Flint built the car — and helped build the American labor movement

Flint’s nickname is “Vehicle City,” and the story started before the automobile. William “Billy” Durant and J. Dallas Dort built a horse-drawn carriage business here. The National Park Service’s landmark study says it had become one of the country’s largest horse-drawn vehicle manufacturers by 1900. Durant then organized General Motors in Flint in 1908 around Buick and later helped launch Chevrolet. The Durant-Dort office is still recognized as the place where the plan for GM took shape.

For decades after that, GM factories shaped Flint’s economy and daily life. Generations of local families were tied to Buick, Chevrolet, Fisher Body, AC Spark Plug, and the businesses around them. That deep connection is also why Flint became the setting for a labor dispute that changed the auto industry.

In the winter of 1936-37, workers occupied key Fisher Body operations instead of walking out and leaving their jobs open to replacements. The Flint Sit-Down Strike lasted 44 days, from December 30, 1936, through February 11, 1937. Strikers lived inside the plants while families and supporters brought food and supplies. The Women’s Emergency Brigade helped support and defend the occupation, and Gov. Frank Murphy refused to use force to remove the workers.

The settlement signed on February 11 recognized the UAW as the bargaining representative for the workers who took part. The National Park Service describes the strike as one of the most significant labor disputes in American history. It helped turn the UAW into a major industrial union and showed workers in other mass-production industries what an organized sit-down could accomplish.

For a visit, Sloan Museum of Discovery’s History Gallery covers Flint and Genesee County, while the Durant Vehicle Gallery follows the city’s vehicle-making story. Sloan rotates objects between display and storage, so a quick call is sensible if strike material is the reason for your trip. Either way, the galleries put the strike back into the larger story of the city that built GM.