The Story

Are windmills worth the cost?

For Labor Day, we take you to River Rouge, Michigan. An industrial enclave just down river from Detroit, it's a town full of union workers, including Don "Doop" Duprie. Doop got his union card right out of high school. Jobs were well-paid, but River Rouge always seemed teetering on the edge of ruin. Things are improving with the economy, but people are still without work and others are losing their homes to foreclosure. Doop is now making music full time. His music is all about River Rouge, and the working people that have prospered and suffered there. Also: in the early 1970s, young photographer Alex MacPhail decided to walk across the country, taking pictures and looking for a window into America. Alex focused on working people, snapping pictures of people on farms, in mills and mines and distilleries, and cowboys on the range.

Henry Ehrlich knows about the soothing power of words in times of economic turmoil. He was the speechwriter for the chief American negotiator during the foreign debt crisis of the 1980s. It was a time when one wrong word could have sparked a catastrophe.Also in this episode: Mary Jane Young still has vivid memories of the 1929 crash. Her father had been a successful real estate builder in New York and had also bought stocks. He eventually lost everything.

Joyce Gill Campbell was a nanny in New York City, but after being underpaid and overworked by her employer, she became an advocate for worker’s rights. Joyce was part of a campaign which resulted in New York’s first ever Domestic Worker Bill of Rights.