North American Industrial Survey documents the material industries that have shaped the continent: agriculture, manufacturing, extractive industry, logistics, knowledge work, and construction.
Industry Focus
Agriculture
The foundation of industrialization in North America, agriculture evolved from subsistence farming to mechanized, global-scale production. It remains a critical industry—supported by networks of service labor, logistics, and technology—that feeds both continents and economies, shaping landscapes and livelihoods alike.
Manufacturing
Manufacturing built the industrial cities of the past and continues to define new ones today. From abandoned steel mills to high-tech robotics factories, the evolution of making tells a layered story of invention, migration, labor struggle, and resilience. Behind every assembly line are systems of repair, precision, and service that keep production moving.
Extractive Industry
The act of taking—minerals, timber, oil, gas—has fueled economies and carved entire regions into industrial terrain. Today, extractive industry stands at a crossroads: from coal shafts to lithium mines, from drilling rigs to solar fields. The story of what we extract—and what it costs—reveals the shifting nature of power across the continent.
Logistics
Invisible but indispensable, logistics is the circulatory system of the modern world. Railroads, highways, ports, and warehouses move raw materials, finished goods, and people with quiet urgency. This work—often hidden, often relentless—is sustained by drivers, sorters, dockworkers, and digital infrastructure reaching from rural roads to global hubs.
Knowledge Work
Engineering, data, design, and remote collaboration now form the scaffolding of modern industry. Knowledge work—though rarely visible—is embedded across every sector: shaping farm equipment, optimizing delivery routes, automating plants, and maintaining the vast codebase of industrial life. Its effects are abstract, but its impact is physical and far-reaching.
Construction
Everything industrial begins with construction. It is the labor of building and rebuilding—of raising bridges and smokestacks, laying pipelines and power lines, shaping the roads, tunnels, and water systems that undergird society. From cityscapes to backcountry work camps, construction is the physical expression of planning, force, and collective will.
Supporting Sectors
But industry never stands alone. Alongside every factory and pipeline, mine and farm, rose the kitchens, clinics, schools, and saloons that sustained the workers and their communities.
This project honors both: the structures of labor and the lives that surround them. The cooks who fed the logging camps, the nurses who staffed the oil fields, the teachers who trained machinists, and the entertainers who lit up boomtown nights.
Together, these stories form the true industrial landscape — a portrait of resilience, transformation, and connection across North America.
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Agriculture
- Food service (camps, boarding houses)
- Retail (equipment supply)
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Manufacturing
- Education (apprenticeships, technical schools)
- Health & safety (industrial medicine)
- Organized labor infrastructure
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Extractive Industry
- Health & safety (mining hospitals)
- Food service (remote cookhouses)
- Hospitality (bunkhouses, camps)
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Logistics
- Retail (truck stops)
- Food service (cafes, diners along railroads and highways)
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Knowledge Work
- Education (engineering schools)
- Hospitality (business hotels for traveling workers)
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Construction
- Education (trade schools)
- Health & safety (safety clinics)
- Food service (site commissaries)
- Entertainment (barrooms, theaters for boomtowns)
Geographic Focus
Agriculture
Themes: Mechanization, labor migration, irrigation, industrial food systems
- California’s Central Valley – Fruit, nut, and vegetable production; migrant labor; water conflicts
- Great Plains (Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Saskatchewan) – Grain and corn; large-scale mechanization
- Mississippi Delta / South Texas / Mexican Borderlands – Cotton, livestock, sugarcane, citrus
- Southern Quebec & Ontario – Dairy, corn, soy; family farming alongside agri-business
- Northern Mexico (Sonora, Baja California, Jalisco) – Export agriculture, greenhouses, cross-border labor
Manufacturing
Themes: Industrial rise and decline, reshoring, automation, labor politics
