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Detroit in Its World Setting

Author : David Lee Poremba

Publisher : Wayne State University Press

Page : 428 pages

File Size : 39,20 MB

Release : 2001

Category : Biography & Autobiography

ISBN : 9780814328705

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Book Description

Culled from a wide variety of references, Detroit in Its World Setting is a timeline that offers readers a new appreciation of Michigan history by setting life in the Motor City in the context of world affairs. For each year, readers can follow the march of time in four categories-city and state events, national and world history, cultural progress, and scientific and commercial progress-that cover countless events over the three centuries since the city's founding as well as the people involved in them. Originally published in 1953, Detroit in Its World Setting has been revised and updated to mark the city's 300th birthday in 2001. Expanded coverage includes such subjects as women's achievements, the African American community, ethnic communities, city landmarks, and public education. No other book offers the opportunity to see the city's life in this sweeping context. As entertaining as it is informative, Detroit in Its World Setting is a fitting birthday present for the city-and its citizens.



Whose Detroit?

Author : Heather Ann Thompson

Publisher : Cornell University Press

Page : 308 pages

File Size : 14,6 MB

Release : 2017-05-15

Category : Social Science

ISBN : 1501702017

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Book Description

America's urbanites have engaged in many tumultuous struggles for civil and worker rights since the Second World War. Heather Ann Thompson focuses in detail on the struggles of Motor City residents during the 1960s and early 1970s and finds that conflict continued to plague the inner city and its workplaces even after Great Society liberals committed themselves to improving conditions. Using the contested urban center of Detroit as a model, Thompson assesses the role of such upheaval in shaping the future of America's cities. She argues that the glaring persistence of injustice and inequality led directly to explosions of unrest in this period. Thompson finds that unrest as dramatic as that witnessed during Detroit's infamous riot of 1967 by no means doomed the inner city, nor in any way sealed its fate. The politics of liberalism continued to serve as a catalyst for both polarization and radical new possibilities and Detroit remained a contested, and thus politically vibrant, urban center. Thompson's account of the post-World War II fate of Detroit casts new light on contemporary urban issues, including white flight, police brutality, civic and shop floor rebellion, labor decline, and the dramatic reshaping of the American political order. Throughout, the author tells the stories of real events and individuals, including James Johnson, Jr., who, after years of suffering racial discrimination in Detroit's auto industry, went on trial in 1971 for the shooting deaths of two foremen and another worker at a Chrysler plant. Whose Detroit? brings the labor movement into the context of the literature of Sixties radicalism and integrates the history of the 1960s into the broader political history of the postwar period. Urban, labor, political, and African-American history are blended into Thompson's comprehensive portrayal of Detroit's reaction to pressures felt throughout the nation. With deft attention to the historical background and preoccupations of Detroit's residents, Thompson has written a biography of an entire city at a time of crisis.



Redevelopment and Race

Author : June Manning Thomas

Publisher : Wayne State University Press

Page : 314 pages

File Size : 23,98 MB

Release : 2013-04-15

Category : Social Science

ISBN : 0814339085

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Book Description

In the decades following World War II, professional city planners in Detroit made a concerted effort to halt the city's physical and economic decline. Their successes included an award-winning master plan, a number of laudable redevelopment projects, and exemplary planning leadership in the city and the nation. Yet despite their efforts, Detroit was rapidly transforming into a notorious symbol of urban decay. In Redevelopment and Race: Planning a Finer City in Postwar Detroit, June Manning Thomas takes a look at what went wrong, demonstrating how and why government programs were ineffective and even destructive to community needs. In confronting issues like housing shortages, blight in older areas, and changing economic conditions, Detroit's city planners worked during the urban renewal era without much consideration for low-income and African American residents, and their efforts to stabilize racially mixed neighborhoods faltered as well. Steady declines in industrial prowess and the constant decentralization of white residents counteracted planners' efforts to rebuild the city. Among the issues Thomas discusses in this volume are the harmful impacts of Detroit's highways, the mixed record of urban renewal projects like Lafayette Park, the effects of the 1967 riots on Detroit's ability to plan, the city-building strategies of Coleman Young (the city's first black mayor) and his mayoral successors, and the evolution of Detroit's federally designated Empowerment Zone. Examining the city she knew first as an undergraduate student at Michigan State University and later as a scholar and planner, Thomas ultimately argues for a different approach to traditional planning that places social justice, equity, and community ahead of purely physical and economic objectives. Redevelopment and Race was originally published in 1997 and was given the Paul Davidoff Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning in 1999. Students and teachers of urban planning will be grateful for this re-release. A new postscript offers insights into changes since 1997.



