Sunday, March 28, 2010

General Motors and I-496: The First Post of Many

As you know we are building an exhibit on I-496 and I was placed on the Research Team. Within that team I was given a more specialized topic and that was General Motors (GM) role. Me being an Africanist I really had no background knowledge on General Motors or the automobile industry. The first book I read on the topic was Billy, Alfred, and General Motors written by William Pelfrey. This gave me great insight on not only the growth of GM but also the growth of the automobile industry. The free wheeling style of Billy Durant (who looks like a professor I had at MSU named Barry Stein) and the rigid Alfred Sloan. Both of these men made great strides in the automobile industry with Durant building GM and Sloan saving GM.

2 comments:

  1. Sounds like you've been more successful than I was! Any luck hearing back from that GM archive place in Sterling Heights?

    And did you get that Pelfrey book from MSU lib?

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  2. They wanted specific plant information so I should have something concrete on Monday or Tuesday but we can have access :)

    And I got the Palfrey book from the CADL library but they do have a copy at the MSU Business library.

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