Shows
Tales from the Reuther LibrarySeeking “Self-Determination” in Detroit: Housing, Race, and the Activism of the West Central Organization, 1964-1971Dr. Anna E. Lindner discusses the rise and subsequent downfall of the West Central Organization in Detroit, a coalition of civil rights organizations, community groups, and church congregations that sought to bring attention to housing inequality and other social issues in the 1960s. Although founded with good intent, the group’s aggressive lobbying gained short-term results but turned local media and government administrations against them, and the predominantly white liberal leaders in the organization’s first early years struggled to fully understand and address the systemic racism faced by Black Detroiters.
Lindner is an assistant professor of Medi...2025-07-0346 minTales from the Reuther LibrarySchools and the Rise of Mass Incarceration in a Post-Brown WorldDr. Matt Kautz explores how evolving school disciplinary practices, changes in crime reporting, and political pressure in the decades following school desegregation led to the rise of student suspensions, expulsions, dropouts, and the school-to-prison pipeline in Detroit and other cities. Kautz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Leadership and Counseling at Eastern Michigan University. His article “Schools and the Rise of Mass Incarceration in a Post-Brown World,” was published in the Summer 2024 issue of Harvard Educational Review.
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“Schools and the Rise of Mass Incarceration in a Post-Brown World”
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(U...2025-05-2950 minTales from the Reuther LibraryThe Worthy Wages Movement for Childcare WorkersDr. Justine Modica discusses the Worthy Wages movement centered in Seattle from the 1980s through the 2000s. Affiliated with SEIU, daycare directors and childcare workers in childcare centers and home-based daycares joined together to raise public awareness of the underfunding of daycare and lobby for increased state childcare subsidies, hoping to increase the wages and retention of skilled workers in a lowly-paid but critical field.
Modica is a Klarman Postdoctoral Fellow in History at Cornell University. She authored the article, “Worthy Wages in the Emerald City: Worker- and Director-Led Childcare Movements in Seattle, 1984–2006,” and is writing a book e...2025-04-1753 minTales from the Reuther LibraryAwaiting Their Feast: Latinx Food Workers and Activism from World War II to COVID-19Dr. Lori Flores discusses food systems in the US and Northeast region specifically, illuminating how the nation has developed a growing appetite for both Latinx food and Latinx food laborers, who are often underpaid and under-nourished as they help grow, process, transport, prepare, and serve food across the country. Flores is an associate professor of history at Stony Brook University and author of Awaiting Their Feast: Latinx Food Workers and Activism from World War II to COVID-19..
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Awaiting Their Feast: Latinx Food Workers and Activism from World War II to COVID-19
Related...2025-02-2042 minTales from the Reuther LibraryThe Carter Presidency and Gay RightsDr. Harris Dousemetzis shares the extraordinary impact of U.S. President Jimmy Carter on gay rights in the 1970s and early 1980s, from instituting policies to prevent anti-gay discrimination of most federal employees to facilitating IRS nonprofit status for gay rights organizations and community centers, enabling them to receive federal funding for educational materials and health clinics, among other things. While Carter’s actions were unprecedented and pivotal, Dousemetzis also describes how they created a strong backlash among Evangelicals opposed to gay rights.
Dr. Dousemetzis is a lecturer at the University of Sunderland and a tutor at Du...2025-01-1652 minTales from the Reuther LibraryA Fond Farewell with Audiovisual Archivist Mary WallaceReuther Library audiovisual archivist Mary Wallace has worn many hats over the past 27 years, from student page in the Reading Room to interim director and chief weather-spotter and safety monitor. As she prepares to retire in January 2025, Wallace reflects on the changes she’s seen at the Reuther and in the field, shares a few of her favorite collections and reference requests, and retells some of the more entertaining stories of life at the Reuther.
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Walter P. Reuther Library
Related Collections:
WWJ / WDIV Film, Video, and Teleprompter Scripts (UAV001112)
Virtual Mo...2024-12-2357 minTales from the Reuther LibraryWhen Detroit Played the Numbers: Gambling’s History and Cultural Impact on the Motor CityDr. Felicia George explains how number lotteries in the city’s Black Bottom and Paradise Valley neighborhoods in the 20th century, although illegal and rife with exploitation, also raised some Black Detroiters out of poverty and created an important social support in a community stressed by racial discrimination and job insecurity.
Dr. George is an adjunct professor of anthropology at Wayne State University and the author of When Detroit Played the Numbers: Gambling’s History and Cultural Impact on the Motor City.
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When Detroit Played the Numbers: Gambling’s History and Cultural Impact...2024-10-1725 minTales from the Reuther LibraryBuilding Power, Breaking Power: The United Teachers of New Orleans, 1965-2008Dr. Jesse Chanin describes how the United Teachers of New Orleans (UTNO) gained power and influence in a region hostile to unions from the mid-1960s to the mid-2000s by building trust in the community with transparent and democratic decision-making and a focus on racial and economic justice to improve the lives of the New Orleans community. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, however, politicians and charter school advocates fired 7,500 educators in New Orleans, dismantling the city’s public education system and decimating the union.
Dr. Chanin is a postdoctoral researcher at the Coalition for Co...2024-09-0347 minTales from the Reuther LibraryDetroit Industry and ‘The Mural’Dr. Jay Cephas considers two Depression-era murals in Detroit and their contrasting messaging about workers, labor, and power. Diego Rivera’s famed Detroit Industry murals, commissioned by Edsel Ford for the Detroit Institute of Arts in 1932, champions industrial and technological progress and the factory workers who fueled it. In contrast, Walter Speck and Barbara Wilson’s 1937 untitled mural, which originally hung in the UAW Local 174 union hall and now hangs behind the reference desk at the Reuther Library, champions the progress those industrial workers made laboring for their own welfare via union action.
Dr. Cephas is Assistant Prof...2024-07-2531 minTales from the Reuther LibraryOrganizing Your Own: The White Fight for Black Power in DetroitDr. Say Burgin explains that contrary to the common belief that white activists were purged from the Black freedom movement in the mid-1960 and 1970s, Black-led organizations in Detroit – including the Northern Student Movement, the City-Wide Citizens Action Committee, and the League of Revolutionary Workers—called on white activists to organize within their own white networks to support Black self-determination in education, policing, employment, and labor unions. Burgin is an assistant professor of history at Dickinson College and author of Organizing Your Own: The White Fight for Black Power in Detroit.
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Organizing Your Own: The...2024-06-1338 min
Hour Of DecisionHour of Decision Episode 25: Walter Reuther: “For a Soviet America”Lew explores the career of United Autoworkers (UAW) union leader Walter Reuther, and the central role he played in the implementation of the Fabian strategy in America. As a young man, he spent time in the communist USSR, wrote glowing letters home about his experience, signing one of them “Yours for a Soviet America.”Reuther was a central figure in the bloody battles against GM, Chrysler, and the prolonged struggle against Henry Ford. After the war, in the charged anti-communist atmosphere in America, Reuther ditches the communists, turning on a dime as do many Fabian leftists in sudde...2024-05-1635 minTales from the Reuther LibraryHillbilly Highway: Charting White Migration from Appalachia to the Industrial MidwestDr. Max Fraser shares the often overlooked story of the “hillbilly highway,” the route nearly eight million poor, rural, white Americans took in the 20th century from economically depressed areas in the Southeastern and Southern United States toward higher paying factory jobs in the Upper South and Midwest. He explains how the social advancement and marginalization they experienced transformed American culture, the labor movement, and today’s political landscape.
Dr. Fraser is an assistant professor of History at the University of Miami. His book Hillbilly Highway: The Transappalachian Migration and the Making of a White Working Class receiv...2024-05-0943 minTales from the Reuther LibraryBetty Friedan’s Labor RootsRachel Shteir shares how Betty Friedan’s early experience as a labor reporter for the Federated Press informed her later work as a famed women’s rights activist, author of The Feminine Mystique, and co-founder of the National Organization for Women. Although Friedan’s activism shaped the American women’s movement in the latter half of the 20th century, Shteir also notes that her pugilistic attitude ignored or antagonized would-be allies, including non-white women and lesbians. Shteir is head of dramaturgy and dramatic criticism in the Theatre School at DePaul University and is the author of Betty Friedan: Magnificent Disrupte...2024-03-2833 minTales from the Reuther LibraryThe UAW’s Southern Gamble in Foreign-Owned FactoriesDr. Stephen Silvia explains how the UAW built a cooperative relationship with workers’ councils and unions at foreign automotive companies, but has nevertheless struggled to organize those companies’ vehicle factories in the southern United States since the 1990s due to anti-labor politics and the companies’ shared anti-union playbooks. Silvia is a professor in the School of International Service at American University and author of The UAW’s Southern Gamble: Organizing Workers at Foreign-Owned Vehicle Plants.
