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 Focus Quarterly Volume 5 Number 2

Detroit Focus Quarterly Volume 3 Number 2

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 …

Detroit Focus Quarterly Volume 2 Number 3

Detroit Focus Quarterly Volume 4 Number 1

Detroit Focus Quarterly Volume 6 Number 1

Expanding the frontiers of civil rights: Michigan, 1948-1968

Although historians have devoted a great deal of attention to the development of federal government policy regarding civil rights in the quarter century following World War II, little attention has been paid to the equally important developments at the state level. Few states underwent a more dramatic transformation with regard to civil rights than Michigan did. In 1948, the Michigan Committee on Civil Rights characterized the state of civil rights in Michigan as presenting "an ugly picture." Tw…

Detroit Focus Quarterly Volume 7 Number 3

Detroit Focus Quarterly Volume 3 Number 1

Detroit Focus Quarterly Volume 3 Number 4

Detroit Focus Quarterly Volume 2 Number 4

Detroit Focus Quarterly Volume 3 Number 3

Detroit Focus Quarterly Volume 8 Number 3

Detroit Focus Quarterly Volume 9 Number 3

Detroit Focus Quarterly Volume 6 Number 3

The Detroit Sunday Journal:: July 26 - August 1, 1998

Issue of The Detroit Sunday Journal, a weekly newspaper published by striking workers during the Detroit Newspaper Strike.

All our yesterdays: a brief history of Detroit

All Our Yesterdays is an accurate account based on extensive historical research when initially published in 1969, and is written in such a style as to make interesting and historical snapshot of the history of the city of Detroit.

The authors recount the founding of the town by the French, control by the British, and growth as an American city. These episodes are recounted in the words and deeds of the people who lived and worked here, men like Judge Woodward, Father Gabriel Richard, a…

Detroit Focus Quarterly Volume 11 Number 5

Detroit Focus Quarterly Volume 4 Number 2