Albert Kahn's projects continued to play a major role in metropolitan Detroit construction immediately before and during World War II. The firm designed Chrysler's half-ton truck plant at Mound and 8 Mile roads. Built in 1937, it features a 402 ft. by 2,262 ft. assembly building and a 122 ft. by 242 ft. export building. Bent trusses were used in the project's roof designs to enable monitors to extend below roof level. That year also saw construction start on the original Blue Water Bridge in Port Huron, designed by Modieski & Masters and built by American Bridge Co.

The next year construction got underway on the Burroughs Adding Machine Plant in Plymouth. By 1938, it was estimated that Albert Kahn's designs were responsible for 19% of all architect-designed U.S. industrial buildings.

It took skilled trades workers to build these factories, and plenty of them. Supporting the growth of the construction unions that represented them during this period was the adoption of the National Labor Relations Act of July 5, 1935. Commonly known as the Wagner Act, it guaranteed the right of certain employees to organize and designate representatives for the purposes of collective bargaining. It prohibited employers from interfering with the rights of workers to form unions, to interfere with any labor organization, to discriminate in hiring or firing, or to refuse to bargain collectively.

Labor attorney William Saxton, chairman emeritus of Butzel Long, Detroit, says the original Wagner Act was "too strong" in enhancing union power and, indeed, in 1947, the law was amended under the Taft-Hartley Act to include some of the changes advocated by its critics. But, despite lamentations from the defenders of the open shop, it was found constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in April 1937. Labor Board v. Jones and Laughin was a decision that University of Michigan Professor Sidney Fine says "sealed the fate" of open shop employer associations, such as the National Erectors Association. Led by Walter Drew, during the first half of the 20th century the NEA worked with open shop steel fabrication and erection contractors and local employer groups to resist unionization. (Drew's group has no relationship with the present NEA: The Association of Union Constructors.) As Iron Workers Local 25's staggering growth in 1937 testifies, the Wagner Act radically changed labor's playing field, easing tensions.

During this same period Congress also passed several other labor laws supporting this change. Among them were the Social Security Act of Aug. 14, 1935; the National Apprenticeship Law of Aug. 16, 1937; and the Fair Labor Standards Act. Also known as the Fitzgerald Act, the apprenticeship law provided the foundation for federal assistance in apprenticeship training, establishing the precursor to today's Bureau of Apprenticeship & Training in the U.S. Dept. of Labor. The fair labor law, which has also been called the Wage and Hours Law, provided most workers who produced goods for interstate commerce with a minimum wage, established a 40-hour work week, and provided for time and a half rates for overtime. It also prohibited employment at affected firms of those under the age of 16.

In light of the outbreak of World War II, perhaps these developments were fortune because unions played a major role in ensuring productivity on the home front. As the Arsenal of Democracy, Detroit had to rapidly respond to our nation's enormous military needs, converting from the production of consumer goods to military hardware. Expansion of our nation's rather modest, peacetime ranks of sailors, soldiers, and airmen into the largest armed force of modern times, capable of fighting major wars in two military theaters, was nearly miraculous, if a miracle one hopes the U.S. will never have to repeat.

Some say this conversion occurred "overnight." The historical record shows it got underway after Hitler's invasion of Poland and well before Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. The Jan. 6, 1941, edition of the Detroit Times - 11 months before America's entry in the war - featured three pages on the conversion.

"Business and industry in Detroit has been called on to produce tremendous quantities of products for national defense," wrote Clarence Avery, president of the Detroit Board of Commerce, in that edition. "But the job is so big, the problem of new materials, new processes, new machines, and new tools so complex that time and co-operation are a necessity. Time to plan, design, and build the necessary production tools and facilities. Co-operation of governmental agencies in deciding what they want Detroit to produce and then the elimination of all red tape so that the job can be done. Co-operation of labor in seeing that production once started continues uninterrupted. Co-operation between government contractors and subcontractors to assure all possible speed in the final assembly of the finished product."

The newspaper reported the U.S. led the world in the production of steel in 1940, generating 65.25 million tons against a total world estimate of nearly 157.8 million tons. It also published a press release from Engineering News Record stating that construction in 1940 set a new record, up 33% over 1939's level and exceeding a previous peak set in 1929. ENR reported 1940's total at nearly $4 billion. "More than $2.5 billion in new construction reached the contract stage in the last half of the year," the magazine noted, "largely as a result of the speed-up in defense construction grants."

Featured with the stories were photographs of medium tanks and six wheeled trucks built in Detroit. There were also images of Allison 12 cylinder aircraft engines produced in the Cadillac plant in Detroit and the Curtiss P-40 pursuit fighter aircraft that used them. An advertisement from Fisher Boat Works in Detroit touted the virtues of two new experimental designs for 59 ft. long torpedo boats capable of reaching 40 knots.