The Last Days of Detroit

Author : Mark Binelli

Publisher : Random House

Page : 340 pages

File Size : 49,14 MB

Release : 2013

Category : Detroit (Mich.)

ISBN : 184792168X

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Book Description

* It was 'the most modern city in the world, the city of tomorrow'. But the Fifties witnessed one of the greatest economic slides of the last century, as Detroit, formerly a beacon of the capitalist dream, degenerated into the urban wilderness it is today, where trees grow from the rooftops of derelict buildings and wild pheasants roam the long-empty parking lots. * By the end of the nineteenth century Detroit was thriving. 1913 saw the arrival of Henry Ford and the Model T plant, mass-producing cars and transforming the area into the Silicon Valley of its day. By the mid-1950s General Motors had become the single biggest employer on earth, and Detroit the fourth largest city in America. * But by the time Berry Gordy founded Motown Records in 1960 - creating Detroit's other great assembly line - the cracks were already beginning to show- big industry was looking elsewhere for cheaper sites, cheaper labour and better tax breaks; urban planning was in meltdown; corruption was rife; racial tensions were running high. * The 1967 riots - at the time the worst in US history - left 43 dead, more than 7,000 arrested and 3,000 buildings destroyed. Detroit, a former beacon of the capitalist dream, had degenerated into an urban wilderness where unemployment ran at 50%. With more guns in the city than people, the murder rate was the highest in America - three times that of New York. * Mark Binelli returned to live in his native Detroit after a break of many years. He tells the story of the boom and the bust - and of the new society to be found emerging from the debris- Detroit with its urban farms and vibrant arts scene - Detroit as a laboratory for the post-industrial, post-recession world. Here's what an iconic rust-belt city now looks like and how it might transform and regenerate itself in the twenty-first century.



Black Detroit

Author : Herb Boyd

Publisher : HarperCollins

Page : 470 pages

File Size : 30,47 MB

Release : 2017-06-06

Category : Social Science

ISBN : 0062346644

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Book Description

NAACP 2017 Image Award Finalist 2018 Michigan Notable Books honoree The author of Baldwin’s Harlem looks at the evolving culture, politics, economics, and spiritual life of Detroit—a blend of memoir, love letter, history, and clear-eyed reportage that explores the city’s past, present, and future and its significance to the African American legacy and the nation’s fabric. Herb Boyd moved to Detroit in 1943, as race riots were engulfing the city. Though he did not grasp their full significance at the time, this critical moment would be one of many he witnessed that would mold his political activism and exposed a city restless for change. In Black Detroit, he reflects on his life and this landmark place, in search of understanding why Detroit is a special place for black people. Boyd reveals how Black Detroiters were prominent in the city’s historic, groundbreaking union movement and—when given an opportunity—were among the tireless workers who made the automobile industry the center of American industry. Well paying jobs on assembly lines allowed working class Black Detroiters to ascend to the middle class and achieve financial stability, an accomplishment not often attainable in other industries. Boyd makes clear that while many of these middle-class jobs have disappeared, decimating the population and hitting blacks hardest, Detroit survives thanks to the emergence of companies such as Shinola—which represent the strength of the Motor City and and its continued importance to the country. He also brings into focus the major figures who have defined and shaped Detroit, including William Lambert, the great abolitionist, Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown, Coleman Young, the city’s first black mayor, diva songstress Aretha Franklin, Malcolm X, and Ralphe Bunche, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. With a stunning eye for detail and passion for Detroit, Boyd celebrates the music, manufacturing, politics, and culture that make it an American original.





