The Role of GM in Janesville

Janesville, Wisconsin, was known as an automotive town, mainly because General Motors had a huge plant that was at the center of the town in many ways. From the thousands who worked directly for the plant to the radio station that planned daily broadcasts around the shifts, GM had a huge impact on Janesville, and that resulted in devastation when the plant rolled the final Tahoe off its assembly line in 2008.

The author, Amy Goldstein, wrote about the history of the GM plant in Janesville. Early in the 1900s, manufacturing vehicles – tractors and automobiles – was just becoming a big business venture in America. In 1918, a Janesville man named Joseph Craig met with an executive from the fledgling General Motors company. Craig worked for a machine company and by the end of that meeting, GM had purchased that machine company with plans to begin...