Frank Murphy: The Detroit Years

Frank Murphy #1

by Sidney Fine

The second son of a close-knit Irish-American family, a charismatic politician who championed the underdog yet enjoyed the company of the rich, Frank Murphy was for thirty years an influential figure on the American scene. As Recorders' Court judge, mayor of Detroit during the Great Depression, governor-general of and high commissioner to the Philippines, governor of Michigan, United States attorney general, and justice of the United States Supreme Court, he played a dramatic role in some of the most significant events of our era.

The first volume of what will surely be the definitive account of the life and times of Frank Murphy focuses on the Detroit years, when Murphy brought his courtroom skills to bear on landmark legal battles of the period, forged a New Deal type of coalition that altered the structure of political power in Detroit, and led the city through the darkest days of the Depression. By stressing the interaction between the man and his times, the book presents not only a fully rounded portrait of a fascinating personality but also provides the first detailed coverage of the work of the Detroit recorder's Court and an unequaled account of the Depression years in Detroit and the state of Michigan.

618 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

A historian of modern America, Sidney Fine taught at the University of Michigan. He earned his B.A. from Western Reserve University in 1942 and his M.A. (1944) and Ph.D. (1948) in history from the University of Michigan. His areas of interest included history of the American labor movement, the New Deal, and the history of Michigan and its political environment.

Reviews

[Liam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow, I can hardly believe that I am actually finished with this book- finally! It did take quite a while to read, but it is not as though it was a bad book; on the contrary, this book also came damned close to earning a four-star rating. It was simply a somewhat difficult book for me to read, partially due to the very large quantity of information contained within it, and despite the extremely high quality of Professor Fine's writing. The primary reason for my difficulty, however, was the realisation quite early on that many (if not most) of the political, governmental and economic issues we face here in Detroit were already extant during Frank Murphy's time. The most disheartening aspect of this realisation was that while nearly all of those issues had shown marked improvement during the many years between Mayor Murphy's election in 1930 and the end of Mayor Young's last term in January 1994, practically all of those improvements have been lost in the nearly thirty years since. Indeed, it would be no stretch to state that Detroiters are now worse off, by nearly every measure- political, economic, sociological or whatever- than at any time during the past century.

Mayor Murphy, like Mayor Young, must be spinning in his grave to see the condition to which our beautiful city has been reduced.