today at 8:44 PM
> “But many Michigan State College students, overhearing the arguments between the unionists and the businessmen, quickly perceived the situation as a challenge to their sovereignty and to their eating places,” they wrote.
I'm skeptical of the idea that this was all the result of a big misunderstanding. Students were often recruited to act as strikebreakers in the early 20th century.
There's a book that deals with this subject, Strikebreaking and Intimidation: Mercenaries and Masculinity in Twentieth-Century America. Football players were especially valued.
today at 8:49 PM
Pretty telling that it kicked off with the ROTC unit after their commander dismissed them from class.
today at 9:28 PM
It's not just that; unions were quickly becoming broadly unpopular, especially among those outside of the union. It hurt job prospects and slowed hiring, usually ending in the company leaving or shrinking. Saying young people opposed the union only because they were afraid their favorite burger join would shut down for a few days is revisionist history to say the least.
today at 7:21 PM
Fun to see something about East Lansing here. While I am Dutch, I have been there in the neighborhood (e.g. Lansing itself) on and off for 6 months in total when I had a long distance marriage (we live in the Netherlands nowadays). I’m a fan of Blue Owl coffee there.
REO town was cheap to rent and quite walkable to the city center (or “downtown” as they call it). I liked it more than I thought I would. Many places there aren’t walkable but from REO town to the city center it was possible. One thing I noticed was that walkability wasn’t priced in the rents at all since after a 1 mile walk from the city center, studio apartments were about 800$ (2024) whereas in the city center itself it was more like 1100$ IIRC. In my view going 300$ while just having a 1 mile walk seems like a steal.
MSU is massive nowadays. It’s crazy how big it is. It feels like an actual town. I wonder how big it was then.
As for the article itself. I find it interesting to read how certain groups were just taking action and there was no discernible leadership that could talk to each other. I wonder if this would have happened if that was the case.
The car manufacturing culture in Michigan in general is a low-key tourist worthy thing to check out (e.g. in the Detroit Institute of Art). But I have my father in law for that, haha. Asking Claude what a CNC programmer does because he’s not that great at explaining it to a total noob like me :’) once I understood that he had a macro language inside what he called G-code it was fun to ask what he programmed haha.
today at 8:58 PM
> One thing I noticed was that walkability wasn’t priced in the rents at all since after a 1 mile walk from the city center, studio apartments were about 800$ (2024) whereas in the city center itself it was more like 1100$ IIRC. In my view going 300$ while just having a 1 mile walk seems like a steal.
A surprising number of people in the state would not consider 1 mile 'walkable'. I'm not saying I agree with that, however in general our car culture and the related urban design means it can be a PITA for a lot of people to live their lives without one.
> MSU is massive nowadays. It’s crazy how big it is. It feels like an actual town. I wonder how big it was then.
For whatever it's worth, MSU was still more of an agricultural college than anything back then. Heck, one of my ancestors actually got indoor plumbing installed by the college as part of a study into how it could benefit the life of a farmer.
My father actually went there near the end of that era, I can ask him for some stories this weekend when we do breakfast. Will be 20ish years off but while it was handled by the 'Board of Agriculture'.
> The car manufacturing culture in Michigan in general is a low-key tourist worthy thing to check out (e.g. in the Detroit Institute of Art)
The DIA has Diego Rivera's mural, worth also noting the Detroit Historical Museum has an example of part of an older style body-on-frame line alongside a lot of other interesting automotive history bits. (Also, in general other important sections for parts of our history, The basement even captures the 1800's cobblestone aesthetic.) Both the Motown and Riot exhibits are worth a good visit.
In general the state has one of the most curious meshes of industrial and rural/agricultural history, between the mining towns in the UP, the Logging towns in the norther LP, the farming history in much of the LP, and the 'Arsenal of Democracy' that was Detroit.
today at 9:20 PM
> A surprising number of people in the state would not consider 1 mile 'walkable'.
In a surprising number of American cities, 1 mile is not walkable, simply because no one thought to put in a sidewalk or have adequate protection for pedestrians. That goes double for places like Lansing, where the sidewalks that are there are often icy during the winter.
today at 7:46 PM
g-code brings back a nostalgic pang, that was what we used before STL was common in 3d-printing. It's kind of amazing to read in this story just how tightly knit a community like this can be despite its industrial nature, what are the worthy touring spots that GM security wouldn't take issue with?
today at 8:22 PM
Local here. Downtown Lansing, just off Michigan Avenue has the R.E. Olds Transportation museum. My late father was involved with the museum as a volunteer. Lots of rare Oldsmobile's including one of the first cars he produced known as the "curved dash" from 1901. Note Olds invented the modern assembly line, not Henry Ford. Though to be fair Ford and his chief engineer C. Harold Wills perfected the car assembly line we know of today.
Right next door is the Impression 5 science museum. While it is aimed at children I've always found it fascinating and it is hands on. Unlike most science museums with which I am familiar they keep building new exhibits.
If you are into history the Michigan History Museum is just South of the Capital. They have an original copy of our state constitution on display. They also got a copy of every computer the state has purchased. Last time I was there they had a room full of old computers. So if you've never seen a Next cube, an Osborne portable, first Compaq portable or an Apple Lisa they are all on display in working order.
https://www.michigan.gov/mhc/museums/mhm
Lastly if you enjoy art visit the Broad Art Museum on the North end of the Michigan State University campus. The building is striking looking and was featured in one of the Batman movies. It is one of the few buildings in America designed by the late Pulitzer prize winning British architect Zaha Hadid.
Course all that pales to Detroit where you could literally spend ten days if you wanted to visit every museum.
today at 10:07 PM
Impression 5 rules! My 4-year old loves it, so we have a membership.
today at 9:01 PM
btw, slicers turn the STL into g-code for the printer before you hit print. STL is just easier to work with for the transformations that need to happen within slicer software.
today at 8:08 PM
> At 2 a.m. Monday, June 7, 1937, Lansing police pounded on the Washburns’ door to arrest him and his wife, Nevah, but the union leader was on a train back from Detroit. His wife was home with their three young children, all under 10. Nevah was arrested and left her children with a neighbor. Several labor union leaders and their wives were rounded up that night by the Lansing Police Department.When Washburn returned to Lansing about an hour later and found out his wife was in jail, he hurried to a pay phone — he said police had cut the telephone wire outside their home before serving the warrant for their arrest — and started waking people up. He gathered with other leaders who had escaped arrest and, within the next few hours, the UAW had declared a Lansing Labor Holiday. Approximately 15,000 union members would not report to work that day to protest the arrests. The union members and their supporters took to the streets in a parade led by a gravel truck, Washburn recalled in the 1986 interview.
sigh