>>> <JKSCHW at aol.com> 03/14/00 01:48PM >>>
I have been asked by a documentary filmmaker who is doing a short (12 min.?) film on US industrial history for a pretty mainstream context what are the 10 absolutely must-include events, preferably with a bias towards stuff for which there exists film. Given the context and the buyer it cannot be all militant/labor radical stuff. The call is for stuff related to industry, not just radical labor.
The following list occurs to me. I am not trying at this point to limit it to 10. Please add, cut, rank. Thanks.
The discovery of the steam engine and/or cotton gin
************ CB: The Civil War that ended slavery
************
The completion of the transcontinental railroad/Chinese immigration to build it The formation of the great Trusts: Standard Oil, US Steel The Haymarket rally/8 hour day The ARU strike and/or the Homestead strike (a Penna event) Ford's Model T assembly line, Blacks move north to get factory jobs The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire/ILWGU The Lawrence Strike/IWW Something about the CIO--the UMW battles (very important in Penna), maybe the Ford Hunger Strikers?
*********** CB: It is the Ford Hunger MARCH. Several people were killed by Ford thugs.
************
The signing of the NLRA
((((((((((((
CB: Sitdown strike at GM; Union at Gm, then Chrysler and Ford et al.
*********
Industry/labor in WWII: women in the industrial workforce, Rosie the Riveter
********** CB: Taft-Hartley and Landrum-Griffin , reversals of NLRA advance
McCarthyism, Reutherites and rightwing purge communists and militants from unions.
********** The Treaty of Detroit The civil rights movement and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Something about the computer industry, what? IBM, Microsoft
*********
CB:
Various automations
Invention of the transistor
Invention of the microchip
CAD/CAM
Just in time delivery
Containerization.
Invention of synthetic materials such as plastics
Something about deindustrialization, moving offshore, maybe US Steel gets out of the steel biz?, becomes USX
***********
CB: Plant closings and runaway shops, from the city to the suburbs, from the North to the South of the U.S. and from the U.S. to other countries in the late 1970's and 80's . This was possible because of the scientific and technological revolution, especially in impact on transportation and communication, sketched above, whereby the capitalists were able to negate , cooperation, Marx's first pillar of the industrial revolution, negate it by the second pillar, mechanization going so far that the capitalist did not need the augmentation of surplus value by "cooperation" or giant factories , all production in one geographical location ( See chapters 14 an 15 of Capital Vol. I;
**********
CB
The breaking of the PATCO strike Something about the service economy, what? ???