ABSTRACT
On February 4, 1986, at approximately 2 p.m., thousands of workers and their
families’ lives changed in ways they could only begin to imagine. On that day
United Technologies Corporation ordered the closure of the 76-year-old American
Bosch manufacturing plant in Springfield, Massachusetts, capping a nearly
32-year history of job loss and work relocation from the sprawling factory. The
plant was built in 1911 by the Robert Bosch Magneto Company of Stuttgart,
Germany, and in the years before it closed, workers manufactured precision
fuel-injection systems for automobiles, trucks, and tanks. Early on, the four-story
plant produced electrical starters and other car parts and, for a brief period,
radios. Bosch’s history represents the quintessence of the story of manufacturing
companies in the valley and across the northern tier of the United States. This
book describes the profound economic collapse of the region, with a particular
focus on the Bosch, as it was known, its workers, and union.