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The UAW’s Southern Gamble: Organizing Workers at Foreign-Owned Vehicle Plants
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UAW President’s Office: Doug...2024-03-0457 min
Labor Radio-Podcast WeeklyStick Together; Power at Work; Heartland Labor Forum; Tales from the Reuther LibraryOn today’s show: The spontaneous uprising of Bangladeshi garment workers; an end-of-year labor roundup with Kim Kelly, Michael Sainato and Jordan Zakarin; the Heartland Labor Forum’s annual Crystal Ball show; and Matthew Lassiter on police violence and racial justice in the Civil Rights Era.
This week’s featured shows are Stick Together, Australia's only national radio show focusing on industrial, social and workplace issues, distributed nationally on the Community Radio Network; the Power at Work Podcast, from the Power At Work Blog, produced by the Burnes Center for Social Change; Heartland Labor Forum, which comes to us...2023-12-2928 minTales from the Reuther LibraryDetroit Under Fire: Police Violence and Racial Justice in the Civil Rights EraDr. Matthew Lassiter shares stories uncovered in Detroit Under Fire: Police Violence, Crime Politics, and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Civil Rights Era, a collaborative digital exhibit created by undergraduate history students documenting nearly 200 civilians killed between 1957 and 1973 by the Detroit Police Department and other law enforcement agencies in the city. Because identifying information was rarely included in official reports or the city’s mainstream media, the students instead searched the archives of local activists and community organizations to identify the victims and the circumstances of their deaths. In the process, they also found that “get-tough” policies, invest...2023-12-1444 minTales from the Reuther LibraryLabor Radical Harry Bridges and the Cold War Ire of the US GovernmentIn the second of a two-part series, Dr. Robert Cherny recounts how immigrant Harry Bridges successfully led the powerful International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) for four decades beginning in the 1930s, even as his militant unionism and association with communists placed him at odds with the American government during the Cold War and at the center of several deportation hearings.
Cherny is professor emeritus at San Francisco State University and author of Harry Bridges: Labor Radical, Labor Legend.
Related Collections:
CIO Office of the Secretary-Treasurer Records
Civil Rights Congress of Michigan Records2023-11-0947 minTales from the Reuther LibraryLabor Legend Harry Bridges and the Pacific Coast Longshore Strike of 1934In the first of a two-part series, Dr. Robert Cherny explains how the early life of Australian immigrant Harry Bridges prepared him to lead the groundbreaking 1934 Pacific Coast longshoremen’s and maritime workers’ strikes in the United States, later becoming the first president of the powerful International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU).
Cherny is professor emeritus at San Francisco State University and author of Harry Bridges: Labor Radical, Labor Legend.
Related Collections:
CIO Office of the Secretary-Treasurer Records
Civil Rights Congress of Michigan Records
Industrial Workers of the World Records
M.A. W...2023-11-021h 09Tales from the Reuther LibraryTaming the Octopus: Eli Black and the Search for Social Responsibility at the United Fruit / United Brands CompanyDr. Matt Garcia traces the legacy of Eli Black, a former rabbi who, as CEO of United Fruit/United Brands Company in the late 1960s and early 1970s, attempted to instill corporate social responsibility into the notorious fruit conglomerate before ending his life following a series of business setbacks and looming corruption scandals. Garcia is the Ralph and Richard Lazarus Professor of History, Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies, and Human Relations at Dartmouth College, and author of Eli and the Octopus: The CEO Who Tried to Reform One of the World’s Most Notorious Corporation.
Related Co...2023-09-1455 minTales from the Reuther LibraryToxic Debt: An Environmental Justice History of DetroitDr. Josiah Rector explains that since the 1880s a confluence of unregulated industrial capitalism and racist practices in housing and employment in Detroit created pollution and environmental disasters disproportionately affecting the poor, working class, and particularly African Americans. He explores the resulting environmental justice movements in Detroit as residents have fought for clean air, water, and improved public health amid government and corporate divestment and Detroit’s 2013 bankruptcy. Rector is an assistant professor of urban, environmental, and labor history at the University of Houston and author of Toxic Debt: An Environmental Justice History of Detroit.
Related Resources2023-06-1554 minTales from the Reuther LibraryLatinx Encounters: How Mexicans, Mexican Americans, and Puerto Ricans Made the Modern MidwestDr. Juan I. Mora examines three groups of Latinxs as they used postwar migration, temporary guest-worker programs, and agricultural labor to redefine migrant power, justice, and rights in the twentieth century Midwest, and particularly in Michigan. He shows that Latinx migrants melded distinct claims to U.S. citizenship, ethnic identity, and labor rights through conflicts over access to intermediary influence, shifting processes of racialization, and the politics of foodways. Mora is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Research on Race and Ethnicity in Society and a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Indiana University.
2023-05-1257 minTales from the Reuther LibraryUnder the Iron Heel: Repressing the IWW and Free SpeechAhmed White explains how industrialists and government officials in the United States used violence and legal maneuverings to stultify the Industrial Workers of the World and silence its members in the early twentieth century. White teaches labor and criminal law at University of Colorado Boulder and is the author of Under the Iron Heel: The Wobblies and the Capitalist War on Radical Workers, which received the International Labor History Association Book of the Year Award in 2022.
Related Collections:
Industrial Workers of the World Records
Nicolaas Steelink Papers
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Under the Iron...2023-02-2758 minTales from the Reuther Library“Girls, We Cannot Lose!”: Midwestern Black Women Activists During the Great DepressionDr. Melissa Ford explores the influence of working-class Black women in Detroit, St. Louis, and Cleveland on the development of Black radicalism in the American Midwest during the Great Depression.
Ford is an associate professor of African American history at Slippery Rock University and author of A Brick and a Bible: Black Women’s Radical Activism in the Midwest during the Great Depression.
Related Collections:
Black Workers in the Labor Movement Oral Histories
2023-01-1949 minTales from the Reuther Library“No Labor Dictators For Us”: Revisiting Anti-Union Forces in the Flint Sit-Down StrikeWhile the 1936-1937 Flint Sit-Down is usually viewed as a pivotal success for the UAW, Dr. Gregory Wood considers more closely the influence of anti-union workers and the General Motors-supported Flint Alliance both during and after the strike. Wood is an associate professor and chair of the history department at Frostburg State University. His research will be featured in a forthcoming article in the Michigan Historical Review titled, “’No Labor Dictators for Us’: Anti-Union Workers During the Flint Sit-Down Strikes.”
Related Collections:
Henry Kraus Papers
Flint Auto Worker
Reuther Library Oral History Collections
Relate...2022-12-2223 minTales from the Reuther LibraryHeard It On the News: Preserving 20th Century Detroit History Through Local NewscastsReuther Library audiovisual archivist Mary Wallace discusses the Library’s WWJ / WDIV Film, Video, and Teleprompter Scripts collection, which captures seven decades of news, current events, politics, and community life as reported by the Detroit news station from the 1920s through 1990s. Related Collections: WWJ / WDIV Film, Video, and Teleprompter Scripts Episode Credits Producers: … Continue reading Heard It On the News: Preserving 20th Century Detroit History Through Local Newscasts2022-11-1731 minTales from the Reuther LibraryNo Equal Justice: The Legal and Civil Rights Legacy of George W. Crockett Jr.Peter Hammer describes the life and legacy of civil rights icon George W. Crockett, Jr. A Black lawyer who fought racism and defended constitutional rights in landmark cases in the 1940s through the 1960s, Crockett brought his ethos to the Detroit Recorder’s Court during his time on the bench from 1966 through 1978, and to his decade of service in the 1980s as a Congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Hammer is an A. Alfred Taubman Endowed Chair in the Wayne State University Law School and director of the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights. Wi...2022-10-1340 minTales from the Reuther LibraryA Miasma of Metals: The Steelworkers’ Environmental Call Following the Donora Smog of 1948Louise Milone recounts how smog produced by the southwestern Pennsylvanian steel industry poisoned the air in the Monongahela Valley town of Donora on November 1, 1948, killing more than 22 people and sickening thousands more. Exploring the response of the US Steel Corporation, employees, and Donora residents, Milone explains how the United Steelworkers of America union pushed for an investigation and improved environmental and health and safety regulations following the disaster. Milone is a Ph.D. candidate in the University of Georgia Department of History.
