The forgotten battle of East Lansing

The forgotten battle of East Lansing eastlansinginfo.news

Clashes between Michigan State College students and union members organizing a labor strike broke out during the summer of 1937.

105 points•rmason•9 days ago•24 comments•

#forgotten #battle #east #lansing #forgotten battle #east lansing #clashes #michigan

24 comments

mettamage6 days ago

Fun to see something about East Lansing here. While I am Dutch, I have been there in the neighborhood (e.g. Lansing itself) on and off for 6 months in total when I had a long distance marriage (we live in the Netherlands nowadays). I’m a fan of Blue Owl coffee there.

REO town was cheap to rent and quite walkable to the city center (or “downtown” as they call it). I liked it more than I thought I would. Many places there aren’t walkable but from REO town to the city center it was possible. One thing I noticed was that walkability wasn’t priced in the rents at all since after a 1 mile walk from the city center, studio apartments were about 800$ (2024) whereas in the city center itself it was more like 1100$ IIRC. In my view going 300$ while just having a 1 mile walk seems like a steal.

MSU is massive nowadays. It’s crazy how big it is. It feels like an actual town. I wonder how big it was then.

As for the article itself. I find it interesting to read how certain groups were just taking action and there was no discernible leadership that could talk to each other. I wonder if this would have happened if that was the case.

The car manufacturing culture in Michigan in general is a low-key tourist worthy thing to check out (e.g. in the Detroit Institute of Art). But I have my father in law for that, haha. Asking Claude what a CNC programmer does because he’s not that great at explaining it to a total noob like me :’) once I understood that he had a macro language inside what he called G-code it was fun to ask what he programmed haha.

to11mtm6 days ago

> One thing I noticed was that walkability wasn’t priced in the rents at all since after a 1 mile walk from the city center, studio apartments were about 800$ (2024) whereas in the city center itself it was more like 1100$ IIRC. In my view going 300$ while just having a 1 mile walk seems like a steal.

A surprising number of people in the state would not consider 1 mile 'walkable'. I'm not saying I agree with that, however in general our car culture and the related urban design means it can be a PITA for a lot of people to live their lives without one.

> MSU is massive nowadays. It’s crazy how big it is. It feels like an actual town. I wonder how big it was then.

For whatever it's worth, MSU was still more of an agricultural college than anything back then. Heck, one of my ancestors actually got indoor plumbing installed by the college as part of a study into how it could benefit the life of a farmer.

My father actually went there near the end of that era, I can ask him for some stories this weekend when we do breakfast. Will be 20ish years off but while it was handled by the 'Board of Agriculture'.

> The car manufacturing culture in Michigan in general is a low-key tourist worthy thing to check out (e.g. in the Detroit Institute of Art)

The DIA has Diego Rivera's mural, worth also noting the Detroit Historical Museum has an example of part of an older style body-on-frame line alongside a lot of other interesting automotive history bits. (Also, in general other important sections for parts of our history, The basement even captures the 1800's cobblestone aesthetic.) Both the Motown and Riot exhibits are worth a good visit.

In general the state has one of the most curious meshes of industrial and rural/agricultural history, between the mining towns in the UP, the Logging towns in the norther LP, the farming history in much of the LP, and the 'Arsenal of Democracy' that was Detroit.

bscphil6 days ago

> A surprising number of people in the state would not consider 1 mile 'walkable'.

In a surprising number of American cities, 1 mile is not walkable, simply because no one thought to put in a sidewalk or have adequate protection for pedestrians. That goes double for places like Lansing, where the sidewalks that are there are often icy during the winter.

WorldPeas6 days ago

g-code brings back a nostalgic pang, that was what we used before STL was common in 3d-printing. It's kind of amazing to read in this story just how tightly knit a community like this can be despite its industrial nature, what are the worthy touring spots that GM security wouldn't take issue with?

rmason6 days ago

Local here. Downtown Lansing, just off Michigan Avenue has the R.E. Olds Transportation museum. My late father was involved with the museum as a volunteer. Lots of rare Oldsmobile's including one of the first cars he produced known as the "curved dash" from 1901. Note Olds invented the modern assembly line, not Henry Ford. Though to be fair Ford and his chief engineer C. Harold Wills perfected the car assembly line we know of today.

https://www.reoldsmuseum.org/

Right next door is the Impression 5 science museum. While it is aimed at children I've always found it fascinating and it is hands on. Unlike most science museums with which I am familiar they keep building new exhibits.

