- Wayne State University Digital Collections

The Detroit Sunday Journal:: June 28 - July 3, 1998

Issue of The Detroit Sunday Journal, a weekly newspaper published by striking workers during the Detroit Newspaper Strike. Includes coverage of decisive labor complaints and rulings related to the strike.

Dudley Randall's Cash Book

This handwritten ledger contain notes written by Dudley Randall including shopping lists, book lists, journal entries, and poetry. The entries were primarily written between 1937 and 1949, with some additional entries added in the 1980s. Approximately 30 of the 88 pages contain writing.

Maurice Sugar: law, labor, and the left in Detroit, 1912-1950

It was Maurice Sugar, labor activist and lawyer for the United Auto Workers, who played a key role in guiding the newly-formed union through the treacherous legal terrain obstructing its development in the 1930s. He orchestrated the injunction hearings on the Dodge Main strike and defended the legality of the sit-down tactic. As the UAW's General Council, he wrote the union's constitution in 1939, a model of democratic thinking. Sugar worked with George Addes, UAW Secretary-Treasurer, to nurture…

Detroit on stage: the Players Club, 1910-2005

Founded in 1910, Detroit’s Players Club is an all-male club devoted to the production of theater by members for other members’ enjoyment. Called simply "The Players," members of the club design, direct, and act in the shows, including playing the female roles. In Detroit on Stage, Marijean Levering takes readers behind the scenes of the club’s private "frolics" to explore the unique history of The Players, discover what traditions they still hold dear, and examine why they have survived relat…

Toast of the town: the life and times of Sunnie Wilson

As part of the great migration of southern blacks to the north, Sunnie Wilson came to Detroit from South Carolina after graduating from college, and soon became a pillar of the local music industry. He started out as a song and dance performer but found his niche as a local promoter of boxing, which allowed him to make friends and business connections quickly in the thriving industrial city of Detroit. Part oral history, memoir, and biography, Toast of the Town draws from hundreds of hours of ta…

Working detroit: the making of a union town

Babson recounts Detroit's odyssey from a bulwark of the "open shop" to the nation's foremost "union town." Through words and pictures, Working Detroit documents the events in the city's ongoing struggle to build an industrial society that is both prosperous and humane.

Babson begins his account in 1848 when Detroit has just entered the industrial era. He weaves the broader historical realties, such as Red Scare, World War, and economic depression into his account, tracing the ebb and flow …