Related Collections:
Olga Madar Papers
Harvey O’Connor Papers
UAW President’s Offi...2022-09-0232 minTales from the Reuther LibraryA “Most Conscientious and Considerate Method”: Grosse Pointe’s Gross Post-War Housing Point SystemEmma Maniere describes how homeowners associations in Grosse Pointe, an affluent suburb bordering Detroit, developed a point system following the Second World War to rank and exclude prospective homebuyers to maintain the community’s Anglo Christian whiteness and affluence. The point system, which ranked nativity and ethnicity, accent, skin tone, and occupation, among other measures, was dismantled in 1960 but left a pernicious legacy that continues to reverberate in the community today. Maniere is a doctoral candidate in the history program at New York University.
Related Collections:
ACLU of Michigan and Metropolitan Detroit Branch Records
Ka...2022-08-1128 minTales from the Reuther LibraryLabor’s End: Automation’s Failed Promise of FreedomDr. Jason Resnikoff explains that the rise of automation in the mid-20th century workplace was heralded as a way to free workers from manual labor, but resulted instead in the intensification of human labor and the degradation of workers’ protections and powers. Resnikoff is a core lecturer in the History Department at Columbia University and author of Labor’s End: How the Promise of Automation Degraded Work.
Related Collections:
UAW archival collections
Detroit Revolutionary Movements Records
James and Grace Lee Boggs Papers
Related Resources:
Labor’s End: How the Promise of Aut...2022-07-1445 minTales from the Reuther LibraryDetroit vs. Everybody: Exploring Race, Place, and Black Superheroes in DC ComicsDr. Vincent Haddad explains that while Detroit has often served as the inspiration for crime-ridden settings in comics, DC Comics rose above those stereotypes with black superheroes Amazing-Man in the 1980s series All-Star Squadron and the Cyborg solo series in the 2010s. He describes how those two series represented Detroit and issues of race, policing, and culture in a more historically-informed and nuanced manner.
Haddad is an associate professor of English at Central State University in Ohio, and the author of “Detroit vs. Everybody (Including Superheroes): Representing Race through Setting in DC Comics,” published in Inks: The Jour...2022-06-1639 min
Cars and ComradesWalter Reuther Part 7 with Turn LeftistPart seven (and the last) of our seven-part series on the life and work of Walter Reuther with the Turn Leftist podcast.Who was Walter Reuther and why might he be important to leftist car enthusiasts? Walter was a labor organizer who became the President of the United Auto Workers (UAW) as well as the Congress of Industrial Organisations (CIO). Walter had a broad vision for what the labor movement could achieve for working people and he was at the forefront of the labor struggle throughout most of the 20th century. Walter was a Socialist, although he...2022-06-012h 52Tales from the Reuther LibraryDetroit Remains: Using Historical Archeology to Connect Detroit’s Past to Its PresentDr. Krysta Ryzewski explains how historical archaeology digs at famous Detroit locales – including the Little Harry speakeasy, the Blue Bird Inn, and the Grande Ballroom – have clarified how underrepresented communities of Detroit experienced and responded to the Great Migration, changing economic forces, and a shifting political and social landscape in the 20th century. Ryzweski is an associate professor and chair of the Anthropology Department at Wayne State University, and author of Detroit Remains: Archaeology and Community Histories of Six Legendary Places.
Related Collections:
Virtual Motor City / Detroit News Photograph Collection
Related Resources:
Detroit Rema...2022-05-2450 min
Cars and ComradesWalter Reuther Part 6 with Turn LeftistPart six of our seven-part series on the life and work of Walter Reuther with the Turn Leftist podcast.Who was Walter Reuther and why might he be important to leftist car enthusiasts? Walter was a labor organizer who became the President of the United Auto Workers (UAW) as well as the Congress of Industrial Organisations (CIO).Walter had a broad vision for what the labor movement could achieve for working people and he was at the forefront of the labor struggle throughout most of the 20th century.Walter was a Socialist, although...2022-04-222h 51Tales from the Reuther LibraryEnvironmental Activism in Deindustrialized DetroitBrandon Ward explains how Detroit residents, community organizations, and the labor movement, alarmed by the pollution remaining in Detroit’s deindustrialized era that mostly heavily impacted Black Americans and the working class, worked together from the 1970s onward to create a healthier, greener, and more livable city.
Ward is a lecturer at Perimeter College at Georgia State University and author of Living Detroit: Environmental Activism in an Age of Urban Crisis.
Donations to the Walter P. Reuther Library Endowment Fund are gratefully accepted to support this podcast and enhance access to the Reuther Library’s coll...2022-04-1952 min
Cars and ComradesWalter Reuther Part 5 with Turn LeftistPart five of our deep dive into the life and work of Walter Reuther with Turn Leftist.This episode mostly covers the 1950s and Reuther's rise to the top of the UAW and CIO, and his brokering of the AFL-CIO merger.Who was Walter Reuther and why might he be important to leftist car enthusiasts? Walter was a labor organizer who became the President of the United Auto Workers (UAW) as well as the Congress of Industrial Organisations (CIO).Walter had a broad vision for what the labor movement could achieve...2022-02-072h 30
Cars and ComradesWalter Reuther Part 4 with Turn LeftistPart four of our deep dive into the life and work of Walter Reuther with the Cars and Comrades.Who was Walter Reuther and why might he be important to leftist car enthusiasts? Walter was a labor organizer who became the President of the United Auto Workers (UAW) as well as the Congress of Industrial Organisations (CIO). Walter had a broad vision for what the labor movement could achieve for working people and he was at the forefront of the labor struggle throughout most of the 20th century.Walter was a Socialist, although he was...2022-01-152h 10Tales from the Reuther LibraryBargaining for the Common Good: Milton Tambor Reflects on 50 Years in Labor and Social ActivismLabor leader and social activist Milton Tambor discusses his life’s work in Detroit since the 1950s as a social worker; AFSCME local union president, staff representative and assistant education director; and teaching faculty in both labor studies and social work at Wayne State University and other institutions. He also discusses the intersection of labor and social political movements through his involvement in organizations such as the Detroit Coalition to End the War Now, the Michigan Labor Committee on Central America, and the Democratic Socialists of America in both Detroit and Atlanta. Tambor recently published a memoir titled A De...2022-01-1452 min
Cars and ComradesWalter Reuther Part 2 with Turn LeftistPart two of our deep dive into the life and work of Walter Reuther with the Turn Leftist podcast. Who was Walter Reuther and why might he be important to leftist car enthusiasts? Walter was a labor organizer who became the President of the United Auto Workers (UAW) as well as the Congress of Industrial Organisations (CIO). Walter had a broad vision for what the labor movement could achieve for working people and he was at the forefront of the labor struggle throughout most of the 20th century. Walter was a Socialist, although he was very much against communism...2022-01-022h 23
Cars and ComradesWalter Reuther Part 1 with the Turn Leftist PodcastWho was Walter Reuther and why might he be important to leftist car enthusiasts? Walter was a labor organizer who became the President of the United Auto Workers (UAW) as well as the Congress of Industrial Organisations (CIO). Walter had a broad vision for what the labor movement could achieve for working people and he was at the forefront of the labor struggle throughout most of the 20th century. Walter was a Socialist, although he was very much against communism. In this deep dive, we take an honest look at both the successes and failures of Walter's approach to...2022-01-022h 14
Cars and ComradesWalter Reuther Part 3 with Turn LeftistPart three of our deep dive into the life and work of Walter Reuther with the Turn Leftist podcast. Who was Walter Reuther and why might he be important to leftist car enthusiasts? Walter was a labor organizer who became the President of the United Auto Workers (UAW) as well as the Congress of Industrial Organisations (CIO). Walter had a broad vision for what the labor movement could achieve for working people and he was at the forefront of the labor struggle throughout most of the 20th century. Walter was a Socialist, although he was very much against communism...2021-12-291h 53Tales from the Reuther LibraryAnd Many More: Celebrating SEIU’s Centennial in the ArchivesReuther Library SEIU archivist Sarah Lebovitz shares highlights from the union’s first 100 years, and explains how its archives at the Reuther Library have supported labor organizing and centennial celebrations.
