teller's blog

Subject Focus: WDET in the UAW Years

Metro Detroiters recognize radio station WDET 101.9 FM as Wayne State University’s local voice for National Public Radio. Prior to 1952, however, WDET served as the local voice for labor. Unhappy with the critical representation of the labor movement in newspapers and on the radio, in 1944 the United Automobile Workers filed applications with the Federal Communications Commission to run independent radio stations in six markets with strong labor ties: the UAW’s hometown of Detroit; Flint, Michigan; Cleveland, Ohio; Los Angeles; Chicago; and Newark, New Jersey.  read more »

(30590) WDET FM Radio Flyer

Harnessing Engineering Womanpower in the Cold War

In 1955, in the midst of the Cold War, the U.S. Department of Labor Women’s Bureau hosted a Conference on the Effective Use of Womanpower. The Department of Labor was worried that the United States was producing too few engineers and scientists as compared to the number produced in the U.S.S.R., and found that the recruitment and training of women in science and engineering fields could help to alleviate the disparity.  read more »

(26124) Drawing, Percentage of Women Engineers in the United States and Russia, 1963
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