Arsenal of Democracy: WWII Detroit

Awesome site fine! I found this exhibit that is directly related to my topic. Specifically about a "No Strike Pledge" that occurred during WWII! Score!

Detroit Lib of MI-Golden Jubilee Exhibit-Politics and Pressure

Home page:
Detroit Lib of MI-Golden Jubilee Exhibit-Homepage
-from Detroit Archives

*Labor had a "No Strike Pledge" during the war

After the war a series of strikes broke out:

"Late 1945 and early 1946 had brought a wave of strikes as vying Labor and industrialists strategically positioned themselves in a new post-war economy. Organized labor in Michigan, spearheaded by the United Auto Worker's Walter Reuther, organized a massive strike which shut down General Motors for 113 days beginning on November 21, 1945. Parallel strikes in steel and coal mining brought the number of striking workers to three million in the period from November 1945 to June 1946.

In a car-starved nation that sorely needed new vehicles, the industry was effectively shut down. On the day the Jubilee began, the Detroit Times reported on its front page that "All automotive companies in the Detroit area except General Motors and Kaiser-Frazier announced that they would shut down until Monday... because of the acute parts shortage and the coal [strike] situation."

Despite the triumph of Detroit's wartime production, the post-war era began with disarray and conflict."

I had been wondering about strikes at DATP, and was unable to find anything about striking during the way, now I know why! I think that the No Strike Pledge was a given, considering it was support for the Allies in the war. Pretty interesting! This find has me pretty amped about my research.

Just thought I would throw this out here tonight before I head off to bed! See you all in class tomorrow!

Racism, Soujourner Housing Project, Riots

So, I definitely slept through my alarm this morning and didn't wake up until about 8:30, right when I should have been in HST 201. Bum deal!

Anyway, I have been really trying to narrow the focus of my paper. I think that the part of my topic that seems most abundant to research will be the influx of African American workers to the Detroit area to work at DATP. I have found some sources on housing projects, and race riots that I think will be helpful in learning more about the topic. I think my trip for the Library of Michigan will be happening either tomorrow afternoon, or Friday afternoon, depending on how long it will take me to write my analytical paper which is due Thursday for another history class. Papers, papers, papers! I am excited to find other sources that are not just limited and online. I also have to find some time to get into the archives!


The 1943 Race Riots
http://apps.detnews.com/apps/history/index.php?id=185

Sojourner Truth Housing Project (1st site of racial violence in as a result of increase in African American worker influx as Detroit became the "Arsenal of Democracy)

http://detroit1701.org/Sojourner%20Truth%20Housing%20Project.html


These two sites address both the issues of housing and race, as they went hand in hand during this time period in Detroit. I was thinking of doing a more broad topic, but I think that this has a lot of weight to it.

As stated in the Detroit News articles (link above):

"Unions did their best to keep production figures up and to keep the lid on confrontations, even though the Ku Klux Klan and the feared Black Legion were highly organized and visible in the plants.

      Overcrowded housing combined with government rent control further aggravated racial problems in the city."

1st person resources...

So, when I was leaving class today I was talking with our classmate (Alan Wolfe) about our research. I mentioned my topic was DATP. Turns out, he used to work there! Obviously not during the WWII era, but certainly an awesome resource (especially considering Alan was the first person I actually met at the MSU History Department meeting!)

So I am pretty excited. I am starting to keep my fingers crossed for the chance to interview people who experienced the influx of workers to Detroit for armament production, which Alan suggested he may be able to help with. I am also hoping to go down to the plant at some point and see the place first hand.

I think that reading Maya of Morganton and watching the Harlan County, U.S.A video, the information that had the highest impact on me personally, was seeing the effects of changes in the community through the eyes of people who had been through these changes, or struggles. While there is always bias in first hand accounts, I always think that the most compelling information comes from those who have a perspective close to the topic. I think that finding people either who worked in the plant, had family who worked in the plant, or whose community was shaped by the incoming workers (both women and African American) would offer a great perspective of the changing community, working conditions, motivations, and industry that I most likely will not find in archives or through articles on the internet, etc.


I am excited about this prospect, hopefully it works out!

-Stace

Time to hit the library....

So I spent some time today on the library website. I definitely need to get to the Michigan Library, because it has a lot of resources on the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant. Finding specifics about the community around this time is proving to be somewhat difficult, being that most of my searches bring up facts about tank production and output.

The thing that is pretty cool is seeing how the auto industry in the area adapted to start tank production. However, I am really excited to find more about the racism in Detroit at this time, and the influx of women working in the armament industry. I am hoping that some digging through archives I will find more group specific information. At this point I think I have hit a bit of a wall until I get into the archives and find some more specific and reliable information. Because the plant did not close until 1997, a lot of the information I am coming up with when I search online is about time post WWII, but I am determined and from what I found on the MI Library site, I should be able to find more that is specific to WWII.


Just a quick update on where I am in my research. I am sure this won't be the last time I feel like I have hit a dead end when searching in one resource, but hopefully other resources will provide what I am looking for!

See ya in class!

LIFE Magazine: How Detroit Won the War

I found an article online from LIFE that I think is going to be extremely helpful in finding direction for my community research. Because of the abundance of jobs provided by the war, Detroit became flooded with people seeking work. The conditions of workers from the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant (and other armament plants similar to it that produced other weaponry and planes). When thousands of men were called to war, one group that came into the work force was women, this is well known thanks to the "We Can Do It" poster. Women stepped up to the plate in a big way when men went overseas to support production of tanks and other weapons that were needed by the infantry. (Propaganda such as the "We Can Do It poster helped to give the communities who were hard at work to continue to work hard and feel pride in what they were doing)

Examples of war time propaganda to encourage workers to increase production and continue sacrifice to support WWII:

Another community issue that was becoming increasingly unsettling in Detroit was that fact that intense rascism was sweeping the area as African Americans came to Detroit to find work in the plants that were producing weaponry.