Related Collections:
SEIU District 925 Records
SEIU Executive Office: George Hardy Records
SEIU Executive Office: John Sweeney Records
SEIU Executive Office: William McFetridge Records
SEIU Historical Records
SEIU Photographs
SEIU Publications
Related Resources:
Blog: SEIU at Churchill Downs
Blog: SEIU’s Justice for Janitors MOPSCAR Awards
Blog: Notable Women of SEIU
Podcast: SEIU: A Successful Unio...2021-12-2039 minTales from the Reuther LibraryBrewing a Boycott: Collective Activism and the Decades-Long Coors Beer BoycottDr. Allyson Brantley explains how large and diverse groups joined together for a decades-long consumer boycott of the Coors Brewing Company to fight against its union busting, discriminatory hiring practices, and politics. Brantley is an assistant professor of history and Director of Honors & Interdisciplinary Initiatives at the University of La Verne and author of Brewing a Boycott: How a Grassroots Coalition Fought Coors and Remade American Consumer Activism.
Related Collections:
AFSCME Office of the President: Gerald W. McEntee Records
AFT President’s Office: Albert Shanker Records
Bob Barber Papers
Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FL...2021-11-1844 minTales from the Reuther LibraryCommunists and Community in Wartime DetroitDr. Ryan Pettengill explains how communist activists in Detroit worked with labor activists during and after the Second World War to enhance the quality of life in the community by advocating for civil rights, affordable housing, protections for the foreign-born, and more. Pettengill is a Professor of History at Collin College and author of Communists and Community: Activism in Detroit’s Labor Movement, 1941-1956.
Related Collections:
Don Binkowski Papers
Nat Ganley and Saul Wellman Papers
Maurice Sugar Papers
Sam Sweet Papers
Shelton Tappes Papers
Edith Van Horn Papers
UAW Fa...2021-10-2956 minTales from the Reuther LibrarySandfuture: Exploring Minoru Yamasaki, Lost Humanist Architecture, and the Rise of Sick Buildings and Sick PeopleArtist and author Justin Beal shares the career and legacy of influential yet often forgotten architect Minoru Yamasaki. Yamasaki’s human-centered architectural design was often overrun by economics, politics, and capitalist symbolism, leading to his two most well-known developments, the Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis and the World Trade Center in New York City, to come crashing down on live television some thirty years apart–one at the hands of bureaucrats, the other by terrorists. Beal also considers how modern architectural trends and a changing climate have created a generation of buildings that ignore human needs, contributing to sick...2021-09-3048 minTales from the Reuther LibraryMidnight in Vehicle City: Modern Lessons From the Flint Sit-Down StrikeEdward McClelland recounts the gripping details of the Flint sit-down strike, and considers what we can learn today from the strikers’ successful fight for shared prosperity in 1936-1937. McClelland is a journalist, historian, and author of Midnight in Vehicle City: General Motors, Flint, and the Strike That Built the Middle Class.
Related Collections:
Flint Labor Records
Genora and Sol Dollinger Papers
Henry Kraus Papers
Hy Fish Papers
Joe Walton Papers
Roy Reuther Oral History
Victor G. Reuther Papers
Wyndham Mortimer Papers
Related Resources:
Midnight in Vehicle Ci...2021-08-1434 minTales from the Reuther LibraryBlaming Teachers: How America Simultaneously Professionalized and Patronized EducationDr. Diana D’Amico Pawlewicz explains how the push to professionalize and standardize educators beginning in the mid-1800s, without granting them decision-making power, has made them the public face of foundering school policies developed and implemented by local school administrators and state and national policymakers. Widespread policy narratives that schools and teachers acting as mother figures can solve communities’ problems have inherently placed the public’s blame on teachers when those problems don’t disappear, as seen most recently during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. D’Amico Pawlewicz is an assistant professor in the Educational Foundations and Research P...2021-07-0946 min
History conspiracy podcastThe Death of Walter Reuther ...... from the Dave Emory archivesWalter Philip Reuther was an American leader of organized labor and civil rights activist who built the United Automobile Workers (UAW) into one of the most progressive labor unions in American history. He saw labor movements not as narrow special interest groups but as instruments to advance social justice and human rights in democratic societies. He leveraged the UAW's resources and influence to advocate for workers' rights, civil rights, women's rights, universal health care, public education, affordable housing, environmental stewardship and nuclear nonproliferation around the world. He believed in Swedish-style social democracy and societal change through nonviolent civil disobedience. He c...2021-07-0957 minTales from the Reuther LibraryFrom Bargaining Table to Diplomatic Table: Leonard Woodcock in China (Part 2)After Leonard Woodcock stepped down as president of the UAW in 1977, U.S. President Jimmy Carter sent him to Beijing as a diplomatic envoy and ultimately as the nation’s first ambassador to the People’s Republic of China. In the second of a two-part interview, his wife Sharon Woodcock talks about Deng Xiaoping’s visit to the United States; Leonard Woodcock’s work after leaving the State Department, including his work on the Board of Governors of Wayne State University; and his support of the Reuther Library. UAW archivist Gavin Strassel discusses Leonard Woodcock’s archival collections at the Reuthe...2021-05-2741 minTales from the Reuther LibraryFrom Bargaining Table to Diplomatic Table: Leonard Woodcock in China (Part 1)After Leonard Woodcock stepped down as president of the UAW in 1977, U.S. President Jimmy Carter sent him to Beijing as a diplomatic envoy and ultimately as the nation’s first ambassador to the People’s Republic of China. In the first of a two-part interview, his wife Sharon Woodcock talks about Leonard’s labor ideals and shares tales about their time in the ambassador’s residence, including his unusually close relationship with Deng Xiaoping, the leader and architect of modern China.
Related Collections:
Leonard Woodcock Papers
Sharon Woodcock Oral History
UAW President’s Office: Le...2021-05-0741 minTales from the Reuther LibraryJane Street and the Rebel Maids of DenverHistorian Jane Little Botkin explains how Jane Street, a single mother, firebrand, and little-known IWW organizer, orchestrated a 1916 housemaids’ rebellion in Denver. To fight for better pay and working conditions in the elite Capitol Hill neighborhood, Street worked with—and later, despite—the IWW to blacklist and shame the area’s worst domestic employers, thereby disrupting the comfort and reputations of some of Denver’s most influential and powerful families.
Author of The Girl Who Dared to Defy: Jane Street and the Rebel Maids of Denver and Frank Little and the IWW: The Blood That Stained an American F...2021-04-1546 minTales from the Reuther LibraryIt’s Been a Year: Reuther Library Director Aliqae Geraci Recalls Her First Year on the Job During a Global PandemicAliqae Geraci explains that she had big plans when she became director of the Reuther Library a year ago, and those plans were immediately scuttled when her first day on the job coincided with the first day Wayne State University’s on-campus operations were suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She describes how she and the Reuther pivoted in the past year to safely provide patrons virtual access to physical archival materials, and contemplates how the pandemic will and won’t change the Reuther’s services in the future. Geraci also shares how she became involved in labor libraries, and wh...2021-03-1842 minTales from the Reuther LibraryBootlegged Aliens: How Undocumented Immigrants from Canada in the 1920s Shaped American Immigration PolicyDr. Ashley Johnson Bavery explains how undocumented European immigrants coming over the Canadian border to work in the Detroit auto industry in the 1920s and 1930s spurred nativist discourse, influenced government policies toward illegal immigration, and shaped how business and labor unions used and positioned migrant labor. Dr. Bavery is Assistant Professor of History at Eastern Michigan University and author of Bootlegged Aliens: Immigration Politics on America’s Northern Border.
