Calculating Property Relations : Chicago's Wartime Industrial Mobilization, 1940–1950 / Robert Lewis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lewis, Robert D., 1954- author.

Series:

Geographies of justice and social transformation ; 29.

Geographies of justice and social transformation ; 29

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

World War, 1939-1945--Illinois--Chicago--History.

World War, 1939-1945.

Military-industrial complex--United States--History--20th century.

Military-industrial complex.

Industrial policy--United States--History--20th century.

Industrial policy.

Industrial mobilization--United States--History--20th century.

Industrial mobilization.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (283 pages) : illustrations, map.

Manufacture:

Baltimore, Md. : Project MUSE, 2017

Place of Publication:

Athens, GA : University of Georgia Press, 2016.

Summary:

Combining theories of calculation and property relations and using an array of archival sources, this book focuses on the building and decommissioning of state-owned defense factories in World War II-era Chicago. Robert Lewis's rich trove of material-drawn from research on more than six hundred federally funded wartime industrial sites in metropolitan Chicago-supports three major conclusions. First, the relationship of the key institutions of the military-industrial complex was refashioned by their calculative actions on industrial property. The imperatives of war forced the federal state and the military to become involved in industrial matters in an entirely new manner. Second, federal and military investment in defense factories had an enormous effect on the industrial geography of metropolitan Chicago. The channeling of huge lumps of industrial capital into sprawling plants on the urban fringe had a decisive impact on the metropolitan geographies of manufacturing. Third, the success of industrial mobilization was made possible through the multi-scale relations of national and locational interaction. National policy could only be realized by the placing of these relations at the local level. Throughout, Lewis shows how the interests of developers, factory engineers, corporate executives, politicians, unions, and the working class were intimately bound up with industrial space. Offering a local perspective on a city permanently shaped by national events, this book provides a richer understanding of the dynamics of wartime mobilization, the calculative actions of political and business leaders, the social relations of property, the working of state-industry relations, and the making of industrial space.

Contents:

Acknowledgments

List of abbreviations

Introduction

Calculation and industrial property

Industrial sites and wartime mobilization

Mobilizing chicago's wartime industrial property

Chicago's wartime industrial sites

War factories and industrial engineering

The disposal regime : factories and national security

Disposing of Chicago's war factories

The site politics of defense factory disposal

Property, calculation, and industrial space

Appendix wartime factory expansion

Notes

Manuscript sources

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780820350134

0820350133

OCLC:

948669730