THE WAY WE WERE: DETROIT

Cover photo from Michigan: A Guide to the Wolverine State

The Detroit of 1941 was a city on the rise, a city of unbridled opportunity; the true automobile capitol of the world at a time when the automobile was ready to capture the nation.  Henry Ford’s introduction of the assembly line and the city’s importance as a manufacturing center during World War I attracted huge numbers of immigrants from abroad, and African Americans from the South to work in its many factories and industries. “There is drama in Detroit: the drama of swift and unpredictable growth… there is hope in Detroit… it has strength and has power.”

Students in Detroit

However, the dramatic growth seen by the “motor city” eventually came to an end. With the flight of manufacturing overseas, its automobile industry has taken a heavy hit and the city began losing residents. While no longer the powerhouse it once was, when three fifths of the world’s automobiles were made in Michigan, it remains the center of the American automobile industry and one of the largest cities in the country.

As warm weather cities like Houston and Phoenix grow, a shift in industry from manufacturing to technology and service seems to have doomed the rust belt cities like Detroit to slow decline. Detroit has seen an especially wild fluctuation. From 1920 to 1940 it gained 600 thousand residents to reach a peak population of 1.6 million people. Yet as of the 2000 census, its population has dropped to below 1 million, and more losses are expected, bringing estimates of its population to below the 1920 numbers.

Michigan: A Guide to the Wolverine State
Compiled by the workers of the Writers’ Program of the Works Progress Administration in the State of Michigan – F.566.W9 – First published 1941