Reuther: A Daughter Strikes - Hardcover

Elisabeth R. Dickmeyer

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0933803117 ISBN 13: 9780933803114

Publisher: HealthProInk & Thirty Three Publishing, 1989

About this title

Review

This is a biography-cum-autobiography. It is about the late Walter Reuther, a man of vision in the American labor movement, president of the United Automobile Workers of America and of the CIO at the time of its merger with the AFL. It is also about what it meant to grow up as his daughter in a home full of love and commitment, meeting great people and witnessing critical events, but surrounded by guards and high fences which were meant to protect the family against recurring threats on Reuther's life. Dickmeyer's anecdotes are often fascinating. However, she does not provide a systematic or analytical biography of Reuther nor is she more than superficially informed about the union context or the times. Even when she was present at momentous events, or heard of them from her parents, her perspective was that of a child or adolescent, and she does not reexamine the past as an historian or even as a daughter now better informed about her father's career. Dickmeyer's book will appeal to those interested in the price children sometimes pay for parents' dedication to public service and to those who want to supplement scholarly biographies with a daughter's eye view. It may also be of interest to some teenagers. -- From Independent Publisher

From Publishers Weekly

Walter Reuther, for 24 years president of the United Auto Workers, was indisputably a remarkable and foresighted man. His daughter's doting biography not only details many of Reuther's accomplishments and the controversy and dedication he inspired, but relates colorful family history (such as his two-year trek with his brother through Russia and Europe during the Nazi rise to power) and Reuther's idiosyncrasies (he was a teetotaler). Reuther emerges a sympathetic figure, and accounts of his persistence and drivein overcoming a limp in adolescence, for example, or in landing a good jobare revealing and moving, as is evidence of his and his family's courage in the face of numerous assassination attempts. Although Dickmeyer never disengages herself from her subject, retaining a childlike hero-worship almost from the first page, her book provides a valuable and informative examination of a great man's life, with insights into his philosophies. Photos. Author tour.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: HealthProInk & Thirty Three Publishing
• Publication date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0933803117
• ISBN 13: 9780933803114
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 375