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THE END OF THE LINE MORALITY AND SOCIETY A Series Edited by Alan Wolfe K A T H R Y N MARI E D U D L E Y THE END OF THE HHE Lost Jobs, New Lives in Postindustrial America TD UNIVERSITY Of CH1CAB0 PRESS Chicago Kathryn Marie Dudley is assistant professor of American studies at Yale University. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 1994 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 1994 Printed in the United States of America 03 02 01 00 99 98 97 96 95 94 1 2 3 4 5 ISBN: 0-226-16908-1 (cloth) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dudley, Kathryn Marie. The end of the line : lost jobs, new lives in postindustrial America / Kathryn Marie Dudley. p. cm.—(Morality and society) Includes index. 1. Plant shutdowns—Wisconsin—Kenosha—Public opinion. 2. Public opinion—Wisconsin—Kenosha. 3. Automobile industry workers— Wisconsin—Kenosha. 4. Unemployment—Wisconsin—Kenosha. 5. Ethnology—Wisconsin—Kenosha. 6. Chrysler Corporation. I. Title. II. Series. H D5708.55. U62 K463 1994 338.6'042—dc20 93-6041 CIP © The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. In memory of Mark Minetti (1958—1988) We all have expectations. We look outward through a little chink in our armor, one conditioned by our background, our experience, our doubts, and our faith. The true ground of hope is not our expectations, however, no matter how grand or humble. It lies in the hubbub, which upsets our expectations and reorders our perceptions. We are constantly being challenged therefore to become more inclusive, mature, and enduring in our love. John A. Buehrens and F. Forrester Church, Our Chosen Faith CONTENTS Acknowledgments xi Introduction: The Tradition of Opportunity XV Part One: What Happened to the American Dream? One Kenosha Had a Dream 3 Two Keep Kenosha Open! 18 Three Dollars and Diplomas 30 Part Two: Culture of the Mind Four Turning the Tables 51 Five Social Darwinism Revisited 71 Six That Haunting Thing 86 Part Three: Culture of the Hands Seven Shopfloor Culture 103 Eight Badges of Ability 116 Nine Broken Promises 135 Ten Mapping the Moral Terrain 154 Conclusion: American Primitive 173 Appendix: The Kenosha Workforce 183 Notes 187 Index 219 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The End of the Line is in many ways a book about my hometown. I grew up several miles north of Kenosha’s auto plant, in the neighboring city of Racine, Wisconsin. As teenagers caught up in divisive high- school rivalries, most of us would have taken offense at the suggestion that the two cities had anything of any importance in common. Only in retrospect, as the mass shutdowns and layoffs of the 1980s deliv ered one blow after another, did it become apparent that our greatest similarity, and increasing liability, was our industrial heritage. I had been living in New York City for a number of years before I realized that Racine and Kenosha are part of the “rust belt”—that great swath of middle America razed by the decline of the rubber, steel, and automobile industries. This understanding came to me slowly, not through news stories or scholarly articles, but from my visits home. Vast chunks of Main Street had fallen to the wrecking cranes, and the boarded-up windows of factories and shops appeared on every block. But the specter of a ghost town went hand in hand with a good deal of talk about economic revitalization, the new marina, hotels, condominiums, and shopping malls. Rust belt America, I soon real ized, is not a static landscape of slag heaps and desolate smokestacks. It is a cultural drama of communities in transition and ordinary people struggling to find a place for the past in the present. When the closing of a local machine-tool factory forced my grandfather into early retirement, I saw in his loneliness why the loss of an industrial job can be so devastating. Friendships built up over twenty years on the shopfloor gradually fade away, and with them the sense of com munity that gives us all a meaningful place in the world. My grand- Acknowledgments father is not alive to read this book; I can only hope it conveys my appreciation for the life he lived. Many people have helped to make this book possible. I am espe cially indebted to Jack Ward, Joanne Steagall, and the dedicated staff of job counselors at Kenosha’s UAW-JDTC Dislocated Workers Assis tance Center. Without their help, this book would not exist. My heartfelt thanks and lasting respect goes to the autoworkers who vol unteered to parucipate in this research. I wasn’t able to quote every worker’s words directly, but everyone I spoke with shaped the out come of this book in great and small ways. Despite considerable