Labor and the Housing Shortage: a Historical Perspective from Detroit – Power at Work
“In Detroit, the quintessential city of modern industry and the focus of the book, I explore workers’ struggle for better houses in the early decades of mass production—the 1910s and 1920s. The book centers human stories about what houses meant to this first generation of modern workers. It explores the importance of housing to workers’ identities and their hopes and dreams for their families. In that turbulent era, Detroit’s workers fought to establish a lasting ideal: that hard work should be respected and offer a pathway to a better life.”