Thomas
J. Sugrue’s, “‘The Damning Mark of False Prosperities’: The Deindustrialization
of Detroit,” follows the events occurring in the automotive industry that lead to
the demoralizing economic downfall of Detroit during the 1950s. Major
automotive companies, such as Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler, began to
relocate in the suburbs in order to control increasing labor costs or to
expand. As technology continued to advance throughout the 50s, it made this decentralization
easier for the automotive companies. Sugrue states, “In 1950, 56 percent of all
automobile employment in the United States was in Michigan; by 1960, that
figure had fallen to 40 percent” (Sugrue, 1996, p. 128). Now the domino effect
was in place, because improved technology also lead to an age of automation.
Larger companies that could afford to automate were no longer in need of as
many employees, and companies that couldn’t afford the machines to automate
eventually shut down because their labor costs were too high and couldn’t keep up
with production. Sugrue claims that all of these factors lead to a substantial
amount of lost jobs among the workers of Detroit, which lead to its extremely
diminished economy, which in the end lead to racial discrimination in the
workplace and increased African American population.
This
assigned article comes from part two of his very successful three part book,
“The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit.” Sugrue’s
book was the, “Winner of the 1997 Best Book in North American Urban History
award,” as well as, “One of Choice’s
Outstanding Academic Titles for 1997” (Princeton University Press, 2014). A
book review by the Princeton University Press says, “In this provocative revision of postwar American history,
Sugrue finds cities already fiercely divided by race and devastated by the
exodus of industries” (2014). Therefore, reading the rest of this book
would be an ideal selection for anyone wanting to learn more about Sugrue’s
claims and how these concepts have not only effected Detroit, but the other
parts of the nation as well.
Thomas
J. Sugrue is a 20th century historian, and an associate professor of
history and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. Sugrue’s compassion
for this subject stems from the fact that he grew up in Detroit. In an
interview with The Journal for MultiMedia
History, Sugrue says, “Yes, I selected
Detroit, in part, I think because of personal biography. That is, I wanted to
understand the place that I had grown up in” (1999). In the same interview,
Sugrue helps give some background on why he was so interested in the racial
aspect of the urban crisis of Detroit when he says, “I grew up in the city’s
northwest side… between 1970 and 1973, in a period of about 3 1/2 years, the
neighborhood went from being all white to being almost all African American… So
it was an interesting process of really dramatic transformation in a very short
period of time” (Zelizer, 1999).
Overall,
I thought this article was interesting for a couple of reasons. First of all,
it was amazing to me that Detroit was the epitome of American industrialization
and at its peak in the 1940s, and then fall so quickly over a span of just a
decade or two. Another reason why I liked this article was the fact that Sugrue
himself was so interested with what was happening around him as a kid in
Detroit, so he did something about it and became involved with finding out why
they were happening and what he could do about it.
References:
Princeton University Press (2014, September 23). The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and
Inequality in Postwar Detroit. Retrieved from http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8029.html
Thomas J. Sugrue, “‘The damning mark of false prosperities’:
The deindustrialization of Detriot,” in The
Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (1996).
Zelizer, J. (Interviewer) & Sugrue, T. (Interviewee).
(1999). The Journal for MultiMedia History: Volume 2 – 1999 (Interview transcript). Retrieved from http://www.albany.edu/jmmh/vol2no1/sugrue.html
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