Motor City

Angus Drummond, born poor in Scotland, yearns for a better life. In 1893, after the untimely death of his father and sister, he sails to America. He loves all things mechanical, especially the new marvel of the age, the motor car. And he knows that Detroit is where they are built.

Tobias Woodson, the grandson of a slave, a farmhand in Mississippi, wants more in life than picking cotton on the Delta. He makes his way to Detroit. His dream is to work for the great automaker, Republic Motors. The work is hard and dangerous, the city as prejudiced as any place he knew in the South.

Jacob Hoffman escapes Nazi Germany in 1937 and with his young family, travels to Detroit. Though Jacob is a college-educated, skilled mechanical engineer, he is a Jew and his uncle is a communist. He is forced to take a menial, back-breaking job on the assembly line. Will his talent as an engineer ever be recognized? Can his genius help in the fight of the infant UAW?

Motor City is the story of three men and the women who supported them as their paths intersect in 1937 in Detroit, the crucible of capitalism, prejudice, and grand opportunity. It is a sweeping saga about the automobile industry in its infancy, when any dream was possible, and the fight by the United Auto Workers for better pay and working conditions, took the industry to the edge of conflict, insurrection and finally to triumph.