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AFL-CIO Metropolitan Detroit Records
Joe Brown Papers
Civil Rights Congress of Michigan Records
Richard Frankensteen Papers
International Institute of Metropolitan De...2021-01-2144 min
Empathy Media Lab70. Dan Golodner of Tales from the Reuther Library - Labor Radio Podcast Member Spotlight Series“...the klan almost took over Detroit..not only was Detroit a mecca for industrialists who wanted to keep power to themselves and one way to keep power is to produce hate but you have so many immigrants coming in the [19] 20s and 30s that they mistrust each other and to mistrust each other you use hate against each other. And one thing to use is also terrorism…”
Tales from the Reuther Library is a production of the Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Host, Dan Golodner is an Arc...2020-12-2122 minTales from the Reuther LibraryThe Long Deep Grudge: How the Haymarket “Riot” of 1886 Evolved into a Bitter Battle Between the Farm Equipment Workers Union and International Harvester in the Mid-Twentieth CenturyLabor historian Dr. Toni Gilpin explores how the McCormick family’s greed and union-busting in the late 19th century set the stage for a bitter battle between the International Harvester corporation and the radical Farm Equipment Workers union in the 1930s and 1940s. Although the union was absorbed by the United Auto Workers in 1955, Gilpin describes how the militancy bred into generations of International Harvester workers influenced UAW tactics into the 1970s.
Dr. Gilpin’s book, The Long Deep Grudge: A Story of Big Capital, Radical Labor, and Class War in the American Heartland, received a Taft Labo...2020-12-181h 08Tales from the Reuther LibraryThe Detroit Interracial Committee and Racial Pragmatism, 1944-1950Sean Henry discusses the Detroit Interracial Committee’s (IRC) pragmatic attempt to ease racial tensions in the city following the 1943 Detroit riots. Assuming that it could not completely eliminate racial antagonism, the IRC instead used its Community Barometer initiative and the Detroit Public Schools program for intercultural education to identify and manage systemic racial inequities in the city. Henry recently received an MA in History from the University of Chicago and is a college transition advisor in the Detroit Public Schools Community District. His article on the Detroit Interracial Committee was named the 2019 Graduate Student Essay Prize Winner in th...2020-12-0350 minTales from the Reuther LibrarySEIU: A Successful Union in an Era of Labor DeclineDr. Timothy Minchin explores how the SEIU nearly doubled its membership from 1980-1995, during a time of significantly declining numbers in most other American labor unions. Through an exploration of SEIU’s membership drives at nursing homes, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and its long-running Justice for Janitors campaign, Minchin credits the union’s growth to a combination of organizing, affiliation with independent unions, legislative advances for public employee unions, and the prevalence of low-wage jobs in the growing service sector. Dr. Minchin is a Professor of History at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia.
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SEIU...2020-11-0640 minTales from the Reuther LibraryWhen It Happened Here: Michigan and the Transnational Development of American Fascism, 1920-1945Salaina Catalano Crumb explains how American fascism developed and thrived in Michigan from the 1920s through the 1940s due to the influence of right-wing individuals and organizations swayed by the politics of Nazi Germany, including industrialist Henry Ford, anti-communist clergy members Father Coughlin and Reverend Gerald L.K. Smith, militant secret societies like the Black Legion, and immigrant veterans’ and fascist groups including the German American Bund. Crumb received dual MA/MSc degrees in International & World History at Columbia University and the London School of Economics, and works in the automotive field.
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Peter H. Am...2020-09-1053 minTales from the Reuther LibraryReading the Room: How César Chávez’s Early Life Prepared Him to LeadDr. Clay Walker explains how César Chávez’s lifeworld discourse – the language, culture, and experiences that shaped who he was and how he encountered and navigated the world – uniquely prepared him to lead the United Farm Workers and effectively communicate his message to a diverse audience. Dr. Walker is a senior lecturer in English and literacy studies at Wayne State University.
Related Collections:
UFW Office of the President: Cesar Chavez Records
Sydney D. Smith Papers
Related Resources:
Clay Walker – “Lifeworld Discourse, Translingualism, and Agency in a Discourse Genealogy of César Chávez’s...2020-08-2035 minTales from the Reuther LibraryMechanical Engineer To Booth Babe and Back Again: The Tragicomic Career of Wayne State Engineering Alum Lucille PietiSociety of Women Engineers archivist Troy Eller English shares the tragicomic story of Lucille Pieti, 1950 mechanical engineering alum and Miss Wayne University. Sidelined in technical writing despite her degree and experience, Pieti found her career veering farther and farther away from engineering in the mid-1950s as her bosses at Chrysler capitalized on her beauty rather than her brains. Molded into a spokeswoman at auto shows and in Hollywood, and giving specs on the Dodge La Femme’s pink umbrella instead of its engine block, Pieti reclaimed her engineering identity by leaving Chrysler, and the country, in 1955.
Re...2020-07-3045 minTales from the Reuther Library(Re)Introducing the Michigan Black History BibliographyReuther Library field archivist Dr. Louis Jones and former archives students and staff members Mattie Dugan and Allie Penn discuss the Reuther’s Michigan Black History Bibliography (MBHB) and the multi-year, student-led project to digitize a decades-old index card file. Meticulously compiled by Reuther librarian Roberta McBride in the 1970s, the MBHB cataloged well-known and obscure articles, theses, and other bibliographic sources about African American history in Michigan, including slavery in Detroit in the 1700s, Underground Railroad activity in the 1800s, the racism and discrimination Blacks faced in the 1900s, and African American community-building efforts throughout. Jones discusses the hi...2020-07-0926 minTales from the Reuther LibraryThis Union Cause: The Queer History of the United Automobile WorkersWayne State history PhD candidate James McQuaid discusses his research on the gradual cognizance and acceptance of queer autoworkers in the twentieth century, leading toward the UAW’s rapid embrace of LGBTQ-friendly policies and initiatives in the 1990s. He shares compelling stories of several queer auto workers, including: Billie Hill discovering a lesbian enclave in a Highland Park plant in the 1940s; Gary Kapanowski winning a 1973 union election despite being aggressively outed by a rival the day before; Joni Christian, a transgender woman whose union leadership at the GM Lordstown saved her job after returning to work following sexual re...2020-06-181h 01
The Detroit History PodcastSeason 3, Episode 4- They Sat Down and Rocked The Boat: Walter Reuther's Blue-Collar RevolutionHe came to Detroit as a high-school dropout raised in hardscrabble West Virginia. The career arc that followed -- from diemaker at Henry Ford's Ford Rouge Plant to confidant of American presidents -- marks Walter Reuther as a singular figure in in the U.S. labor movement. His vision of power-sharing and social progressivism drew the template for a blue-collar middle class. Even as technology has shrunk the workforce, and corruption allegations have stained a later generation of leaders, Reuther's place in American history is assured. This week's Detroit History Podcast traces the Reuther saga from his first days...2020-06-1530 minTales from the Reuther LibraryRace and Rebellion: Reexamining the Unlearned Lessons of the Kerner Report a Half Century LaterReuther Library outreach archivist Meghan Courtney discusses the conclusions of the 1968 Kerner Commission report in the context of today’s protests over race relations and police brutality. Following infamous rebellions in Detroit and Newark in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson established the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, chaired by Illinois governor Otto Kerner, to identify the root causes of urban racial unrest and prevent further violence in American cities. In its final report, the Commission placed the ultimate blame for so-called riots on lack of educational and economic opportunity for African Americans, ingrained institutional and societal racism, and militarized po...2020-06-0921 minTales from the Reuther LibraryDon’t Buy Where You Can’t Work: Black-Owned Businesses and the Housewives League of DetroitAllie Penn explains how her work on a grant-funded digitization project introduced her to the Housewives League of Detroit and led to a digital humanities project mapping Detroit Black-owned businesses from the 1930s through 1950s. Espousing the informal motto, “Don’t buy where you can’t work,” the Housewives League of Detroit was founded in 1930 by Fannie Peck to unite and empower Black housewives in the city while also strengthening the economic base of the Black community. An offshoot of her work on the Housewives League of Detroit collection, Penn has been mapping 1930s through 1950s Black-owned businesses, as advertis...2020-05-2123 minTales from the Reuther LibraryCreating that “A-Ha!” Moment: Using Archives and Primary Sources to Inspire Active Learning in the ClassroomOutreach archivist Meghan Courtney discusses the Reuther Library’s efforts to extend primary source instruction beyond history classes to inspire active learning in the classroom and empower students to become part of scholarly conversations. Through the Reuther’s innovative Archives and Primary Resource Education Lab (APREL), Wayne State economics students have studied Detroit-area public food programs to understand the intersection of economics and public health. Law students have examined police reports, eye-witness accounts, and contemporary reporting to weigh the evidence and draw their own conclusions about Detroit’s infamous 1969 New Bethel Incident. And K-12 teachers have learned how to integr...2020-04-3028 minTales from the Reuther LibraryPoorly Described Folders and Human Hair: Processing Report with ALUA Archivist Shae RaffertyShae Rafferty, the Reuther Library’s Labor and Urban Affairs Archivist, explains what happens behind the scenes to get donated collections ready for researchers. She discusses how collections are prioritized for processing, or organizing and describing them to make it easier for researchers to find the information they’re looking for. Rafferty describes some of the memorable things she has found in the collections she has processed, both pleasant (scrapbooks made by friends and Detroit theater ushers in the early 1900s) and unpleasant (human hair). She also recalls finding a deeply important but largely forgotten log of 1940s racial inci...2020-04-1614 min
