Detroit's Cold War: The Origins of Postwar Conservatism by Colleen Doody (review)

In this brief, well-written, and solidly researched book, Colleen Doody locates the origins of a conservative political movement in the mid-century liberal bastion of Detroit. Focusing principally on the period from the New Deal into the immediate postwar years, the book contends that a populist, anti-communist, conservative movement emerged from both business elites and working class citizens. While Doody's assertions reinforce similar claims made by in recent years by Detroit historians, she offers new understandings, especially in her treatment of devotional Catholicism as a key aspect of a developing conservative ideology.

The roots of conservatism, Doody argues, can be found in the antagonistic positions taken by business leaders to Detroit's powerful labor movement, especially the United Autoworkers (UAW). In the 1930s, these industrial captains saw the UAW and its charismatic leader, Walter Reuther, as a threat to the traditions of American individualism and free enterprise. Such fears intensified during the war years, when Reuther advanced tripartite councils of business, government, and labor in directing wartime production, which the CIO saw as a model for postwar economic planning. Although Reuther represented a staunchly anti-communist position within the UAW, business leaders tagged him as a front for economic radicalism, a view that shaped the views of some Detroit citizens.

Doody's focus on anti-labor rhetoric in Detroit is especially well presented in her treatment of the debates over public sector unionism in the immediate postwar period. When the leaders of the left-wing United Public Workers of America (UPWA-CIO) refused to take loyalty oaths, Detroit officials launched investigations into the organization. Later, when the union called a trash strike to improve the wages of its members, the mayor dismissed all striking workers, a measure that had broad public support. In presenting this narrative, Doody finds the voices of ordinary Detroit citizens in letters to local newspapers to show that a nascent conservative position existed at the grassroots level, well before a clearly outlined political program emerged. Racial resentments by many white residents also shaped a strong anti-statist sentiment that united this emerging coalition.

Catholicism was a vital thread of this new conservative movement, and Doody's handling of this topic is particularly nuanced. Catholic anti-communism was not only a response to Soviet advancements, but rooted in concerns over the growth of secularism in the United States at mid-century. Secularism threatened traditional family structures, which Catholics sought to defend through spiritual means such as mass public recitations of the rosary, and other Marian devotions. The rise of suburbanization on Catholic life is also addressed, offering valuable insight into how Catholics created new lifestyles away from the urban core. While acknowledging the declining influence of Catholic liberals in Detroit and around the nation after World War II, Doody does not address the resulting tensions between conservatives and liberals within the Catholic community, a task that would raise key interpretive questions. Liberal Catholics did not simply vanish, but continued to shape developments often at odds with the emergent conservative view.

Detroit's Cold War is highly recommended. It will be useful in undergraduate courses, and is an important contribution to the emerging scholarship on the rise of conservatism in twentieth century America.