"The committee ... has stood out against coercion": the reinvention of Detroit Americanization, 1915-1931. From: Michigan Historical Review | Date: September 22, 2003| Author: Brophy, Anne | COPYRIGHT 2003 Clarke Historical Library. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

To historians, the picture of the Americanization movement in Detroit has long seemed clear. The melting-pot pageantry of Henry Ford's English School and the family engineering of his Sociology Department have become well-known symbols for industrial Americanization. The propaganda campaigns for the public night schools sponsored by the Americanization Committee of the Detroit Board of Commerce during World War I likewise are familiar. But the picture fades out after 1920-1921, whe...