xanthe's review
5.0
I grew up in a white-bread suburb north of Detroit, full of auto execs and other white-collar employees of the auto industry. No one there was interested in celebrating the history of labor and organizing in Detroit, or actually talking much about the history of Detroit in general. We had perhaps one or two field trips into the city during our school years, hitting the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) and Orchestra Hall, and a tour of Trapper’s Alley with a ride on the tiny loop of the People Mover. Other than that, Detroit and its significance in our comfortable little lives was basically ignored. My strongest (only?) memory of any sort of union activity was the newspaper strike in the 90s when my best friend’s mother as an employee of the Detroit Free Press (Freep) and other newspaper workers went on strike for better contracts, and supportive yard signs sprang up around town. I was delighted to see pictures of those “No News or Free Press Wanted Here” signs included in this book. However, the strike deflated over time and eventually ended quietly without me being aware of what was lost or gained.
But I’m a grown up now. No excuses. Any ignorance is now my own responsibility so I picked up this photo history in the “Images of America” series Labor in Detroit which gives a chronological overview of the labor movement in Detroit through archival photos that brought to life the people and events from the dawn of industry to the rise of the automakers and beyond. This was a well-organized and packed with information, no small feat given that the only print was the few sentences for the captions of the many, many pictures. And the pictures are great, showing the faces and events in a real, visceral way that paragraphs of text never could. The numbers of workers involved in labor strikes, sit-ins, marches, and other actions was thrilling, as well as seeing the women involved in sit-ins and as support for strikers. There’s also plenty of photographic evidence of the strong labor activity by black auto workers and others from the beginning of Detroit’s industrial history. The authors cite their sources which I found especially helpful for planning further reading and for understanding where they were getting their information. Even though it clearly doesn’t include anything after its publication date of 2001, Labor in Detroit was the basic introduction to the topic I needed, succeeding in inspiring me to track down more books and information on the subject and making me wish I’d been paying attention all along.
But I’m a grown up now. No excuses. Any ignorance is now my own responsibility so I picked up this photo history in the “Images of America” series Labor in Detroit which gives a chronological overview of the labor movement in Detroit through archival photos that brought to life the people and events from the dawn of industry to the rise of the automakers and beyond. This was a well-organized and packed with information, no small feat given that the only print was the few sentences for the captions of the many, many pictures. And the pictures are great, showing the faces and events in a real, visceral way that paragraphs of text never could. The numbers of workers involved in labor strikes, sit-ins, marches, and other actions was thrilling, as well as seeing the women involved in sit-ins and as support for strikers. There’s also plenty of photographic evidence of the strong labor activity by black auto workers and others from the beginning of Detroit’s industrial history. The authors cite their sources which I found especially helpful for planning further reading and for understanding where they were getting their information. Even though it clearly doesn’t include anything after its publication date of 2001, Labor in Detroit was the basic introduction to the topic I needed, succeeding in inspiring me to track down more books and information on the subject and making me wish I’d been paying attention all along.
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