Tales from the Reuther LibraryA Double Agent, A Conservative Affirmative Actionist, and A Black Nationalist Walk Into an Archive...: Field Report with Archivist Louis JonesAfter a brief hiatus we’re back! Reuther Library Field Archivist Louis Jones discusses fascinating collections recently opened at the Reuther Library. William Gernaey was hired by Chrysler and Ford in the 1930s and 1940s to infiltrate the Community Party in Michigan, which in turn hired him to spy on local unions. Ramon S. Scruggs, Sr. became the first African American manager at Michigan Bell Telephone Company in 1939, and later at AT&T, and although a conservative he advocated for affirmative action policies to raise opportunities for all African Americans. In 1965 Edward Vaughn opened the nation’s second black book...2020-03-2423 minTales from the Reuther LibraryUncovering Detroit Sound: Sippie Wallace and Son House in the Folklore ArchivesArchivist Bart Bealmear explains how he rediscovered recordings of famed African American blues musicians Sippie Wallace and Son House buried in the Reuther Library’s Folklore Archives. One of the most famous female blues vocalists in the 1920s, Sippie Wallace left the blues stage for four decades, choosing instead to sing and play the organ at Leland Baptist Church in Detroit. The recording Bealmear uncovered in the Folklore Archives captures Wallace demoing T.B. Blues in her living room in 1965, prior to her professional comeback in 1966. Bealmear also shares a clip from an April 18, 1965 WDTM interview with American Delta bl...2020-01-0222 minTales from the Reuther LibraryHidden in the Fields: Invisible Agricultural Child Labor in the American Southwest and the Limits of CitizenshipIvón Padilla-Rodríguez explains how labor laws helped define the modern boundaries of childhood and citizenship for both internationally and domestically migrant Latinx children working on American farms. Despite the child labor ban supposedly implemented in 1938 as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act and later laws, legal loopholes have allowed migrant Latinx children to continue to work on American farms today and have limited their access to education. Padilla-Rodríguez explains how advocates fought to enact social welfare initiatives for farmworking children along their migratory route, while teachers and women UFW organizers pursued legislative channels to try to...2019-12-0631 minTales from the Reuther LibraryPunishing Promise: School Discipline in the Era of DesegregationMatt Kautz explains how his observations while teaching in Detroit and Chicago led him to study the rise of suspensions and other disciplinary tactics in urban districts during school desegregation, fueling the school-to-prison pipeline. His research has focused particularly on Boston, Detroit, and Louisville during court-ordered desegregation, for which there is ample documentation of school disciplinary codes, statistics on usage against students, and responses from administrators, teachers, law enforcement, and the community. Kautz is a Ph.D. candidate at Teachers College, Columbia University
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AFT Local 231: Detroit Federation of Teachers Records
Detroit Commission on...2019-10-1723 minTales from the Reuther LibraryImmigrant Girl, Radical Woman: A Memoir of Wobbly Organizer Matilda Rabinowitz Robbins (Part 2)In the second of a two-episode series, artist Robbin Légère Henderson discusses the life of her grandmother, Matilda Rabinowitz Robbins, a Socialist, IWW organizer, feminist, writer, mother, and social worker. Henderson shares stories from Robbins’ autobiography, Immigrant Girl, Radical Woman: A Memoir from the Early Twentieth Century, explaining how the optimism of a 13-year-old immigrant from the Ukraine was soon undone by the realities of working in garment sweatshops on the East Coast, leading to Matilda Robbins’ brief but influential role as labor organizer for the International Workers of the World from 1912 to 1917.
Related Resources
...2019-09-1927 minTales from the Reuther LibraryImmigrant Girl, Radical Woman: A Memoir of Wobbly Organizer Matilda Rabinowitz Robbins (Part 1)In the first of a two-episode series, artist Robbin Légère Henderson discusses her exhibition of original scratchboard drawings featured in the illustrated and annotated autobiography of Henderson’s grandmother, Matilda Rabinowitz Robbins, a Socialist, IWW organizer, feminist, writer, mother, and social worker. Henderson shares stories from Robbins’ autobiography, Immigrant Girl, Radical Woman: A Memoir from the Early Twentieth Century, explaining how the optimism of a 13-year-old immigrant from the Ukraine was soon undone by the realities of working in garment sweatshops on the East Coast, leading to Matilda Robbins’ brief but influential role as labor organizer for the Inte...2019-09-1924 minTales from the Reuther Library“You Do It and You Teach It”: 90 Years of Dance at Wayne StateEva Powers, recently retired associate professor and former chair of the Maggie Allesee Department of Dance, share the fascinating history and bright future of the modern dance program at Wayne State University. One of the longest-running dance programs in the country, it traces its origins to the Dance Workshop, founded in 1928 by Professor Ruth Lovell Murray. A pioneer in dance education, Murray’s philosophy, “You do it and you teach it,” was evidenced by the Dance Workshop’s influence on a robust dance program within the Detroit Public Schools well into the 1970s. Powers also describes the bright future of the d...2019-09-0534 minTales from the Reuther LibraryLabor Feminism in the Federated Press, 1930s through 1950sDr. Victoria Grieve shares the lives of five pioneering female journalists of the Federated Press, a labor news service operating from the 1930s through the 1950s. In addition to their work for the Federated Press, Julia Ruuttila, Jessie Lloyd O’Connor, Virginia Gardner, and Miriam Kolkin also participated in leftist social and political movements, forming an important network that linked labor journalism with labor feminism and other political issues. Although not central to her current project, Grieve also discusses another famed journalist for the Federated Press, Betty Friedan. Grieve is an associate professor of history at Utah State University....2019-08-1531 minTales from the Reuther LibraryRise Up Detroit: Stories from the African American Struggle for PowerDr. Peter Blackmer discusses the launch of Rise Up Detroit (www.riseupdetroit.org), a website documenting the stories of activists in the Civil Rights and Black Power movements in Detroit. The website uses extensive oral history interviews and extensive archival resources from the Walter P. Reuther Library and other archives in the region to teach audiences of all ages about social justice issues through the history of the African American struggle for power. Rise Up Detroit is the second website created as part of “The North: Civil Rights and Beyond in Urban America,” an online educational tool conceived of and...2019-07-2529 minTales from the Reuther LibraryHooked On The Line: Addiction and the North American Workplace, 1965-1995 (Part 2)This is the second of a two-part interview with Dr. Jeremy Milloy about his forthcoming book, “Hooked On The Line: Addiction and the North American Workplace, 1965-95,” which explores the evolution of alcohol and drug addiction interventions in the workplace in the latter half of the 20th century. In this episode, Milloy considers workplace addiction interventions as a continuation of the encroachment of employers into employees’ private lives. Milloy describes the Reagan administration’s addiction intervention policies in the heavily federally-regulated railroad industry in the 1980s, and across industries the evolution from rehabilitative workplace addiction interventions to more punitive workplac...2019-07-0525 minTales from the Reuther LibraryHooked On The Line: Addiction and the North American Workplace, 1965-1995 (Part 1)This is the first of a two-part interview with Dr. Jeremy Milloy about his forthcoming book, “Hooked On The Line: Addiction and the North American Workplace, 1965-95,” which explores the evolution of alcohol and drug addiction interventions in the workplace in the latter half of the 20th century. In