United Auto Worker Strikes and Labor Organizing at Ford's River Rouge Plant in Dearborn Michigan Press Photo Archive, 1941-53

United Auto Workers Ford Motor

Photograph

[Labor Organizing] Ford River Rouge plant labor photo archive documenting the struggle over union recognition, strike enforcement, and industrial bargaining at Ford Motor Company between 1941 and 1953. River Rouge was Ford’s massive Dearborn complex, where raw materials, blast furnaces, rail lines, ships, assembly shops, and tens of thousands of workers were concentrated at one site. Ford resisted the United Auto Workers longer than General Motors and Chrysler, and the 1941 strike forced the company into an NLRB-supervised vote that led to UAW representation at Rouge. The later 1949 strike over speed-up conditions demonstrates the continued role of the union in protecting workers from unreasonable production paces, giving bargaining authority, and strengthening worker control inside the plant.

Photo archive of 7 Large silver gelatin press photographs, measuring between 7 x 8 and 8 x 10 inches, Dearborn and Detroit, Michigan, 1941-1953. Workers stream across elevated pedestrian bridges into the Rouge gates, crowd plant entrances, receive ballots under the supervision of officials and a Michigan State Police officer, and stand in picket lines outside Ford buildings. A Black worker charges toward a picket while a state policeman advances with club raised, with the Acme caption identifying the incident as “Vengeance at River Rouge” on April 4, 1941. Other captions identify Sunday dinner served to pickets on April 6, 1941; thousands returning to work after settlement of the UAW-CIO strike on April 14, 1941; workers voting in the NLRB election on May 21, 1941; pickets entertained from a truck during the May 1949 walkout; and Ford’s River Rouge plant in 1953, described by the Ford News Department as employing more than 60,000 and able to turn raw materials into a finished car in 28 hours.

The archive records both the scale of River Rouge and the mechanics of labor conflict: police interference, union voting, picketing crowds, and shop workers moving between strike and production. It connects the 1941 recognition fight to the postwar UAW’s continuing battles over working conditions at one of the most closely watched industrial sites in the United States. Creasing, handling wear, surface marks, and caption wear; images remain intact and legible. Overall in good condition.

Item #23434

Price: $650.00