The early United Automobile Workers union comes vividly to life in this "participant's account" of the development of an organization that once embodied the promise of the American labor movement. Henry Kraus, a UAW founder and the foremost labor journalist of that time, combines interviews conducted more than fifty years ago with a decade of more recent archival research to present a richly detailed account of the union's beginnings. Kraus introduces scores of rank-and-file union members and leaders. Veteran organizer Wyndham Mortimer and labor pioneers Walter, Roy, and Victor Reuther, George Addes, Robert Travis, Ed Hall, and Richard Frankensteen - all are brought to life and depicted complete with personal virtues and individual foibles. The chronicle ends in 1939 as the author plans to start work on what would become his first hook, The Many and the Few.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The author should have discussed the role of the CP,
By A Customer
This review is from: Heroes of Unwritten Story: The UAW, 1934-39 (Hardcover)
I wrote the introduction to this history/memoir and I'd like to make one "correction." As a unionist and leftist, I wanted make clear the organic role played by the American Communist Party and by such stirling Communists as Wyndam Mortimer in the very early days of the CIO and the UAW. But Henry Kraus was clearly ambivalent about such relevations, even 60 and 70 years after. So in the text, such political candor is muted, and even in the introduction, I acquiesced to the author and dropped a reference to Wyndam Mortimer, who was Kraus' mentor, as a "pioneer Communist." I felt conflicted at the time, and this historiographic thorn has never ceased to irritate, so this note corrects part of the record. I should add, that the book is otherwise excellent and offers a real feel for the internal UAW politics of the 1930s. Nelson Lichtenstein Professor of History University of Virginia
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
It was not until I got to the White Motor plant on St. Clair Avenue near 79th Street in Cleveland that morning in early March 1934 that I asked myself what I actually intended doing there. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
federal auto locals, auto delegates, merit clause, international executive board, unauthorized strikes, auto union, mass production workers, strike vote, new unionists, bargaining committee, credentials committee, automobile worker, organizational drive, sitdown strike, rising vote Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Homer Martin, General Motors, Dick Frankensteen, Walter Reuther, Fisher One, White Motor, Bob Travis, Fisher Body, George Lehman, Dick Reisinger, Auto Council, South Bend, Wyndham Mortimer, George Addes, United Automobile Worker, President Green, Detroit News, United Auto Worker, Flint Auto Worker, Francis Dillon, Black Legion, Fisher Two, Fred Pieper, Maurice Sugar, Roy Reuther New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
It was not until I got to the White Motor plant on St. Clair Avenue near 79th Street in Cleveland that morning in early March 1934 that I asked myself what I actually intended doing there. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
federal auto locals, auto delegates, merit clause, international executive board, unauthorized strikes, auto union, mass production workers, strike vote, new unionists, bargaining committee, credentials committee, automobile worker, organizational drive, sitdown strike, rising vote Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Homer Martin, General Motors, Dick Frankensteen, Walter Reuther, Fisher One, White Motor, Bob Travis, Fisher Body, George Lehman, Dick Reisinger, Auto Council, South Bend, Wyndham Mortimer, George Addes, United Automobile Worker, President Green, Detroit News, United Auto Worker, Flint Auto Worker, Francis Dillon, Black Legion, Fisher Two, Fred Pieper, Maurice Sugar, Roy Reuther New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
3
books
cite this book:
- FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression by Jim Powell in Back Matter
- State of the Union: A Century of American Labor (Politics and Society in Twentieth-Century America) by Nelson Lichtenstein in Back Matter
- Labor Relations (Major Issues in American History) by Millie A. Beik on page 193
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