this episode, Milloy explores the early days of addiction intervention in the workplace through programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous, and then delves into an experimental, grant-funded UAW program in the 1970s called CHIP – Curb Heroin in Plants. An employee-led initiative, CHIP sought to treat heroin dependence in autoworkers through a combin...2019-07-0325 minTales from the Reuther LibraryThe Southern Airways Strike of 1960: ALPA’s Epic Battle Over Fair Pilot WagesAir Line Pilots Association archivist Bart Bealmear shares the history of ALPA’s shrewd 1960 strike against regional carrier Southern Airways over pilot wages. The strike began on June 5, 1960 and launched a costly two-year legal and tactical battle in which ALPA created its own competitor airline, Southern hired poorly-qualified scab pilots funded partially by the government, and the union strategically appealed a ruling in its own favor to preempt and scuttle Southern’s appeal. The founder and president of Southern Airways, Frank Hulse, finally capitulated in September 1962 when an investor in the airline threatened to sell a controlling stake to ALPA...2019-06-0416 minTales from the Reuther Library“Our Mothers Were the Shining Stars:” Perspectives on the Founders of the Society of Women Engineers, From a Daughter Who Grew Up Among ThemAlexis Jetter discusses her long-running project, a memoir unraveling the life and death of her mother Evelyn Jetter, a physicist, engineer, and in 1950 a founder of the Society of Women Engineers. After writing a master’s thesis and article in the 1980s that explored whether her mother’s death at age 52 was caused by her work with radiation at the Atomic Energy Commission and other companies — from the 1940s through 1970s — Alexis felt a growing desire to better understand Evelyn’s career in relation to her private life. Alexis describes her experience growing up in mid-century America among the founding me...2019-05-1631 minTales from the Reuther LibraryFrom the Vault: Metalsmith and Professor Phillip Fike and the Wayne State Academic MaceIn anticipation of the upcoming Wayne State University graduation ceremonies, University Art Curator Grace Serra and University Archivist Alison Stankrauff share the history of the university’s academic mace, a ceremonial and symbolic object carried during commencement exercises and other important events. The first mace, commissioned in the 1950s, has been lost to the ages. A second mace was created specifically for the university’s 1968 centennial. The third mace, currently in use, was crafted in 1984 by famed metalsmith and Wayne State professor Phillip Fike using ebony wood, bronze, and steel. As Serra and Stankrauff discovered during a visit to the...2019-04-2513 minTales from the Reuther Library“Taxing Limits: The Political Economy of American School Finance”Kelly Goodman speaks about the political history of funding education through local and state taxes. Having worked as a data analyst for the Detroit public schools, Goodman pursued graduate school to explore the structural issues surrounding questions she often found herself asking: why are some schools perceived to be bad? Why do some schools receive less funding than others? How does the economy work, and for whom?
To answer those questions, Goodman’s research for her dissertation, “Taxing Limits: The Political Economy of American School Finance,” reorients political history around enduring tensions between the control of decisions and th...2019-04-1129 minTales from the Reuther LibraryReevaluating Comparable Worth: AFSCME’s Pay Equity Campaigns of Yesteryear and TodayIn celebration of Equal Pay Day on April 2, 2019, podcast host and American Federation of Teachers archivist Dan Golodner recounts a time 100 years ago when male teachers tried, and failed, to prevent female teachers from bargaining for pay equity with their male peers. AFSCME archivist Stefanie Caloia discusses AFSCME’s groundbreaking equal pay campaigns for public employees in the 1970s and 1980s, particularly in Local 101 in San Jose, California and Council 28 in Washington state. To alleviate the large pay disparities between male and female public employees, the “comparable worth” of jobs typically held by men and jobs typically held by women...2019-03-2824 minTales from the Reuther LibraryDocumenting the Now: SEIU Archivist Sarah Lebovitz on Using Archives to Empower the FutureSEIU archivist Sarah Lebovitz explains how her background in anthropology informs her work as an archivist, preserving and revealing the experiences of underrepresented groups. She recounts successful SEIU actions including the implementation of needlestick protocol for healthcare workers and the organization of women office workers in SEIU District 925, which served as inspiration for the classic 1980 film 9 to 5, starring Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin, and Jane Fonda (whose oral history about the movement is available at the Reuther Library). Lebovitz describes the challenges and opportunities of archiving social media and digital content, and making archives more accessible and interactive for researchers...2019-03-0724 minTales from the Reuther Library“She Never Gave Up on This City:” Remembering Firebrand Detroit City Councilwoman Maryann MahaffeyLabor and Urban Affairs archivist Shae Rafferty shares how Maryann Mahaffey’s college summer job as recreation director at the Poston Japanese internment camp in Arizona in 1945 strengthened her resolve to fight against discrimination and help those in need later in her career in social work. In Detroit, Mahaffey created a tenants’ council while program director at Detroit’s Brightmoor Community Center in the 1960s, and established the Detroit Mayor’s Task Force on Malnutrition and Hunger while also teaching in the School of Social Work at Wayne State University. Although she lost her first campaign for public office in 1970...2019-02-1419 minTales from the Reuther LibraryDirty Socks, Goose Fat, and Hot Toddies: Cold Remedies from the Folklore ArchiveReuther Library archivists Elizabeth Clemens and Dan Golodner raise a glass for the regional and ethnic cold remedies collected in the Reuther’s extensive Folklore Archive, including whiskey, honey, lemon, hot toddies, goose fat poultices, the color red, horehound, catnip tea, dirty socks, and the more dangerous turpentine and kerosene — don’t try those at home! Clemens explores why the informants interviewed resorted to folklore remedies, why we still use them today, and why a few of these remedies just might work.
Related Collections
Folklore Archive
Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller...2019-01-2429 minTales from the Reuther Library“Long Memory is the Most Radical Idea in America:” Field Report from Reuther Collections Gatherer Louis JonesDr. Louis Jones discusses his work in building relationships to bring records into the Reuther Library documenting the American labor movement, civil rights, and the history of metropolitan Detroit. He explains how he brought three recent acquisitions into the Reuther Library: the papers of labor activist and folk singer Utah Phillips; the business records of civil rights organization NAACP Detroit; and the records of LGBT Detroit, an organization working to support and advocate for Detroit’s LGBT community. Jones is the field archivist for the Walter P. Reuther Library, and received a Ph.D. in history from Wayne State Un...2019-01-0325 minTales from the Reuther Library“Democracy is Sweeping Over the World:” Brookwood Labor College at the Nexus of Transnational Radicalism in the Jazz AgeWhile the 1920s are often described as “lean years” of progressive action, Andreas Meyris explains how the Brookwood Labor College in Katonah, New York served as a conduit for transnational radicalism in the 1920s while also training labor journalists and up-and-coming labor leaders like Walter Reuther and Rose Pesotta, setting the stage for the explosion of industrial unionism during the 1930s.
Meyris is a PhD candidate at the George Washington University, specializing in American labor and political history. He received a Sam Fishman Travel Grant in 2018 to examine the Brookwood Labor College Records at the Reuther Library in s...2018-12-1332 minTales from the Reuther LibraryThe First Noel (Night): How the Public Found Its Detroit Adventure in Noel Night, The City’s Festive Cultural Open HouseOutreach archivist Meghan Courtney traces the evolution of Detroit Adventure, a coalition of cultural organizations founded in 1958 to promote cultural conversations and experiences in metropolitan Detroit. In 1973 the organization debuted Noel Night, a free holiday open house in Detroit’s cultural center. Now run by Midtown Detroit, Inc., Noel Night features: performances and family activities at Detroit’s midtown museums, churches, and venues; holiday shopping; food; horse-drawn carriage rides; and more. Courtney offers a sneak preview of the Reuther Library’s contributions to the 46th Noel Night on December 1, 2018: live labor- and holiday-themed music from our talented University Library System...2018-11-2219 minTales from the Reuther LibrarySpeak to the Earth and it Shall Teach Thee: Catholic Nuns, the United Farm Workers Movement, and the Rise of an Environmental Ethic, 1962-1978John Buchkoski explores the role that religious women had in grassroots social activism in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly organizations of Catholic women religious. He explains how these groups supported United Farm Worker strikes by publicizing the environmental and health effects of pesticide use and popularizing produce boycotts across Catholic communities. Buchkoski is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oklahoma.
