140:
Family Business
Originally aired 09.24.1999
Stories of family businesses, and what happens when the tension of family dynamics collides with the pressure of capitalist market forces.
Host Ira Glass with Rory Evans, who describes the day her father fired his own mother from their family business, a machine shop called Evans Industries. Some estimates say that 40 to 60 percent of our nation's gross domestic product is created by family businesses, but talking to anyone who works for one of these companies, you end up wondering...how? (5 minutes)
David Rakoff takes us inside the world of a Greek family-owned ice cream parlour, and what he learned about the husband and wife and son who owned it...and what he didn't figure out until later. (12 minutes)
Sean Cole visits Chad's Trading Post in Southampton, Massachussetts. One person who works there wears a shirt that says "Chad's Brother;" other shirts say "Chad's Best Friend," "Chad's Cousin," "Chad's Father." Pictures of Chad are everywhere. Chad's dead. The family explains. (14 minutes)
Dave Eggers on what happens when politics suddenly becomes your family business. When his brother ran for office, he asked for Dave's help and support. But his brother's political views were in contrast to Dave's own. He explains what he did. (12 minutes)
Act Four. Every Unhappy Family Cleaning Supplies Business Is Unhappy In Its Own Way.
Hillary Frank explains how an invitation to a business meeting, sent through the mail in 1963, kept two sides of a family from speaking to each other for most of the second half of the 20th Century. (10 minutes)
