Douglas Andrew Fraser

Douglas Andrew Fraser 1916-2008, American labor leader, b. Glasgow, Scotland. His family emigrated to the United States when he was a child and settled in Detroit, where he began his working life in an auto plant at 18. Becoming active in the United Automobile Workers (UAW), he rose through the ranks to a position as a union executive and earned wide respect as chief negotiator in union disputes with the Chrysler Corp. As president of the UAW from 1977 to 1983, Fraser led the union as it granted wage concessions in exchange for greater job security during the severe automobile-industry slump of 1981-82. A member of the Chrysler board of directors from 1980 to 1984, he was the first union leader elected to such a post. In 1983 he retired from the UAW and became university professor of labor studies at Wayne State Univ.; he also lectured at numerous colleges about labor issues.

Douglas, Gavin (c.1475–1522). Scottish poet and ecclesiastical politician. A younger son of the 5th earl of Angus, from an early age Douglas pursued an ambitious ecclesiastical career. His failure to secure the archbishopric of St Andrews was only partially compensated for by his appointment as bishop of Dunkeld in 1516, but as uncle of the 6th earl of Angus he played a prominent role in Anglo-Scottish affairs following his nephew's marriage to James IV's widow Margaret Tudor in 1514. His deep but largely unprofitable involvement in political intrigue led to his death (apparently from plague) in English exile, and also prevented him from developing further his considerable poetic gifts. One of the great ‘makars’ of Renaissance Scotland, Douglas's early work The Palice of Honour (1501) was followed by his Eneados (1513), a remarkable Scots verse rendering of Virgil's Aeneid which is his most enduring memorial.

Roger A. Mason