Labor / Politics
Richard Frankensteen
1907–1977 · UAW vice president, labor organizer
Detroit-born Dodge worker and UAW vice president who was beaten beside Walter Reuther at the 1937 Battle of the Overpass and ran for mayor in 1945.
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Richard Frankensteen grew up in Detroit, starred at Central High School football and earned All-American honors at the University of Dayton, while spending summers from age 15 working at the Dodge Brothers plant. When the Depression ended his hopes of coaching, he returned to Dodge full time and studied law at night at the University of Detroit. He rose in the company union at the Dodge plant and turned it into the independent Automotive Industrial Workers Association, which he led as president before it merged into the UAW, where he became a vice president and director of the Chrysler organizing drive. On May 26, 1937, Ford's security men attacked him and Walter Reuther on the overpass at the Rouge plant; the photograph of the burly former lineman being beaten became an icon of the labor struggle. In 1945 he ran for mayor of Detroit with UAW backing but lost to Edward Jeffries. After Reuther's faction swept the union, he left union office and became a consultant who refused anti-union clients.
Highlights
- First president of the Automotive Industrial Workers Association
- UAW vice president and Chrysler director in the 1930s–1940s
- Beaten with Walter Reuther at the Battle of the Overpass, 1937
- UAW-backed candidate for mayor of Detroit in 1945
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Related place · 1937
Battle of the Overpass site, Ford Rouge Gate 4
Where Ford's Service Department beat him and Walter Reuther on May 26, 1937; a rebuilt overpass stands at the gate.
Worked here · 1920s–1930s
Dodge Main (site)
Demolished · 1910–1980
The huge Dodge Brothers plant in Hamtramck where he worked from his teens and organized the union; closed in 1980 and demolished, the site is now GM's Factory Zero.