Related Collections
Reverend James Drake Papers
Reverend Victor P. Salandini Papers
National Farm Worker Ministry Records
Michigan Farm Worker Ministry Coalition Records
UFW Illinois Boycott: Chicago Office Records
UFW...2018-11-0823 minTales from the Reuther LibraryHalloween Spooktacular: Supernatural Stories from Detroit FolkloreArchivist Elizabeth Clemens shares spooky stories from the Reuther Library’s Folklore Archives about Le Loup Garou, or the Werewolf of Grosse Pointe; the Ghost of Tanglewood Bridge on Detroit’s Belle Isle; hauntings at home; and a helpful witch on Detroit’s McClellan Street who fetched groceries and hung her skin on the wall.
Archivist Bart Bealmear reminds us of Gundella the Green Witch, a local personality with an advice column in Detroit-area newspapers in the 1970s and 1980s.
More Information
Folklore Fridays: Halloween Edition
Gundella, The Green Witch of Detroit Explains How to...2018-10-2529 minTales from the Reuther LibraryInternational Architect Minoru Yamasaki’s Impact on the Wayne State CampusReuther Library archivist Shae Rafferty discusses the career of Minoru Yamasaki, renown architect of the original World Trade Center, the Dhahran International Airport in Saudi Arabia, and many buildings in the metropolitan Detroit area. University archivist Alison Stankrauff shares the history and design of four Yamasaki buildings on the campus of Wayne State University in Detroit.
Related Collections:
Minoru Yamasaki Papers
Wayne State University Office of the President Clarence B. Hilberry Records
Wayne State University Office of the President William Rea Keast Records
Wayne State University College of Education...2018-10-0423 minTales from the Reuther Library1933 Chicago Teachers Walkout: That Time Teachers Rioted With Textbooks and RulersAmerican Federation of Teachers archivist Dan Golodner tells guest host Bart Bealmear about the 1933 Chicago Teachers Walkout, when Chicago teachers joined together to demand that they be paid in actual money and on time, rather than in scrip that wasn’t honored by local businesses and banks during the Great Depression. Paid only nine times in four years because property taxes meant to fund Chicago schools were withheld by corrupt businesses, banks, and school board members, students and teachers staged public demonstrations on the streets and in bank lobbies, ultimately shaming the banks into releasing school funds and the sc...2018-09-1328 minTales from the Reuther LibraryAssembly Line Housing: Walter P. Reuther, George Romney, and Operation Breakthrough – Part 2In the second of a two-part series, Dr. Kristin M. Szylvian explains how racial segregation and the fear of declining property values ultimately scuttled Operation Breakthrough, a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Program early in the Nixon administration to use union-made manufactured housing to create racially- and economically-integrated housing communities throughout the country. She argues that Walter Reuther and programs like Operation Breakthrough, despite its collapse, have shown that non-profit and cooperative housing can be used to create home security in disadvantaged communities, especially in the lingering wake of the home finance crisis of 2007.
2018-08-2328 minTales from the Reuther LibraryAssembly Line Housing: Walter P. Reuther, George Romney, and Operation Breakthrough – Part 1In the first of a two-part series, Dr. Kristin Szylvian explains the role of the American labor movement, and UAW president Walter Reuther in particular, in lobbying for and shaping fair housing programs and legislation in Detroit and nationally after the Second World War. That influence paved the way for an unlikely alliance in the 1960s between Reuther and George Romney, the former Republican governor of Michigan, when they joined together in the late 1960s to launch Operation Breakthrough, a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development program to use union-made manufactured housing to alleviate the housing crisis...2018-08-0928 minTales from the Reuther LibraryI Am A Man: Photographer Richard Copley Recalls His First Assignment, 50 Years After the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers’ StrikeAFSCME archivist Stefanie Caloia shares photographer Richard Copley’s story of his very first and what he considers his most important assignment covering the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers’ Strike and, ultimately, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination and memorial march.
Related Collections
AFSCME Local 1733 Records
AFSCME Office of the President: Jerry Wurf Records
1968 Sanitation Workers Strike Image Gallery
Episode Credits
Producers: Dan Golodner and Troy Eller English
Host: Dan Golodner
Interviewee: Stefanie Caloia, excerpts from Richard Copley
Sound: Troy Eller English
...2018-07-2617 minTales from the Reuther LibraryJessica Levy on “Black Power, Inc.: Global American Business and the Post-Apartheid City”Jessica Levy explains how American corporations and black entrepreneurs worked together to forge a new politics linking American business with black liberation at home and abroad, focusing particularly on Leon Howard Sullivan, a civil rights leader and board member of General Motors who used his position to influence American corporate anti-apartheid actions.
Levy is a PhD Candidate at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
Related Collections
AFSCME Office of the Secretary-Treasurer: Bill Lucy Records
UAW Presidents Office: Owen Bieber Records
Coalition of Black Trade Unionists Records
...2018-07-1127 minTales from the Reuther LibraryAmerican Labor’s Anti-Apartheid Movement and Nelson Mandela’s 1990 U.S. TourMeghan Courtney, Reuther Library archivist, discusses Nelson Mandela’s 1990 visit to the U.S. as well as his long-term relationship with the American Labor Movement during his time in prison and after his release.
Mandela’s 12 day, 8 city fundraising tour in June 1990 took place just months after his release from 27 years in a South African prison and included visits to the AFL-CIO, AFSCME’s convention, UAW Local 600 and Tiger Stadium. Courtney explores Mandela’s philosophical alignment with the labor movement, labor’s support for anti-apartheid efforts in the U.S., and archival collections at the Reuther Library where rese...2018-06-2832 minTales from the Reuther LibraryJulia Gunn on Civil Rights Anti-Unionism: Charlotte and the Remaking of Anti-Labor Politics in the Modern SouthDr. Julia Gunn explains how progressive civil rights politics enabled Charlotte, North Carolina, to become the nation’s second-largest largest financial capital while obscuring its intransigence towards working-class protest, including public sector sanitation workers, bus drivers, firefighters, and domestic workers. Gunn is a Critical Writing Fellow in History at the University of Pennsylvania.
Gunn’s research visit was supported through a Sam Fishman Travel Grant, which provides up to $1,000 for scholars to support travel to Detroit to access archival records of the American labor movement in the Reuther Library. The award is named in honor of Sam Fish...2018-06-1426 minTales from the Reuther LibraryDawn Mabalon on UFW labor organizer Larry Itliong – Part 2In part 2 of our interview with Dawn Mabalon, she explains how her personal and familial interests influenced her research on the life and work of United Farm Workers labor organizer Larry Itliong, as well as her forthcoming children’s book, Journey for Justice: The Life of Larry Itliong. Dr. Mabalon is an Associate Professor at San Francisco State University and a co-founder of the the Little Manila Foundation, which “advocates for the historic preservation of the Little Manila Historic Site in Stockton, California and provides education and leadership to revitalize our Filipina/o American community.”
Her research draws...2018-05-3119 minTales from the Reuther LibraryDawn Mabalon on UFW labor organizer Larry Itliong – Part 1In this inaugural episode of Tales from the Reuther Library, Dawn Mabalon, an Associate Professor at San Francisco State University, shares her research on the life and work of Larry Itliong, a Filipino leader of California’s farm labor movement. She explains to Reuther archivist Dan Golodner the relationship between Filipino and Mexican farm workers, reframing this struggle in multi-ethnic and multi-generational contexts to be more inclusive of radical Filipino American perspectives. Her research draws heavily on the personal papers of Larry Itliong, as well as records from other farm labor leaders found in the United Farm Workers collections at...2018-05-2137 min