Blogs

2010 was a big year for the Walter P. Reuther Library. The Reuther's major collection, the Archive of Labor and Urban Affairs (ALUA), turned 50, and the Reuther Library’s building, which houses ALUA and the Wayne State University Archives, was completed 35 years ago in 1975. While celebrating these two milestones, we accomplished many goals.  read more »

This Thanksgiving marked the 85th anniversary of a Detroit favorite now known as America’s Thanksgiving Parade. The parade was started in 1924 by Charles Wendel, the display manager of the J.L. Hudson Company department store on Woodward Avenue. Along with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, which was founded the same year, Hudson’s Thanksgiving parade was one of the first of its kind in the United States.  read more »

Thirty years ago, Poland captured the world’s attention when the workers of the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk went on strike and launched a national rebellion. Solidarność, the free trade union born during the strike, developed into a social movement that established a democratic government in Poland and eventually led to the end of the Cold War in Eastern Europe. The Reuther Library’s latest exhibit, "Solidarność: Poland’s Struggle for Freedom, 1980-1990," provides an historical account of Solidarność from the events leading up to the first strike in 1980 through the 1989 election in Poland.  read more »

Walter Reuther and Richard Frankensteen shortly after being attacked by Ford Service men during the “Battle of the Overpass.” The men were beaten for distributing United Auto Workers leaflets outside of the Ford Rouge Plant, Dearborn, Michigan, 23 May 1937.

The 2010 North American Labor History Conference will top off this year’s event with a viewing of the latest cut of the new documentary Brothers on the Line on Saturday, October 23 at 11:00 AM.

The documentary, which relies heavily on the collections of the Walter P. Reuther Library, looks at the lives of the Reuther Brothers, Walter, Victor, and Roy, and their struggles to organize the United Auto Workers  read more »