Friday, October 10, 2008, 3:00–5:00 p.m.
“The Factions Guiding the CIO are Red and They Hope to Take the Blue and White Out of the Color of Our Flag”: Detroit Labor and Anticommunism
Colleen Doody, DePaul University
Commentators: Steven Meyer, University of Wisconsin at Madison, and Martha Biondi, Northwestern University

During the early Cold War, opposition to communism was not merely an outgrowth of the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. In this local study, I explore one of the crucial sources of domestic anticommunism in Detroit. I argue that much of the anticommunist discourse that occurred in Detroit after World War II was a debate over the power of labor and the expansion of the New Deal state. Despite the fact that Detroit was the most heavily unionized city in the nation, anti-CIO candidates won political office by linking labor to the Communist Party. In response to their defeats, labor leaders battled to determine the role labor would play in the postwar world.

All papers are pre-circulated electronically to those who plan to attend the seminar in person. For a copy of the paper, e-mail Jenny Butler at scholl@newberry.org, or call 312-255-3524. Please do not request a paper unless you plan to attend.

Co-sponsored by the History Department of the University of Illinois at Chicago, Northern Illinois University, Northwestern University and the Labor and Working Class History Association