Michael McCulloch, "Building a Social Contract: Modern Workers’ Houses in Early Twentieth-Century Detroit" (Temple UP, 2023)

Nov 30, 2025

Dr. Michael McCulloch, an architecture professor and urban history expert, delves into the journey of early 20th-century Detroit's workers seeking modern homes. He discusses the interplay between migration, Americanization, and housing norms that shaped a new social contract. McCulloch highlights the impact of racial segregation on housing access for Black workers and how their aspirations were thwarted by economic downturns. He also shares his insights on the roles of employers and the housing market in this transformative era.

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INSIGHT

Economic Pull Shapes Migration Choices

Detroit drew migrants because rapid industrial wage growth created powerful economic pull factors.
Many migrants weighed returning home versus staying, so employers had to actively 'win' workers over.

ANECDOTE

Trips Into Detroit Varied Widely

An African-American migrant rode into Detroit and hopped off to keep costs low while chasing factory wages.
Two Polish brothers illustrate divergent outcomes: one stayed for opportunity, the other returned home.

INSIGHT

Americanization As Employer Strategy

Employers used Americanization programs to shape workers' lives and spending habits as a form of social control.
Ford tied higher wages to participation in classes and inspections that promoted the single-family home ideal.

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The dream of the modern worker’s house emerged in early twentieth-century America as wage earners gained access to new, larger, and better-equipped dwellings. Building a Social Contract: Modern Workers’ Houses in Early Twentieth-Century Detroit (Temple UP, 2023) is a cogent history of the houses those workers dreamed of and labored for. Dr. Michael McCulloch chronicles the efforts of employers, government agencies, and the building industry who, along with workers themselves, produced an unprecedented boom in housing construction that peaked in the mid-1920s.

Through oral histories, letters, photographs, and period fiction, Dr. McCulloch traces wage earners’ agency in negotiating a new implicit social contract, one that rewarded hard work with upward mobility in modern houses. This promise reflected workers’ increased bargaining power but, at the same time, left them increasingly vulnerable to layoffs.

Building a Social Contract focuses on Detroit, the quintessential city of the era, where migrant workers came and were Americanized, and real estate agents and the speculative housebuilding industry thrived. The Motor City epitomized the struggle of Black workers in this period, who sought better lives through industrial labor but struggled to translate their wages into housing security amid racist segregation and violence. When Depression-era unemployment created an eviction crisis, the social contract unraveled, and workers rose up—at the polls and in the streets—to create a labor movement that reshaped American capitalism for decades.

Today, the lessons Dr. McCulloch provides from early twentieth-century Detroit are a necessary reminder that wages are not enough, and only working-class political power can secure affordable housing.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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