WHY DETROIT WENT FROM MOTOWN TO MURDER TOWN

Why Detroit went from Motown to Murder Town

Why Detroit went from Motown to Murder Town

1. Introduction

Detroit, a city in southeastern Michigan, seat of Wayne county, the most populous city in the state and the tenth largest in the United States. It is situated across the Detroit River from the Canadian city of Windsor, Ontario. Detroit stretches along the river for 11 miles (18 km). The city, on the western bank of the river, is shaped roughly like a half-circle. Two independent cities, Highland Park and Hamtramck, lie entirely within Detroit's boundaries. As the birthplace of the automobile industry in the United States, and still the country's largest producer of motor vehicles, Detroit is popularly known as the Motor City. The purpose of this study is to show how at one point southerners were migrating to Detroit for better economic chances, and just a better way of living. Then how the city flourished as being known as Motown to murder town.

2. Detroit as Motown

Detroit's prominence as a manufacturing center dates back to the mid-19th century. Following the decline of the fur trade in the 1820s, Detroit became one of the leading shipbuilding cities on the Great Lakes and an important flour and grain center. By 1860, Detroit also produced steam engines, railroad cars, boilers, stoves, furnaces, and other machinery. These industries expanded in the post-Civil War decades and were joined by the manufacture of drugs, tobacco products, and paint. With the discovery of huge beds of salt under the Detroit area in the late 19th century, a flourishing chemical industry sprang up.

By the turn of the 20th century, Detroit was deeply involved in a new industry—the manufacture of automobiles. With experience gained in the production of carriages and bicycles and an ample supply of skilled and semiskilled mechanics, Detroit was able to take an early lead in automobile production. Under the capable and imaginative leadership of Ransom E. Olds, Henry Ford, John and Horace Dodge, Henry Leland, and other Detroiters, the city had captured 20% of the auto market by 1904. It continued to expand its control until the name "Detroit" came to signify the automobile industry in general.

The manufacture and assembly of motor vehicles have been spread to subsidiary plants throughout the United States, but the headquarters of the principal companies remain in Detroit. As a result of this dispersion, the labor force employed by the automobile companies in Detroit has been reduced drastically from that of its peak years.

The city also ranks high in the production of machine tools and accessories, gray iron, foundry items, hardware, metal stampings, industrial inorganic chemicals, drugs, paints and varnishes, wire, office machinery, and rubber tires. Detroit has a higher percentage of manufacturing employment (84%) in the metal and metal products industries than any other area in the United States.

Detroit is the headquarters of the United Automobile Workers, one of the largest labor unions in the world. Founded in 1936, the UAW represents 1,700,000 workers in 1,500 local ...