ABSTRACT
The United Automobile Workers' Union (UAW), like most of the industrial unions formed in the 1930s, had a predominantly male constituency. But there were also some factories in the UAW's jurisdiction — in the auto parts branch of the motor industry—where women were quite numerous. In this chapter, Ruth Meyerowitz analyzes the role of women in the UAW's organizing drive in one such factory, the Detroit Ternstedt General Motors parts plant, which played an important role in the union's broader General Motors (GM) drive. Drawing on archival material and extensive oral history interviews, Meyerowitz analyzes the social and political composition of Ternstedt's female union activists, and demonstrates their critical role in the organizing drive's success. Although these women were organized along with their male counterparts, in accordance with the logic of industrial unionism, the UAW gave little attention to the special needs of women workers. There was no systematic effort to encourage women's union leadership, and most of the women activists involved in the Ternstedt drive gradually disappeared from the scene. Their story is part of the contribution of the 1930s generation of rank-and-file women activists to building the Congress of Industrial Organizations, a contribution which has never been fully recognized.
