Say It Ain't So, REO Joe

Lisa Fine's The Story of REO Joe exhibits the ways in which community, continuity, and collusion structure the formation--and even the scholarly interrogation--of identity. Lansing's persistent ethnic homogeneity throughout the early-to-mid twentieth century furnishes the author with near-perfect lab-conditions in which to observe a cultural group that often eludes scholars of class-relations in America--white, protestant industrial workers. Fine's history of the REO plant is fraught with tensions between labor and management; and yet, these struggles fit very awkwardly into a model that seeks to privilege the emergence--or even the possibility--of class consciousness. Ultimately, the sites of resistance in The Story of REO Joe are not within the community, but coterminous with its imagined boundaries; and the book's protagonists are shown to be actively involved in the preservation and extension of their prerogatives against the encroachments of unresponsive national bodies and cultural others.

Fine's account of Lansing's invulnerability to class-based analysis relies heavily upon the city's demographic peculiarities; and it is equally clear, from the historical record, that this  homogeneity is not a quirk of fate, but the realization of a conscious project. Through fraternal organizations like the Elks Club and the Ku Klux Klan, workers and bosses nurtured their ethnic and religious affinities, and formed a united front against "undesirables". Even the dubious narrative of assimilation is beyond the town's experience, at least until the 1960's. This is not the America of the "melting pot", but the "church militant". The author argues that

the business elite's participation in religious, educational, and civic organizations also created opportunities for social control, again through the appearance, and often the reality of mutual interests (32).  

In fact, this book demonstrates the futility of attempting to separate appearance from reality, and exposes the limitations of the social control model itself.

Fine devotes as much--or, quite possibly, more--space to labor/management strife as the written documents will bear. Her disappointment with the oral testimony of her informants is palpable, and The Story of REO Joe can be read as explicitly in tension with the stories told by "REO Joes" (and their female counterparts) themselves. However, even the hard facts embodied within the record of strike and union negotiations tend to support the survivors' memories of a familial atmosphere at REO, albeit a somewhat more dysfunctional family than the "children's" nostalgia constructs.

Article Author: David Fiore

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