Rights of Men, Rites of Passage: Hunting and Masculinity at Reo Motors of Lansing, Michigan, 1945–1975

Throughout the twentieth century hunting was one of the fastest growing leisure activities of white working class men in the state that brought the automobile to the US and the world. The state of Michigan, the region that saw the birth of the second industrial revolution with mass production, mass consumption, 'Fordism' and 'Americanism' also provided for its worker/citizens to have historically unprecedented access to public land and game. Using auto workers records generally, and the materials from the Reo Motor Car Company of Lansing, specifically, this article describes how hunting was a growing source of white, male, autoworker's identity particularly after World War II. Hunting was not simply a rite of passage to adult malehood, but also was increasingly seen as a right; and, as such, unions and groups of workers bargained with their employers for the time to hunt while groups of sportsmen lobbied their representatives for space and game to hunt.