Disruption in Detroit: Autoworkers and the Elusive Postwar Boom

Awards:   Winner of <DIV><I>Choice</I> Outstanding Academic Title, 2019</DIV> 2019
Author:   Daniel J. Clark
Publisher:   University of Illinois Press
ISBN:  

9780252083709


Pages:   266
Publication Date:   14 September 2018
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Our Price $60.99 Quantity:  
Add to Cart

Share |

Disruption in Detroit: Autoworkers and the Elusive Postwar Boom


Add your own review!

Awards

  • Winner of <DIV><I>Choice</I> Outstanding Academic Title, 2019</DIV> 2019

Overview

It is a bedrock American belief: the 1950s were a golden age of prosperity for autoworkers. Flush with high wages and enjoying the benefits of generous union contracts, these workers became the backbone of a thriving blue-collar middle class. It is also a myth. Daniel J. Clark began by interviewing dozens of former autoworkers in the Detroit area and found a different story--one of economic insecurity caused by frequent layoffs, unrealized contract provisions, and indispensable second jobs. Disruption in Detroit is a vivid portrait of workers and an industry that experienced anything but stable prosperity. As Clark reveals, the myths--whether of rising incomes or hard-nosed union bargaining success--came later. In the 1950s, ordinary autoworkers, union leaders, and auto company executives recognized that although jobs in their industry paid high wages, they were far from steady and often impossible to find.

Full Product Details

Author:   Daniel J. Clark
Publisher:   University of Illinois Press
Imprint:   University of Illinois Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.340kg
ISBN:  

9780252083709


ISBN 10:   0252083709
Pages:   266
Publication Date:   14 September 2018
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand   Availability explained
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Reviews

Well-written and well-researched, this book challenges and transforms the way we understand the immediate postwar era. Daniel Clark closely examines auto work and ordinary autoworkers, people whose lives have been overwhelmed by the narrative of postwar economic expansion and overlooked by most scholars. The vaunted economic boom was not the vehicle for the making of the Detroit middle class, Clark shows. Detroit autoworkers and their families experienced the same job instability and economic insecurity that had long shaped working-class life and labor. Attentive to gender and race, Clark offers an astute and cogent argument informed by wide and deep research in newspapers and close listening to and reading of oral histories. Providing a startling different perspective on the postwar boom and the alleged heyday of the United Auto Workers when high wages and benefits pushed autoworkers into the middle class, the book requires revision of modern American history as well as midcentury labor history. --Nancy Gabin, author of Feminism in the Labor Movement: Women and the United Auto Workers, 1935-1970 Essential. --Choice Exposes the myth of the prosperous postwar auto worker and deftly deals with the delicate interplay among larger national economic forces, auto industry and auto union policies, and the lives of those who labored and lived in the Motor City in the decade and a half after World War II. --Stephen Meyer, author of Manhood on the Line: Working Class Masculinities in the American Heartland Its careful consideration of large economic trends balanced with personal interviews provides readers with a good portrait of the actual struggles of what some have (perhaps mistakenly) called the 'aristocracy of American labor.' --The Michigan Historical Review


Well-written and well-researched, this book challenges and transforms the way we understand the immediate postwar era. Daniel Clark closely examines auto work and ordinary autoworkers, people whose lives have been overwhelmed by the narrative of postwar economic expansion and overlooked by most scholars. The vaunted economic boom was not the vehicle for the making of the Detroit middle class, Clark shows. Detroit autoworkers and their families experienced the same job instability and economic insecurity that had long shaped working-class life and labor. Attentive to gender and race, Clark offers an astute and cogent argument informed by wide and deep research in newspapers and close listening to and reading of oral histories. Providing a startling different perspective on the postwar boom and the alleged heyday of the United Auto Workers when high wages and benefits pushed autoworkers into the middle class, the book requires revision of modern American history as well as midcentury labor history. --Nancy Gabin, author of Feminism in the Labor Movement: Women and the United Auto Workers, 1935-1970 Exposes the myth of the prosperous postwar auto worker and deftly deals with the delicate interplay among larger national economic forces, auto industry and auto union policies, and the lives of those who labored and lived in the Motor City in the decade and a half after World War II. --Stephen Meyer, author of Manhood on the Line: Working Class Masculinities in the American Heartland


Author Information

Daniel J. Clark is an associate professor of history at Oakland University, Michigan. He is the author of Like Night and Day: Unionization in a Southern Mill Town.

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

No review item found!

Add your own review!

Countries Available

All regions
Latest Reading Guide

MRG2025CC

 

Shopping Cart
Your cart is empty
Shopping cart
Mailing List