Motor City Green

Author : Joseph S. Cialdella

Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Press

Page : 337 pages

File Size : 45,16 MB

Release : 2020-03-03

Category : Social Science

ISBN : 0822987023

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Book Description

Motor City Green is a history of green spaces in metropolitan Detroit from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. The book focuses primarily on the history of gardens and parks in the city of Detroit and its suburbs in southeast Michigan. Cialdella argues that Detroit residents used green space to address problems created by the city’s industrial rise and decline, and racial segregation and economic inequality. As the city’s social landscape became increasingly uncontrollable, Detroiters turned to parks, gardens, yards, and other outdoor spaces to relieve the negative social and environmental consequences of industrial capitalism. Motor City Green looks to the past to demonstrate how today’s urban gardens in Detroit evolved from, but are also distinct from, other urban gardens and green spaces in the city’s past.



Detroit Is No Dry Bones

Author : Camilo J. Vergara

Publisher : University of Michigan Press

Page : 305 pages

File Size : 15,73 MB

Release : 2016-11-16

Category : Architecture

ISBN : 0472130110

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Book Description

A photographic record of almost three decades of Detroit's changing urban fabric



Becoming the Motor City: a Timeline of Detroit's Auto Industry

Author : Paul Vachon

Publisher :

Page : pages

File Size : 26,40 MB

Release : 2021-09-21

Category :

ISBN : 9781681063232

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Book Description

Well over a century ago, a cadre of self-trained mechanics, machinists, and other tradesmen started tinkering in the small, cramped machine shops near downtown Detroit. Despite their varied technical ideas, professional ambitions, and personal temperaments, they worked towards a common goal: to revolutionize personal transportation by capitalizing on the recently developed internal combustion engine.The intercession of Providence determined that the likes of Henry Ford, Ransom Olds, John and Horace Dodge, and others called the same city home. None of them "invented" the automobile, but their shared imagination, grit, and persistence were responsible for giving birth to an industry arguably responsible for the most profound changes in Twentieth Century American life.Their descendants maintained their legacy, and in so doing created the middle class, equipped the Arsenal of Democracy with the hardware needed for the Allied victory over the Axis, and set in motion the postwar suburban boom.Modern day Detroit is inseparable from its signature industry and still today continues to lead the world in charting the future of mobility. Detroit Automotive History: An Illustrated Timeline shares insights about how the industry and the city grew, prospered, and ultimately suffered together. Detroit author and historian Paul Vachon revisits the timeline format in this new exploration into the depths of Detroit's automotive history. Through photos, stories, and history, he paints a vivid picture of the city's past.



The World According to Fannie Davis

Author : Bridgett M. Davis

Publisher : Little, Brown

Page : 253 pages

File Size : 19,41 MB

Release : 2019-01-29

Category : Biography & Autobiography

ISBN : 0316558710

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Book Description

As seen on the Today Show: This true story of an unforgettable mother, her devoted daughter, and their life in the Detroit numbers of the 1960s and 1970s highlights "the outstanding humanity of black America" (James McBride). In 1958, the very same year that an unknown songwriter named Berry Gordy borrowed $800 to found Motown Records, a pretty young mother from Nashville, Tennessee, borrowed $100 from her brother to run a numbers racket out of her home. That woman was Fannie Davis, Bridgett M. Davis's mother. Part bookie, part banker, mother, wife, and granddaughter of slaves, Fannie ran her numbers business for thirty-four years, doing what it took to survive in a legitimate business that just happened to be illegal. She created a loving, joyful home, sent her children to the best schools, bought them the best clothes, mothered them to the highest standard, and when the tragedy of urban life struck, soldiered on with her stated belief: "Dying is easy. Living takes guts." A daughter's moving homage to an extraordinary parent, The World According to Fannie Davis is also the suspenseful, unforgettable story about the lengths to which a mother will go to "make a way out of no way" and provide a prosperous life for her family -- and how those sacrifices resonate over time.