stress and some initial misgivings, these men and women took the emotional risk of sharing their experiences with me, as together we explored the meaning of the shutdown in their lives. Their contribution to this project is a testimony to the strength with which they face a largely unforgiving world. Friends and family in Racine and Kenosha made the arduous task of beginning a community study infinitely easier. Sally Orth offered early assistance by putting me in touch with sympathetic educators who steered me through layers of administrative bureaucracy. I con ducted research in the high schools with the approval of John Hos- manek, superintendent of the Kenosha Unified School District, and Jackson Parker, director of Educational Research and Development for Racine Unified. My sister and her friends, Hedy Pflugrad and Cindy Carr, opened doors to several social networks that allowed me to meet a much wider range of autoworker families then might oth erwise have been possible. My brother gave me rolls of film that mea surably enhanced my visual memory and hence the descriptive passages in this book. Grace Meyer good-naturedly put up with an anthropologist in her house during the spring and summer of 1989. During the last phase of my fieldwork, Bill and Sara Jensen welcomed me into their home as they have so often before. Cindy Weiss, best friend of long acquaintance (note I did not say old friend), kept my spirits up with generous humor and wise counsel. Many thanks go to my father, who for weeks on end let me borrow the car. Useful finan cial support for this project came in a grant-in-aid of research sup plied by Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society. Katherine Newman was everything I could have wished for in a thesis adviser. She has been an inspiration, a constructive critic, and a wellspring of moral support. I count myself among those fortunate graduate students who can, in times of terror or despair, rely on the equanimity and sound judgment of their advisers. When such virtues are combined with intelligence and compassion, the only appropriate Acknowledgments acclamation is “awesome.” Thus, with unabashed admiration I thank my awesome adviser for her strong guidance of my graduate career and her unwavering belief in this project. Many people have read this work in one or several of its incarnations. Herbert Gans, Elaine Combs-Schilling, Martha Howell, and David Koester offered valuable suggestions at the dissertation stage. Cathy Wanner, friend and in trepid colleague that she is, plowed through the entire manuscript on a moment’s notice, not once but twice, and her challenging questions helped clarify many points. 1 am much obliged to Alan Wolfe and Douglas Mitchell for the confidence they expressed in this book from the outset and for their sure handling of the revision process. Rick Fantasia offered incisive criticism at a crucial point, and the book has benefited enormously as a result. Mark Hertzberg at the Racine Jour nal Times and Bill Siel at the Kenosha News helped to compile the won derful set of photographs included in the book. Alice Bennett’s judicious editing provided the polish and finishing touches. This book is dedicated to Mark Minetti, my friend since the sixth grade, who died the winter the plant closing was announced. Mark was the son of a factory worker, and when we were in high school, many of our late-night conversations were edged with the anxiety of wanting to honor family expectations while still being true to our selves. A star gymnast, Mark often dreamed of a career in dance but eventually began working with his hands, designing furniture in New York City. One of the last times we met, he was working on a desk made of cherry wood and had just sanded down the surface to a rosy glow. He invited me to run my fingers across it, and as I did I knew that neither of us, standing there in a loft in Soho, had left our home town very far behind. Trying to understand experiences that are at once personal and cultural calls for a kind of passionate detachment that is, I think, al most impossible to sustain alone. Susan Robertson, my psychothera pist, has been a constant source of emotional support and thoughtful analysis, and always an exasperating master of the third instance. She has helped me maintain a creative balance between a sense of per sonal limitation and hope in the world’s possibilities. Special thanks is reserved for my mother. Her evidently unshakable conviction that I usually know what I am doing has seen me through many times when in truth I have not. The courage to explore and respect different ways of life springs from this sturdy faith, and for it I am forever grateful.