement, Dec. 17, 1992, 32 I.L.M. 289.

[3] Daniel Griswold, Outsource, Outsource, and Outsource Some More, CATO INST. (May 3, 2004) https://www.cato.org/commentary/outsource-outsource-outsource-some-more.

[4] Angela Velasquez, Inside Origin USA: Founder Pete Roberts on Building a Made in America Movement, SJ DENIM (Sep. 2, 2025).

[5] Inside Origin’s Mission: A Letter from Founder Pete Roberts, ORIGIN USA, https://originusa.com/blogs/news/letter-from-founder-pete-roberts (last visited Feb. 17, 2025).

[6] Jeffrey Bonior, An Entirely American-Made Brand Rises in Rural Maine, ALL. AM. MFG. (Jun. 5, 2025), https://www.americanmanufacturing.org/blog/an-entirely-american-made-brand-rises-in-rural-maine/.

[7] Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2005).

[8] Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Letter Rerum Novarum para. 36 (1891).

[9] Id.

[10] Velasquez, supra note 4.

[11] ORIGIN USA, Abandoned American Towns – Who’s to Blame?, at 1:46-1:50 (YouTube, Feb. 2, 2024), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSzyFAws9ts.

[12] Tom Kirchofer, Closing Bass Factory Puts an End to an Era, L.A. TIMES (Sep. 11, 1998), https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-sep-11-fi-21683-story.html.

[13] Id.

[14] ORIGIN USA, supra note 11, at 15:50-16:44.

[15] Id. at 19:52-20:00.

[16] Id. at 10:47-10:51.

[17] Rerum Novarum, supra note 8, para. 47.

[18] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens (1981).

[19] Id. at para. 14.

[20] Angela Velasquez, U.S. Denim Insiders Seek to Preserve American Heritage Looms, SJ Denim (Mar. 18, 2025), https://sourcingjournal.com/denim/denim-business/vidalia-mills-auction-preserve-american-heritage-looms-1234740849/.

[21] ORIGIN USA, supra note 11, at 15:50-16:44; Bonior, supra note 6.

[22] ORIGIN USA, We Bought the Biggest Jeans Factory in America, at 7:28-7:58 (YouTube, Feb. 18, 2022); Ben Hanstein, ‘It’d Been Done Before – Why Can’t It Be Done Again?’, DAILY BULLDOG (Aug. 23, 2017); ORIGIN USA, supra note 11, at 19:40-19:47.

[23] ORIGIN USA, supra note 2.

[24] Velasquez, supra note 20.

[25] Laborem Exercens, supra note 18.

[26] Paul VI Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio para. 34 (1967).

[27] Rerum Novarum, supra note 8, at para. 44; John Paul II Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus para. 6 (1991).

[28] Id.

[29] Id.

[30] ORIGIN USA, The Rise and Fall of America’s Middle Class, at 2:12-2:32 (YouTube, Sep. 2, 2023).

[31] Velasquez, supra note 20.

[32] ORIGIN USA, supra note 11, at 19:25-30.

[33] Centesimus Annus, supra note 27, at para. 6.

[34] ORIGIN USA, supra note 30, at 4:36-5:03.

[35] Velasquez, supra note 4.

[36] Id.

[37] ORIGIN USA, LULU (China-Made) vs. ORIGIN (USA-Made): There can only be ONE., at 7:20-7:48 (YouTube, Jul. 6, 2025).

[38] Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, supra note 7.

[LE1]Are there any other reasons American manufacturers have moved abroad? (regulations are more lax, etc.) If so, I’d acknowledge them and then argue that NAFTA accelerated the trend more than the other reasons. A citation for your claim would be good.

[FC2]Check me on this… why do they call it an “opportunity cost?”

[FC3]Add quotation marks here if necessary

[LE4]Sentences 1-3 –> consider merging since they are all about the refurbishment of the facilities and equipment.

[FC5]Make sure this does not need to be in quotations.