https://impression5.org/home

If you are into history the Michigan History Museum is just South of the Capital. They have an original copy of our state constitution on display. They also got a copy of every computer the state has purchased. Last time I was there they had a room full of old computers. So if you've never seen a Next cube, an Osborne portable, first Compaq portable or an Apple Lisa they are all on display in working order.

https://www.michigan.gov/mhc/museums/mhm

Lastly if you enjoy art visit the Broad Art Museum on the North end of the Michigan State University campus. The building is striking looking and was featured in one of the Batman movies. It is one of the few buildings in America designed by the late Pulitzer prize winning British architect Zaha Hadid.

https://broadmuseum.msu.edu/

Course all that pales to Detroit where you could literally spend ten days if you wanted to visit every museum.

zeusk6 days ago

btw, slicers turn the STL into g-code for the printer before you hit print. STL is just easier to work with for the transformations that need to happen within slicer software.

xhevahir6 days ago

> “But many Michigan State College students, overhearing the arguments between the unionists and the businessmen, quickly perceived the situation as a challenge to their sovereignty and to their eating places,” they wrote.

I'm skeptical of the idea that this was all the result of a big misunderstanding. Students were often recruited to act as strikebreakers in the early 20th century.

There's a book that deals with this subject, Strikebreaking and Intimidation: Mercenaries and Masculinity in Twentieth-Century America. Football players were especially valued.

nonethewiser6 days ago

I think you're mischaracterizing the article though. It doesn't claim it was all a big misunderstanding. It says the students didn't like the disruption to local businesses , simply because it was disruptive. It was viewed as a bunch of outsiders coming in and controlling their city.

Isn't that just the obvious explanation anyways? That a group of people come into your city and shut down your businesses is going to piss people off? Of course people are going to oppose outsiders shutting down people's livelihood.

mcmcmc6 days ago

Pretty telling that it kicked off with the ROTC unit after their commander dismissed them from class.

guywithahat6 days ago

It's not just that; unions were quickly becoming broadly unpopular, especially among those outside of the union. It hurt job prospects and slowed hiring, usually ending in the company leaving or shrinking. Saying young people opposed the union only because they were afraid their favorite burger join would shut down for a few days is revisionist history to say the least.

Alive-in-20256 days ago

It's interesting to read this about the attitude of unions and students in that time. I agree with the other comment that the rotc teacher likely sent his students over to stop the strike. But this was 1937, the depression was still affecting lots of people, so I'd have expected more students to be sensitive to the workers. Were the students influenced by the rotc teacher, were they "the more wealthy kind of people" who could afford to go to college then?

I'd have expected the students to be split at least, with more supporters for the union than not. I had several family members who managed to graduate from college in the 30s, and it was a grind, with time off for working, more than 4 years, scraping by with hardly any money. I wonder if they saw unions as evil or good or what (can't ask them this question now).

AngryData6 days ago

Were those problems actually the cause of unions though? The entire time period was a downturn and unions seem to be used as the scapegoat for any and every economic ill.

crottypeter6 days ago

You can tell it is written for local people. I find it quite jarring when I have to stop reading to find out what ROTC or MSC are supposed to mean.

da_chicken6 days ago

It's a local newspaper. It's not in English because it's seeking an international audience.

But, MSC is easy enough to determine from context, and ROTC would be a familiar abbreviation for any American.

etcetcetcetceta6 days ago

I’m not sure that’s true, I was able to infer from context what MSC stands for and if you’ve had exposure to American culture then ROTC is quite common.

I live 3000 miles from east Lansing.

syngrog666 days ago

Good reminder that all government is based on force, threat of violence and coercion. Authority comes from the fist, the gun, the daring act. We only paper over it enough to make ourselves feel better.

b800h6 days ago

Nice reminder that higher education wasn't always a bastion of the radical left-wing. But wait!

'“It is indeed refreshing to know,” wrote one lawmaker, “that we have at least one instance of higher learning that is not shot through with communism.”'

Ah. Perhaps this answer's the article's question of why no-one commemorated it with a folk song in the 60s.

greatgib6 days ago

Curious because when I read this piece, I have the feeling that the student actions are typical left-wing movement things.

Like workers doing the hard work and fighting for their rights to not be exploited. Not to be put in jail for asking better life conditions.

Students on the other side that are lazy brats that fight the workers instead of the system for unclear philosophical "moral" goals...

kspacewalk25 days ago

I fail to see how they're lazy, sounds like they were quite the opposite. And really, the students explained the crux of the matter quite well. You can request solidarity, but you cannot force it by thuggery. You might bring out some brats and end up in the still-chilly water of the local river.

Read the full thread on Hacker News →

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