In this Book

Working Detroit

Book
Steve Babson with Ron Alpern, Dave Elsila, and John Revitte
2018
Published by: Wayne State University Press
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
summary
Babson recounts Detroit's odyssey from a bulwark of the "open shop" to the nation's foremost "union town." Through words and pictures, Working Detroit documents the events in the city's ongoing struggle to build an industrial society that is both prosperous and humane.Babson begins his account in 1848 when Detroit has just entered the industrial era. He weaves the broader historical realties, such as Red Scare, World War, and economic depression into his account, tracing the ebb and flow of the working class activity and organization in Detroit - from the rise of the Knights of Labor and the American Federation of Labor in the 19th century, through the Congress of Industrial Organizations and the sitdown strike of the 1930s, to the civil rights and women's movements of the 1960s and 1970s. The book concludes with an examination of the present day crisis facing the labor movement.

Table of Contents

open access

Cover

Title Page

pp. i

Copyright

pp. ii

Acknowledgments

pp. iii

Foreword

pp. iv

Preface to the 1986 Edition

pp. v

Table of Contents

pp. vi-vii

Introduction

pp. viii-x

Prologue: (Nineteenth Century)

pp. 1

Labor Pains

pp. 2-16

Part I: Motor City (1899-1929)

pp. 17

Detroit On Wheels

pp. 18-21

Labor Routes

pp. 22-28

Toeing the Line

pp. 29-33

Making Americans

pp. 34-37

Red Scare

pp. 38-40

Worlds Apart

pp. 41-47

The Soaring Twenties

pp. 48-50

Part II: Union Town (1929-1941)

pp. 51

Paradise Lost

pp. 52-60

False Starts

pp. 61-77

The Tide Turns

pp. 68-75

Union Maids

pp. 76-79

Labor’s March

pp. 80-86

Leaders and Ranks

pp. 87-90

Hold the Fort

pp. 91-96

A House Divided

pp. 97-102

Ford, The Last Mile

pp. 103-110

Part III: War and Peace (1941-1960)

pp. 111

From Class War to World War

pp. 112-121

Homefront

pp. 122-126

A New World

pp. 127-136

Red Scare

pp. 137-142

Wage-Earning Women

pp. 143-147

Tale of Two Unions

pp. 148-154

Part IV: Black Detroit (1945-1975)

pp. 155

Crossing the Color Line

pp. 156-166

Freedom Now!

pp. 167-175

Pride Against Prejudice

pp. 176-178

Part V: New Workers, New Work (1960-1979)

pp. 179

Bucking the Line

pp. 180-191

Going Public

pp. 192-199

A Long Way, Sister

pp. 200-208

Part VI: At the Crossroads

pp. 209

End of the Line?

pp. 210-221

Remaking Detroit

pp. 222-241

Sites and Maps

pp. 242-244

Readings and Sources

pp. 245-246

Song and Photo Credits

pp. 247-248

Index

pp. 249-252
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