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In all cases we have filmed the best available copy. University Microfilms International 300 N, ZEEB RD, ANN ARBOR. Ml <18106 8216537 Edsforth, Ronald William A SECOND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: THE TRANSFORMATION OF CLASS, CULTURE, AND SOCIETY IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY FLINT, M IC H IG A N Michigan State University Ph.D. 1982 University Microfilms International 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, M I 48106 Copyright 1982 by Edsforth, Ronald William All Rights Reserved A SECOND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: THE TRANSFORMATION OF CLASS, CULTURE, AND SOCIETY IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY FLINT, MICHIGAN By Ronald William Edsforth A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of History 1932 ABSTRACT A SECOND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: THE TRANSFORMATION OF CLASS, CULTURE, AND SOCIETY IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY FLINT, MICHIGAN By Ronald William Edsforth This dissertation explores the ways that the transformation of indus­ try frcm a producer-goods to a consumer-goods orientation changed the character of twentieth-century American capitalism. In it, the distinc­ tive economic and social changes that made the United States the world's first true consumer-oriented society are described as "a second Industrial revolution” which accounts for what is usually {and mistakenly) termed the 1classlessness1 of modem American politics and industrial relations. This thesis is first presented in a review of contemporary social criti­ cism, and in a general overview of America's extraordinary automobile boom. Then its relevance is explored in a detailed case study of the political character of economic and social development in Flint, Michigan, the country's second largest automobile production center. This case study covers fifty years of Flint's history from the first automotive experiments of its wagon-making entrepeneurs to the institutionalization of collective bargaining between the General Motors Corporation and the United Automobile Workers after World War II. As such, it traces the creation of General Motors in Flint; the swift rise and decline of muni­ cipal socialism; the organization of a 'progressive' business class which monopolized economic, social, and political power until the 1930s; Ronald William Edsforth the impact of the automobile boom on everyday life and culture; the brief appearance of an influential Ku Klux Klan; the devastating impact of the Great Depression; and the emergence of a militant, but non-radical, working class committed to industrial unionism and the New Deal. The dissertation closes with an examination of the quality of working class-consciousness in mid-twentieth-century Flint; a brief digression which compares class values in Coventry, England (another major automo­ tive production center) with those in Flint; and finally, an attempt to generalize about the place of class in modem American society and politics. This dissertation is based on comprehensive study of local records in Flint, and archives materials in Detroit, Lansing, Ann Arbor, and Washington, D.C. (as well as similar resources in Coventry, Oxford, and London). This traditional research was supplemented by use of the tran­ scripts of nearly two hundred oral history interviews. © Copyright by RONALD WILLIAM EDSFORTH 1982 Dedicated to the memory of Herbert Kisch, teacher and friend. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many people assisted me with this project during the last five years. First, I would like to thank Norman Pollack for his patient direction and constant understanding. Whenever X needed encouragement or enlightenment, he was there to help. I am indebted to the other mem­ bers of my guidance committee, Professors Donald Laumers, Warren Cohen, David LoRomer, and the late Herbert Kisch, too. Their unfailing confi­ dence in my abilities has been a tremendous source of strength. I would also like to thank the other members of the Department of History at Michigan State University with whom I have regularly exchanged ideas, especially Steve Botein, Bill Hixson, Peter Levine, Ann Meyering, and my good friend John Humins. Their intellectual companionship and construc­ tive criticism have contributed enormously to my approach to history. The research for this project could not have been finished without the financial aid of the Alvin M. Bentley Foundation of Owosso, Michigan. I am very grateful to them. In addition, I want to extend my apprecia­ tion to the staffs of the Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs, the Michigan Historical Collections {University of Michigan), the Flint Public Library, the National Archives, the National Records Center, the State of Michigan Archives, the State of Michigan Library, the Michigan State University Library, the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library (University of Michigan), and the Catholic University Library. Finally, I want to thank my wife, Joanne Devine. Without her iv loving support and her editorial assistance, X would never have completed this project. v PREFACE It seemed obvious to me that the historian's prime duty was to answer my childish question: "What happened next?" It seems almost as obvious to me now. — A.J.P. Taylor Despite its ponderous title, this study of the transformation of industrial society in twentieth century Flint, Michigan, is a very tra­ ditional history, not an exercise in historical social science. By reconstructing the experiences of the men and women who made Flint into a national center for the mass-production of cars and trucks, I have tried to create a new perspective on the distinctive ways in which Americans have organized their economic activities, social relationships, and politics. Inevitably, then, my attention has been drawn to the old, but persistent, question: 'why does the United States lack the kind of class-conscious culture which is characteristic of industrial capitalist countries in Europe?' Yet, while suggesting a new solution to this perennial historical problem, my work offers no original models or methods for doing social history. Nor is it based on the rather absurd proposi­ tion, so distressingly popular in professional academic circles today, * that "we cannot predict the future concretely, but we can predict the past." Instead, since its inception, this social history has been ^ Immanuel Wallerstein, "The Rise and Future Demise of the World Capitalist System: Concepts for Comparative Analysis," Comparative Studies in Society and History, XVI, September 1974, p. 389. vi firmly grounded in the traditional humanistic methodology which has always distinguished the best historical literature from deterministic presentations of the past. Most importantly, the methods and reasoning employed here rest on the traditional assumption that human beings are more than mere creatures of circumstance; in fact, they are the agents of historical change, the ones who consciously make things happen in the present as well as the past. To the untutored reader of popular military, diplomatic, and political history, this statement may appear as a truism. However, given the predilection of so many professional economic and social his­ torians for deterministic interpretations of the past, the assumption bears repeating. People make history. Changes in economic institutions, society, culture, and politics occur when people act, not as the result of some combination of abstract 'pressures', 'forces', and 'factors'. Of course, it may be objected that human beings are not truly free agents, that their actions are shaped by the natural and social environ­ ments in which they find themselves. Undoubtedly this criticism