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By Root 851 0

and physically, she helped to found the Los Angeles Advisory Council, which ultimately included Ralph Nader and Paul Erlich as members. She participated in the 1970 Los Angeles teachers’ strike, opening her home on Queen Ann Place to those individuals in the picket lines. She helped to form the People’s Lobby to get Los Angeles smog under control. She addressed students at the University of California, Los Angeles, not only on smog but also on women’s involvement in the early union movements. She participated in what became known as the second wave of feminism, based in part on the idea of married women getting into the workforce. By the time of the third wave, Genora parted company with the “libbers,” for reasons explained in this chapter. She began to make several trips back to Detroit and Flint, where she addressed the new members of the UAW. Always in her speeches she was careful to make the connection between the rise of unionism and feminism. She became a foursquare supporter of the equal rights amendment.

The Dollingers made trips to England, Spain, Portugal, and other parts of Europe, where they met with many supporters of Socialism. They returned from these journeys with new insights about the status of Socialism throughout the world. This chapter introduces the discussion about the closeness that began to develop between union and management, a closeness that Genora later called tuxedo unionism. And then there was the movie, With Babies and Banners. Genora was thrilled with this recognition but disturbed about the filmmaker’s inclusion of several women who had not actually participated in the sit-down of 1937 and the portrayal of the EB. Nevertheless, Genora asserted that women were becoming more than window dressing.

Genora became involved with Dr. Barry Commoner’s Citizen’s Party. Its platform suited Genora’s philosophy: public control of energy industries, support for human rights both at home and abroad, a reversal in military spending, a guaranteed job for everyone, conservation with an emphasis on solar power, and adequate food, housing, and medical care for all citizens. Her euphoria with Commoner did not last long, particularly when it came to the foreign policy plank of his platform. And, finally, this chapter indicates once again the onset of several illnesses and diseases that plagued Genora throughout her life. Despite these, however, she was bound and determined to make her voice heard.

Chapter 8 is an explication of how Genora came to believe that the UAW might as well be working for GM itself. There was no conflict. Everything management wanted, union acceded. On July 17, 1980, bronze plaques were unveiled in Flint commemorating the sit-downs of 1937. The governor, the UAW Board, and the mayor of Flint were there. Who was not there? Anybody and everybody who had had anything to do with the Flint sit-downs of 1937! Genora was invited to attend, but she refused. The young historians of the 1980s, she asserted, may have been sincere, but they possessed no analytical skills and therefore could not assess the role of feminism in the context of the rise of labor unions. This chapter also explains the Dollingers’ trips to Europe and to China and Genora’s reaction to Geraldine Ferraro’s nomination for vice president in 1984. Her initial enthusiasm, however, turned to disfavor when she concluded that the democratic ticket in 1984 was actually no different from that of the Republicans’ in their approach to avaricious corporations.

One of the greatest honors for Genora, and, ironically, one of the greatest disappointments, was the fiftieth celebration of the Flint sit-downs. She was ill at the time, but she was invited to make the keynote speech for the meeting of the “pioneers.” The only problem for her was that the commemorations were jointly sponsored by GM vice president Alfred Warren and UAW president Owen Bieber. How could a representative of GM, which had fought the 1937 sit-downs and hired thugs, goons, and Pinkertons to do everything they could to prevent them, now have the gall to be one of the