Industrial construction in Detroit accelerated America's war preparations. In 1939, Ford again used Albert Kahn Associates to design the Press Shop at its River Rouge Plant. In its day it was one of the largest industry buildings ever erected, requiring 47,000 tons of structural steel. Many of its presses, which were used to stamp out body parts, were placed on an elevated level to allow the use of conveyors below them. The main structure measures 392 ft. by 1,600 ft. and attached to it is a 240 ft, by 554 ft. ell. Special H-piles driven to bedrock were used in the factory's foundation system.

A slew of other World War II projects caused Albert Kahn to increase its staff from 400 to 600. The projects included the Chrysler Tank Arsenal on Van Dyke Ave. between 11 Mile and 12 Mile roads in Warren. Construction began in September 1940 and the first tank rolled off the assembly line on Good Friday 1941. Measuring 520 ft. by 1,380 ft., the plant again features what had become a Kahn trademark - extensive glass curtainwalls to enable natural light to illuminate much of the building. During the war it produced more than 25,000 tanks, including M3 General Grant, M4 Sherman, and Pershing models.

Perhaps Albert Kahn's most famous war plant design was of the Willow Run Bomber Plant in Ypsilanti, built in 1941-42. It was called the largest war plant in the world and had a peak employment of 42,000 devoted to the production of B-24 Liberator bombers. About 15,000 of those employees were women. The single story, steel frame building is 3,150 ft. long and varies in width from 700 ft. to 1,300 ft. But concerns about possible aerial bombardment led to the construction of a solid roof, walls with tiny windows that could easily be blacked out, and the extensive use of artificial illumination.

History records that only one bomb was dropped on Michigan during World War II. Late in 1944 it fell from an uncontrolled balloon Japan had launched in a rather odd attempt to inflict damage on the American homeland. It fell into a field in Livonia. And it was a dud.

By V-J Day, it's estimated Detroit area factories produced 92% of the vehicles, 87% of the bombs, 85% of the helmets, 56% of the tanks, 50% of the engines, and 47% of the machine guns used in the war. The city was flooded with war workers and its population exploded, with nearly 1.9 million people living within its limits by 1950. Getting people quickly to work in defense plants proved a challenge. An existing system of electric street cars and light rail units helped within the city but even with gasoline rationing in effect, getting across town wasn't easy.

To alleviate congestion in the Highland Park area caused by Ford plant workers, the Davison Limited Expressway was built in 1942, extending from Gallagher St. to Greeley St., where the Lodge Freeway is today. The two, 33 ft. wide, 10 in. thick, unreinforced concrete pavements were built from 12 ft. to 17 ft. below grade, separated by a 6 ft. median strip.

Photographs published Sept. 13, 1942 by the Detroit Free Press show the Davison under construction. One image shows a streetcar passing over a partially completed structure conveying Woodward Ave. over the freeway. Another shows Raymond Boyd, an "assistant superintendent," riding a crane's headache ball.

The 24 mile long Willow Run Expressway, now included with I-94, was built between Detroit and the Willow Run bomber plant, with much of the work taking place during the cold winter of 1941-42 A Dec. 2, 1941 newspaper clipping discusses the use of "curing paper" covered by a two foot layer to straw insulation to prevent freezing of the concrete. Paving proceeded at the rate of 1,000 ft. to 1,400 ft. per day, an unheard level of production in its day.

Industrial labor proved restless as the war continued, especially during 1944 when the odds for victory dramatically improved. At the start, however, the AFL's Building & Construction Trades Department signed an agreement with the War Department pledging no work stoppages on the account of jurisdictional or other disputes while fighting continued. In return, the federal government established the maintenance of membership agreements mandating that any employee at a union workplace must join the union. Wages were to be set by the U.S. Wage Adjustment Board.

Although there were some strikes against local conditions the agreement held, although not without strain. Iron Workers Local 25 and the Sheet Metal & Erectors Association of Detroit, for example, had to take a dispute over wages to the Wage Adjustment Board in April 1942. In 1944 the board allowed an increase in ironworker wages from $1.75 to $1.80 an hour. But this 3% increase did not go far against war induced inflation, which drove up the cost of living 34% between 1940 and 1945.

Victory and the return of peace brought fears that demobilizing America's military would create millions of unemployed workers. Indeed, recovery had its rocky moments, with recessions posted in 1947 and 1954. But between 1956 and 1955 the nation's annual production of goods and services increased by 40% - after adjustment for inflation. Metropolitan Detroit as well as the rest of the Great Lakes region was poised for further growth.