Photo: William Vandivert./Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Jan 01, 1942

"A sign placed across from Detroit's Sojourner Truth housing project expresses a hard, uncomfortable truth: For thousands of African Americans who headed to Detroit during the 1940s in search of jobs, strident racism—often in the form of violent, anti-integration protests in formerly whites-only neighborhoods—was a constant, toxic presence."

--Quoted directly from LIFE magazine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overcrowding and lack of comfortable living quarters was another issue. Because of a massive number of people being employed in Detroit to work on tank production meant a mass influx of people to the already crowded city. Because of this population increase in the area, housing developments were created (such as the African American Sojourner Truth housing project noted above)

Photo: Arthur Siegel/Getty Images

Feb 01, 1942

So many men and women poured into Detroit and other Michigan cities during the war to fill the seemingly limitless number of jobs available that it was literally impossible to house them all. Pictured here is the interior of a patched-up shack, home to three men who worked together at an aircraft plant a half mile away. Detroit might have been a boom town during the war, but like all boom towns, it had its share of problems, large and small. 

--Quoted directly from LIFE Magazine

 

Luckily, finding these articles and photos (especially since I am a very visual learner) are helping me to really focus in on areas that I want to research. Mostly womens roles, the impact of employment on the economy in Michigan, the rascism against African American workers, and the ability of the city to house the influx of workers. These all directly impacted the community of Detroit, and the community that was formed inside of the massive DATP complex. Hopefully more digging into specific resources will make it easy to move on with this topic. I am really glad that I found this site though, I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to focus on in this broad topic. The LIFE magazine article really helped me focus what I want to do more research on.



Hope you all are having good luck too!


-Stace

Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant

So I have narrowed my thought process for the research assignment. I know I want to focus my attention to the impact of armament production in WWII. Originally my interest lay strictly overseas (Great Britain and Germany). However, being able to find sources on specific communities and the effect of armament on them was going to be difficult. So, the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant is where I am going to focus my research (I think...)

The Plant was opened as a response to German technology. At this time, America relied solely on it's infantry, but Germany at the time was using tanks in Blitzkrieg attacks in Europe. Realizing the need for an armored force (separate from it's infantry), the government made the DATP in the winter of 1940-1941. This new plant for tank production was on a plot of land that covered 113 acres, north of Downtown detroit (now Warren).


http://www.neighborhoodlink.com/article/Relocation/Michigan

Tank production continued at DATP until 1997. For my research, I am going to focus on the time period of WWII. I want to see the impact on communities from pre-post war I am thinking about 1939-1950.

From the looks of it, magazines and articles are a good way to get information for this time period. I just found a great esource from Life Magazine! I'm pretty amped about it because I think it will be extremely helpful. Looks like it's time to hit the archives, library, web...and the like!


-Stace

Think, think, think...

So, I have been racking my brain and googling away trying to figure out which community I really want to focus on for our project. It's not proving to be as easy as I was hoping to find a community with decent sources or information, especially outside of the US.

One area of industry that really caught my attention actually came up in one of my other history courses today. When Germany was violating the Treaty of Versaille in the years leading up to the "Phony War" and then to WWII, they're economy boomed while they worked for military rearmament leading to almost full employment (helping to pull Germany out of the Great Depression) At the same time, the armament industry in Great Britain was leading economic turmoil because of the use of resources, as well as an unemployment rate of about 1.5 million. This time period is interesting to me, and I think that there is a lot to be said for the armament industries in both countries. While these are countries and not small communities, you can see the impact on the individual on both countries, and the impact of Germany's choice to rearm in the long run as well. The impact of the division of armament workers and soldiers led to economic prosperity for Germany, and economic downfall and unemployment for Great Britain. I was also thinking more research and resources may be able to provide specific communities in either country which were heavily impacted by rearmament.

This was just a thought that I stumbled upon, it will definitely take some more searching to see if it would be possible to swing either topic (GB, or Germany) If anyone has any suggestions let me know!

Hope your search is going well, I know I am having a hard time finding a topic to really commit to!

-Stace

German Rearmament factory (Tank Production)

Blog: 1

Hey guys!

Being that I am a history major there are many areas of history that are interesting to me. While I appreciate US history, I have never really enjoyed delving into the study of our country, in terms of the European settlement of America through the Industrial Revolution time frame, however I do enjoy US history from the time of the First World War through the end of the Cold war. The most interesting period of US history to me is the Vietnam war (the late fifties through the mid seventies) the politics, culture, counterculture, journalism and involvement in the ideal "stop" to the spread of communism into Southeast Asia, as well as the fact that the involvement of the US military was not successful in keeping S. Vietnam free of communism seems an endless abyss, the depth of which I can never seem to reach.

Outside of the US however I have enjoyed studying various time periods. I have always enjoyed learning about the Roman Empire (I was in Italy this summer, and seeing ruins from Ancient Rome was amazing!) The Early Modern Era, specifically in Asian countries such as the Mughal Empire in India and the Qing Dynasty in China have been extremely fascinating to me. I also have really enjoyed being able to link religious studies and mythology with history because of it's immense impact on culture, as well as learning about expansion of culture/religion/politics (such as during the "Age of Discovery" in the 15-17th centuries) My interest has also been held by studies of Eastern Europe, specifically Russia.

I could keep going, but these time periods and places that I have listed above are probably the top subjects, places, and/or time periods that I have continually tried to learn more about.



-Stacie