Dusty D is contributing another Ypsi-themed book to the "Ypsilanti" collection of books, this one from my own "local history" bookshelf. It is "Willow Run: A Study of Industrialization and Cultural Inadequacy," by U-M sociology professor Lowell Julliard Carr and Detroit Institute of Technology sociology professor James Edson Stermer.This stunning sociological study focuses on the culture within the housing projects surrounding the bomber plant.
Readers will find an account of a family overwintering in a tent--and--giving birth to a baby in said tent, who, when visited by indefatigable Ypsilanti social worker Inez Graves, was wrapped in newspaper.
The book offers a gripping portrait of the day-to-day life of the Ypsituckians (I use that word with pride) in the shoddy Willow Run housing projects, and how they were regarded by "respectable" Ypsilantians who watched, with horror, as the population of the bomber workers ballooned to 42,331 in 1943.
Descriptions of the seedy private trailer camps that sprang up, the inadequacy of hygienic facilities, and the scrappy efforts of the Willow Village/Willow Lodge residents to maintain a decent life rivet the reader.
Dusty D strongly recommends this fascinating book, an invaluable and unvarnished portrait of the lives of the bomber plant workers. It's available on Amazon!
