I offer my deepest gratitude to all the retired autoworkers and their family members who allowed me to interview them for this project. Those conversations were amazing gifts of incalculable value. Running partner Ed Lyghtel and former student Steve Clinton led me to UAW retiree chapter presidents Bob Bowen from Local 849 in Ypsilanti and Bonnie Melton from Local 653 in Pontiac. Bob and Bonnie immediately understood the importance of exploring the experiences of their chapters’ members and facilitated many of the interviews at their respective union halls. This book would not exist without them.
A number of students recommended family members for interviews, and at the risk of overlooking someone, I want to offer specific thanks to Greg Miller, Paul Dusney, Marie O’Brien, and Kim Frink for connecting me, respectively, with L. J. Scott, Dorothy Sackle, Ernie Liles, and Allen Leske. Marie O’Brien, who is a superb historian, deserves to be in some sort of Hall of Fame for transcribing the first drafts of the majority of the interviews. She did an outstanding job bringing conversations to life on the printed page, and she has been supportive of this project from the beginning.
Much of my research took place in the Microfilm Room at the University of Michigan’s Hatcher Graduate Library. The staff there seemed to practice poses of nonrecognition, even toward those who showed up every day for weeks on end, but they were always extremely helpful when necessary. The cool vibe broke one day during December—I can’t remember which year—when a staff member offered me an ornament made of a book jacket cover, one she had made for their holiday party. I cherish it. I also have to thank the last of the old-fashioned microfilm readers, which was far superior to newer models for the type of research I was doing and which held out just long enough for me to finish.
Many thanks as well to the journalists at the Detroit Free Press, Detroit News, and Michigan Chronicle, whose work I read on microfilm. I have relied heavily on their reporting, and I remember feeling shaken when reading about Free Press columnist Leo Donovan’s untimely death in 1957, and like a friend was moving away when Free Press staff writer Robert Perrin left the paper in 1955 to work for Senator Patrick McNamara in Washington.
Thanks to John Beck and Michigan State University’s “Our Daily Lives/Our Daily Bread” lecture series for hosting me twice and offering insightful feedback. Likewise, two appearances at the North American Labor History Conference in Detroit proved helpful, and I especially thank Liz Faue for helping to organize a crucial panel in the early stages of this project. I was honored to be the target of two hours of intense grilling in Chicago by members of the Newberry Library’s Seminar in Labor History. It was exactly what a researcher hopes for, and it was the most fun I’ve had as a scholar.
Oakland University provided a fellowship to launch the project. Within the history department, Todd Estes, Cara Shelly, Keith Dye, and Bruce Zellers always checked in on how my research was going, and no matter what they thought privately, they always seemed to have faith that a book would come from it someday. Todd talked with me at length on many occasions about the project, always with sharp insight, and he alerted me to the Newberry Library opportunity. I appreciated the comments offered by colleagues at a “First Drafts” presentation hosted by my department. Graham Cassano, an accomplished sociologist who specializes in labor, offered particularly challenging feedback. He has also strongly supported this project, in part by producing a wonderful podcast about its oral history component that is available via the website for the journal Critical Sociology. The Saturday morning breakfast gathering at Afternoon Delight, in Ann Arbor, especially Bruce Zellers, Sue Zellers, and Beth Yakel, heard me go on and on about what I was finding in my research, and I appreciate their patience, insight, and support. Generations of Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society members have followed my progress. Most of them understood that my dedication to them slowed down the book but that I also would not have had it any other way. They’re celebrating with me.
Darren Clark tracked down all the missing article titles and dates in my mountain of newspaper research. Lesley Chapel helped me get back to basics when thinking through oral history methodology. Quinn Malecki gave the penultimate version of the manuscript a close reading and identified many glitches that had escaped my bleary eyes. Petra Flanagan located most of the rest and brought a needed nonhistorian’s perspective to the work. She also believed in the project, and in me, from the start.
The publication process has its suspenseful moments. Laurie Matheson and James Engelhardt from the University of Illinois Press guided me through them, and I’m grateful for their constructive criticism and crucial support. I’m also thankful for copyeditor Jill R. Hughes, whose eagle eyes and rigor significantly improved the manuscript.