Life In The Shadows Of The Crystal Palace 1910 1927

Hooker (American thought and language, Michigan State U.) examines the transformation of a sleepy village, Highland Park, Michigan into an industrial boomtown that later became an urban ghetto. He describes how Ford's first large factory created the first American city dependent on the automobile industry, and how the company tried to control the lives of workers and residents. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

A study of how the film industry came to flourish in Detroit in the early years as locals were lured into the new picture theaters. Motor City Movie Culture, 1916–1925 is a broad textured look at Hollywood coming of age in a city with a burgeoning population and complex demographics. Richard Abel investigates the role of local Detroit organizations in producing, distributing, exhibiting, and publicizing films in an effort to make moviegoing part of everyday life. Tapping a wealth of primary source material—from newspapers, spatiotemporal maps, and city directories to rare trade journals, theater programs, and local newsreels—Abel shows how entrepreneurs worked to lure moviegoers from Detroit’s diverse ethnic neighborhoods into the theaters. Covering topics such as distribution, programming practices, nonfiction film, and movie coverage in local newspapers, with entr’actes that dive deeper into the roles of key individuals and organizations, this book examines how efforts in regional metropolitan cities like Detroit worked alongside California studios and New York head offices to bolster a mass culture of moviegoing in the United States.

The struggles and victories of the UAW form an important chapter in the story of American democracy. American Vanguard is the first and only history of the union available for both general and academic audiences. In this thorough and engaging narrative, John Barnard not only records the controversial issues tackled by the UAW, but also lends them immediacy through details about the workers and their environments, the leaders and the challenges that they faced outside and inside the organization, and the vision that guided many of these activists. Throughout, Barnard traces the UAW's two-fold goal: to create an industrial democracy in the workplace and to pursue a social-democratic agenda in the interest of the public at large. Part one explores the obstacles to the UAW's organization, including tensions between militant reformers and workers who feared for their jobs; ideological differences; racial and ethnic issues; and public attitudes toward unions. By the outbreak of World War II, however, the union had succeeded in redistributing power on the shop floor in its members' favor. Part two follows the union during Walter P. Reuther's presidency (1946-1970). During this time, pioneering contracts brought a new standard of living and income security to the workers, while an effort was made to move America toward a social democracy-which met with mixed results during the civil rights decade. Throughout, Barnard presents balanced interpretations grounded in evidence, while setting the UAW within the context of the history of the U.S. auto industry and national politics.

"Roberts intertwines McGregor's corporate, civic, and personal lives to trace his pioneering role in the automobile industry. Some themes from McGregor's career that are considered here include company growth, the technical and cultural concept of the automobile, the impact of automotive transportation, technological reliance on Detroit, parent-branch relations, the effects of border proximity, industrial and political lobbying, labor relations, secondary manufacturing, public involvement, and the Great War. In addition, Roberts probes McGregor's often-subservient relationship with the enigmatic Henry Ford and examines how McGregor drew praise and political ire in calling for regional governance in the "Border Cities" opposite Detroit. In the years before his premature death, McGregor and his company dominated and defined the growing automotive industry in Windsor-Detroit, and their story deserves to be more widely known.".

Before Franklin Roosevelt declared December 7 to be a “date which will live in infamy”; before American soldiers landed on D-Day; before the B-17s, B-24s, and B-29s roared over Europe and Asia, there was Willow Run. Located twenty-five miles west of Detroit, the bomber plant at Willow Run and the community that grew up around it attracted tens of thousands of workers from across the United States during World War II. Together, they helped build the nation’s “Arsenal of Democracy,” but Willow Run also became the site of repeated political conflicts over how to build suburbia while mobilizing for total war. In Planning the Home Front, Sarah Jo Peterson offers readers a portrait of the American people—industrialists and labor leaders, federal officials and municipal leaders, social reformers, industrial workers, and their families—that lays bare the foundations of community, the high costs of racism, and the tangled process of negotiation between New Deal visionaries and wartime planners. By tying the history of suburbanization to that of the home front, Peterson uncovers how the United States planned and built industrial regions in the pursuit of war, setting the stage for the suburban explosion that would change the American landscape when the war was won.

Introduces the major cultural and intellectual trends of the decade by introducing and assessing the development of the primary cultural forms: namely, Fiction, Poetry and Drama, Music and Performance, Film and Radio, and Visual Art and Design. A fifth chapter focuses on the unprecedented rise in the 1920s of Leisure and Consumption.

Scholars from communication studies as well as film and television studies address a variety of texts, from Ken Burns's The Civil War to the midnight cult film The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Part one focuses on perennial subject areas related to authorship and reception. Part two addresses an assortment of postmodern and multicultural screen representations, paying closest attention to matters of gender, race, ethnicity, and the disabled. Paper edition (unseen), $24.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Students will write more effective term papers with this guide to 500 term paper ideas—as well as a listing of appropriate print and nonprint sources— on twentieth-century U.S. history. This guide presents entries on 100 of the most important events and developments in twentieth-century U.S. history organized in chronological order. Each entry consists of a short description of the event, followed by five specific suggestions for term papers about the event, and a wide-ranging annotated bibliography of 15-35 books, articles, videos, and a web site appropriate for student research. In every case the emphasis is on recent and up-to-date material, as well as landmark works and primary sources. Every entry contains a video and concludes with a recommended web site, producing a multimedia approach designed to appeal to the current information-gathering habits and preferences of young people. From the Spanish-American War to the creation of NAFTA, the 100 events and developments cover political, social, economic, and cultural issues. The work has been designed to meet the needs of the U.S. history curriculum. Term paper topic ideas offer students thought-provoking suggestions that are challenging and develop critical thinking skills. The annotated bibliography is organized into reference sources, general sources, specialized sources, biographical sources, periodical articles, recommended videos and World Wide Web sites. All items are readily available in school, public, and academic library collections. This unique guide is valuable not only to students, but to teachers and librarians who guide students in research, and is an excellent purchasing guide for librarians who serve student needs.