Electronics made in the USA?

February 16, 2006 8:52 AM

Help my dad find a CRT or LCD monitor that was made in the USA.

My dad always goes to great lengths to buy items made in the USA. He has worked his entire adult life for an auto maker and so has always had to worry about the possibility of his plant closing and moving to mexico or somewhere else where workers are underpaid and exploited.

Can any of you help us find a new monitor for him that was made in the states? I think he'd even be happy to find out about certain models/brands that were made here that he'd have to find used somewhere.

posted by J-Garr to shopping (10 comments total)

This site claims there is an IBM G40 monitor which was made in the USA, but I've never heard of it. If he has a graphics card with TV-out, you could just get him a TV:

Televisions made in the USA

It would be a horrid picture though :(
posted by hoverboards don't work on water at 8:59 AM on February 16, 2006

I embarked on this same quest twenty years ago, and the only readily-available TV still made in the USA (then!) was Zenith. Dunno what the current status is...
posted by Rash at 9:06 AM on February 16, 2006

Zenith is not in business any more. They are owned by LG (Korean).

Good luck with this, I think you'll find it impossible. In the best case the LCD panel itself will probably be made by one of the major overseas vendors if nothing else is.
posted by kcm at 9:23 AM on February 16, 2006

Telstar Electronics is a small company here in Wisconsin that makes replices of the retro Predicta Line. Although they are televisions and not specifically computer monitors, you may be able to get a custom monitor version. I can't vouch if the materials, specifically the tube, is from a US manufacturer though. I would imagine there still must be a few manufacturers of high-end tubes in the US, maybe for government contracts? You will pay lots more, but if the bottom line is Made in the USA, then that shouldn't be an issue.
posted by JJ86 at 9:35 AM on February 16, 2006

Your father's quest is quixotic at best. All LCDs come out of either China, Taiwan or South Korea. Although some research is still done in the USA, Japan or Europe, all the manufacturing is done in Asia.
posted by furtive at 9:45 AM on February 16, 2006

Look at it this way: if no one manufactures LCDs in the US, it's not hurting the US to buy one elsewhere. You can't buy what doesn't exist, and it doesn't exist for a reason..
posted by kcm at 11:08 AM on February 16, 2006

The big 3 build vehicles all over the planet, what possible difference does he think it makes where that ONE particular vehicle he purchases was made?

It's hilarious that my red-neck brother brags about his USA #1!!! Ford truck (built in Brazil) over my "pice of shit/rice-car) built in Tennessee...
posted by Cosine at 11:23 AM on February 16, 2006

Princeton Graphics?
posted by omidius at 12:07 PM on February 16, 2006

Thank you all for the responses thus far. I fully understand that this is not an easy quest and one that might not be successful. That's ok. The point is that we tried.

For those like Cosine who don't understand the merits of buying local and the power of an individual acting on their principles, I feel sorry for you. This post was about buying an american made computer monitor of the LCD or CRT variety, not a car. Your red-neck brother is just that: a red-neck who doesn't know his brazillian made ford truck from an american made rice-mobile. I don't see how your brother's ignorance has anything to do with the rest of us making informed purchasing decisions based on fact rather than based on some bullshit marketing campaign targeted at blindly patriotic red-necks.
posted by J-Garr at 12:49 PM on February 16, 2006

While I don't necessarily agree with the assertion of "underpaid and exploited" workers, it won't affect my answer. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers site posts about plant shutdowns. They had an interesting article in May 2004 about how many CRT producers are left. I don't know if that will resolve the issue, since there are likely to be non-US parts in the finished product and you may not be able to determine whether a CRT came from a particular plant. In addition, the companies which own the US-plants aren't US-based, so does that still fit the requirement? But here goes what might be your best shot, quoting the relevant paragraphs from the article:

The demise of Thomson’s U.S. interests leaves only four producers of TV tubes in the United States—Matsushita-Toshiba (MT) with plants in Troy, Ohio, and Horseheads, New York; Sony in New Stanton, Pennsylvania; Techneglas Inc. in Columbus, Ohio, Pittston, Pennsylvania, and Perrysburg, Ohio, and Hitachi in Greenville, South Carolina.

The Sony facility produces glass for its own needs, leaving Techneglas as the only outside TV glass supplier remaining in the U.S. Formerly, a partnership between Owens-Illinois and Nippon (Japan), Techneglas is now a fully owned subsidiary of Nippon. Bruce Smith, an official of the GMP Union that represents workers at two Techneglas facilities, says: "The company wants concessions on wages and health insurance. We are looking over their books. We’ve already faced considerable downsizing. The Columbus plant had 1,000 workers two years ago; only 350 are left. There’s a market for our product. People who buy plasma TVs will still buy cheaper TV’s for other rooms in their homes, but Techneglas is still crying about foreign competition."
posted by mdevore at 1:07 PM on February 16, 2006