Bonus: Reviving the U.S. Watch Industry – Josh Shapiro (J.N. Shapiro) – Episode 41
About this episode
Josh Shapiro discusses the challenges and potential of reviving the U.S. watch industry.
To mark 250 years of American independence, we're revisiting one of our favorite conversations: our sit-down with Josh Shapiro, the American independent watchmaker behind the Resurgence — the only watch that currently meets the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's standard for "Made in America." It's a fitting week to ask a question that feels newly urgent in an era of tariffs and reshoring: what would it actually take to bring watchmaking back to the United States at scale? Josh takes us from the industry's staggering height — when American factories employed over 100,000 people and produced millions of chronometer-grade watches a year, so far ahead that the Swiss crossed the Atlantic in 1876 to study our methods and race to catch up — through the forces that dismantled it: the pivot from pocket watches to wristwatches, an aggressive Swiss cartel, Depression-era trade deals, and a postwar collapse that was already terminal long before the quartz crisis delivered the final blow. Along the way he explains why the single hardest thing to rebuild isn't machinery or capital, but people, and why "Swiss Made" and "Made in America" are two very different promises. Told through the lens of…
More episodes of Openwork: Inside the Watch Industry
- The Rise of Tudor – How Rolex Wins by Letting Tudor Dare – Episode 88
- The Analog Boom – Watch Sales Surge to Start 2026 – Episode 87
- Bonus: The Watches of Armin Strom – Claude Greisler (Co-founder & Master Watchmaker) – Episode 86
- Tariffs on the Rise (Again) – New Justifications, Higher Rates – Episode 85
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