Eve of Dispersal: Mapping UAW Local 174 c.1940
Stephen McFarland, Earth and Environmental Sciences
Faculty Advisor: Ruthie Gilmore
NML Award: The History and Public Health Award (April 2013)
Using ArcGIS software, Steve is creating a map of union member residences by geocoding a comprehensive list of United Auto Workers Local 174 union shop stewards. Local 174 was an influential local within the UAW, based on the West Side of Detroit and led by Walter Reuther, who would go on to become President of the UAW and later the entire CIO. The local included over 30,000 members at its height. The map will enable visualization and analysis of residence patterns in this union in the era just prior to postwar suburbanization and the dispersal of industrial plants and union membership.
