During the Great Migration, starting in 1910 and continuing till the 1970s, many Black citizens in the United States moved north in search of better lives, far away from southern Jim Crow. But, as discussed in one of the earliest blog posts here, while Black Americans found freedom from the…
The map below charts population changes of African Americans in the United States during the Great Migration. Primarily, the migration saw southern African Americans leaving the south and trekking to northern cities. Secondly, we can see they were moving to urban centers within the south, changes which appear smaller than…
During the Second World War, the United States became the armory for the allied forces. To facilitate this, factories in the manufacturing industry were retooled to build weapons or other wartime materials. Detroit’s factories were no exception, the city’s well established automotive industries were well suited to the task, and…
Below is a graph charting the growth and eventual decline of Detroit’s population over a one hundred year period, 1880 to 1980. This graph is helpful in its visualization of the effect which major historic events within the US had on the city, as well as events which were unique…
The above chart lists the different weapons used in Alcohol related deaths in Chicago. The primary category described in the raw data is “other gun,” which while vague, does inform forensic capabilities of the time being charted, and also reveals how much more likely death from a bullet wound was…
Above is a collection of labor strikes in Detroit’s automotive manufacturing industries, involving 10,000 employees or more. What I have found so far from the raw data, is that earlier strikes generally are concerned with unionization and establishing a system of bargaining, while later strikes are more concerned with issues…
Keeping in line with my previous post, I would like to explore more of Detroit’s history as an industrial powerhouse, and how Detroit’s factories impacted the city, and the individuals working within them. How did work life in factories evolve over time for employees in regards to issues like employee…
According to U.S. Census Bureau data, from 1910 to 1920, Detroit’s population increased from 465,766, to 993,678, and then rose again in 1930 to an astounding 1,568,662. In just twenty years, the population of Detroit exploded from less than half a million, to over one-and-a-half million, what drove this rapid…
America has long struggled to reconcile, or even recognize, many racial issues from its history, the residual effects of de-facto segregation being one of them. To this day, Detroit remains one of the most segregated cities in the US, and in order to learn how this injustice came to be,…
I am researching the urbanization of Detroit Michigan, especially as it pertains to Detroit’s large manufacturing sector. Detroit’s automotive industry, ship building and steel production were all major draws for workers moving around the US in the late 19th and throughout 20th century. Tracking the growth of the city and…
