Detroit : A Biography

by Unknown

• ISBN13: 9781569765265
• ISBN10: 156976526X
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2012-04-01
• Publisher: Chicago Review Press

Summary

At its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, Detroit's status as epicenter of the American auto industry made it a vibrant, populous, commercial hub--and then the bottom fell out. Detroit : A Biographytakes a long, unflinching look at the evolution of one of America's great cities, and one of the nation's greatest urban failures. This authoritative yet accessible narrative seeks to explain how the city grew to become the heart of American industry and how its utter collapse--from nearly two million residents in 1950 to less than 715,000 some six decades later--resulted from a confluence of public policies, private industry decisions, and deeply ingrained racism. Drawing from U.S. Census data and including profiles of individuals who embody the recent struggles and hopes of the city, this book chronicles the evolution of what a modern city once was and what it has become.

Author Biography

Scott Martelle is a professional journalist who has written for the Detroit News, the Los Angeles Times, and the Rochester Times-Union. His previous books include Blood Passion and The Fear Within. He lives in Irvine, California.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
A Difficult Childhood	p. 1
The British Decades	p. 9
The Morans	p. 19
Detroit and the Canal of Riches	p. 25
The Civil War and Racial Flashpoints	p. 35
Detroit Turns Industrial	p. 53
Michael Farrell	p. 63
The Auto Era	p. 69
A Great Migration	p. 85
The Roaring Twenties	p. 95
Great Depression	p. 113
The Black Legion	p. 127
Housing and the Racial Divide	p. 133
The War Years	p. 139
The 1943 Riot	p. 147
The Postwar Boom	p. 159
Race in the Fifties	p. 171
Henry Russell Jr.	p. 181
Death of the Covenants	p. 187
The Baloks	p. 199
The Oil Embargo	p. 205
John Thompson	p. 215
When the Jobs Go Away	p. 225
Shelley	p. 237
Pittsburgh, a Different Case	p. 243
An Epilogue	p. 251
Acknowledgments	p. 259
Selected Bibliography	p. 261
Notes	p. 267
Index	p. 281
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