Not Automatic: Women and the Left in the Forging of the Auto Workers' Union

This story of the birth and infancy of the United Auto Workers, told by two participants, shows how the gains workers made were neither easy nor inevitable-not automatic-but required strategic and tactical sophistication as well as concerted action. Sol Dollinger recounts how workers, especially activists on the political left, created an auto union and struggled with one another over what shape the union should take. In an oral history conducted by Susan Rosenthal, Genora Johnson Dollinger tells the gripping tale of her role in various struggles, both political and personal.