Race And Inequality In Postwar Detroit

Throughout the course of history, technology has played a substantial role in the development of cities. Technology ultimately made everything more efficient. As seen in Jackson’s text Crabgrass Frontier, Jackson talks about the impact that technology had on the age of subdivision. Houses were improved after the war, and population increased. With the increase of population, more minds were put into the field of technology. Something that triggered an enormous impact on human technology was simply transportation. Then in Thomas Sugrue’s Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit, we are presented with the impact that automation had in the late 1940s and 1950s. Automation was beneficial because they increased the output of work, and reduced labor

“Industrialists touted automation as a way to improve working conditions and workers’ standard of living” (130). As seen from this quote, automation shaped the way we view labor. Not only did it provide a better alternative instead of using many people, but the use of machines reduced the number of accidents that may have occurred otherwise. Clearly, industrialists needed to look to “how to get the most out of machines rather than how to get the most out of people” (131). This was reduced because many of the more dangerous machines used in factory jobs were replaced with more modern and safer machinery. Despite this, “Automation offered two major benefits to manufacturers: it promised both to increase output and to reduce labor costs” (130). As seen here, automation improved factory jobs and made the most out of what technological advancement could bring. Previously in technology, automation was not as favored because it simply wasn’t as good or desired as seen by the automation that removes hot coil springs from a coiling machine. This machine was soon replaced because modernization in technology which “offered real benefits to workers” when before, machines were “relatively slow, unsafe, and physically demanding” (131). In other words, automation restructured American economy after World War II and served to be the main tool for manufacturing operations in which was followed by many other industries for fifteen years. Overall, the development of automation was a huge success in increasing the economy and productivity in helping the American city become what it is