Reuther: A Daughter Strikes

Book by Elisabeth Reuther Dickmeyer

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.

Walter Reuther's daughter describes her father, the United Auto Worker (UAW) leader, as a man "driven by a dream" of peace, social harmony, and economic justice. Weaving extracts from private letters and recollections from other UAW figures into her narrative, Dickmeyer pictures a man who was self-disciplined to the point of asceticism. Much of the book deals with Dickmeyer's adjustment to her father's notoriety and her fear that because of violent attacks on her father "disaster would strike" her life as well. Sympathetic and somewhat uncritical, still the book adds to our overall knowledge of one of the most powerful figures in contemporary American history. Valuable for students of the American labor movement.
- John R. Sillito, Weber State Coll. Lib., Ogden, Ut
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.