- Great Lakes / Rust Belt (Detroit, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Cleveland) – Steel, auto, legacy manufacturing
- Southeast U.S. (Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Carolinas) – New auto plants, aerospace, textiles
- Mexico's Bajío region (Querétaro, Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí) – Automotive and electronics growth
- California / Oregon – Aerospace, semiconductors, clean manufacturing
- Southern Ontario (Hamilton, Windsor) – Auto, steel, cross-border industry with U.S. Midwest
Extractive Industry
Themes: Resource boom/bust, remoteness, environmental transformation
- Appalachia (WV, eastern KY, PA) – Coal mining, mountaintop removal
- Texas / Louisiana / Oklahoma – Oil, natural gas, refineries
- Alberta (Fort McMurray, Calgary) – Oil sands, gas fields, pipelines
- Northern Canada / Alaska – Remote mining, indigenous land tensions, fly-in/fly-out operations
- Western U.S. (Nevada, Arizona, Utah) – Lithium, copper, rare earths, historical mining towns
- British Columbia – Forestry, mineral mining, hydroelectric extraction
Logistics
Themes: Infrastructure, automation, labor speed, warehousing, invisible systems
- Chicago / Memphis / Louisville – National freight hubs (rail, air cargo: FedEx, UPS)
- Southern California’s Inland Empire – Amazon warehouses, truck depots, rail-to-port systems
- U.S.-Mexico border (Laredo, Juárez, Tijuana) – Cross-border freight, maquila logistics
- New Jersey / Eastern Pennsylvania – Ports, last-mile delivery, rail hubs
- Vancouver / Prince Rupert / Halifax – Port logistics, container terminals, global trade
- Toronto / Montreal – Intermodal hubs, trucking, distribution
Knowledge Work
Themes: Tech infrastructure, abstract labor, remote influence, automation
- Silicon Valley / Bay Area – Software, data centers, industrial tech R\&D
- Seattle / Portland / Vancouver – Cloud services, engineering hubs, logistics automation
- Austin / Denver / Toronto – High-growth knowledge cities tied to energy and manufacturing
- University Towns (Cambridge, Boston, Ann Arbor, Waterloo, Monterrey) – R\&D, training, applied engineering
- Data Center Corridors (Utah, Northern Virginia, Iowa) – Invisible but critical industrial infrastructure
Construction
Themes: Expansion, infrastructure, boomtowns, industrial reshaping of landscape
- Southwest U.S. (Phoenix, Las Vegas) – Explosive development, labor under extreme conditions
- Texas Energy Belt (Houston, Midland) – Refineries, pipelines, grid infrastructure
- California Megaprojects (Bay Area, LA, Central Valley) – High-speed rail, aqueducts, urban development
- East Coast Cities (NYC, Boston, DC) – Dense, layered industrial construction
- Northern Oil/Resource Zones (Fort St. John, Prudhoe Bay) – Remote construction, seasonal labor
- Pan-American Highway & Border Infrastructure – Binational construction and maintenance
About
North American Industrial Survey is a non-governmental research organization dedicated to documenting the material industries that have shaped the North American continent — and the lives of the people within them.
Our work focuses on six primary sectors:
- Agriculture — the transformation of land and labor into the food and fiber that sustain societies.
- Manufacturing — the evolution of making, from the mills of the 19th century to the high-tech foundries of today.
- Extractive Industry — the long arc from coal and oil to the new frontiers of renewable energy.
- Logistics — the hidden circulatory system moving goods, people, and raw materials across vast distances.
- Knowledge Work — the often invisible scaffolding of engineering, data, and design supporting industrial systems.
- Construction — the physical act of building the roads, rails, cities, and grids that connect and sustain it all.
But these industries do not exist in isolation. Alongside every factory, farm, mine, and pipeline rose the kitchens, clinics, schools, boarding houses, truck stops, and theaters that made industrial life possible.
This project also honors the broader human story of work — the cooks who fed the logging camps, the nurses who cared for injured miners, the teachers who trained machinists, the singers who lit up the nights after long shifts.
North American Industrial Survey draws from documentary traditions to offer a grounded, human perspective on labor, transformation, resilience, and connection across the continent's industrial and social landscapes.
We work independently and in collaboration with local organizations, unions, and individuals to ensure every story — and every image — reflects not just the work, but the worker.
Contact
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