RIGHTS OF MEN, RITES OF PASSAGE: HUNTING AND MASCULINITY AT REO MOTORS OF LANSING, MICHIGAN, 1945-1975 [1].

Towards the end of Ben Hamper's Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line, there is an important episode which provides a clue into the sources of gender identity among male autoworkers. Hamper had started to receive attention for his columns in Michael Moore's Michigan Voice. "It all ran smoothly until the fateful day that I allowed my editor to talk me into writing a piece about deer hunting, the most sanctified of blue-collar blood rituals." Hamper did not partake or even approve of the sport and his article, "celebrated the fact that these yahoos often ended up shootin' each other's brains out in their orgasmic frenzy to go boingin' some Bambi ... To hell with 'em. I liked deer just fine. The whole idea of slingin' a deer carcass over the hood of your Buick seemed rather unhinged." Hamper featured a co-worker named Polson, a white, six feet two inch, 245 pound former Marine and member of the NRA in his article. When Hamper caught wind of the fact that someone had brought the journal with his article on hunt ing into the shop, he decided to make a preemptive strike and present Polson with a copy. After twenty minutes of reading Polson confronted Hamper, "I should kick your worthless faggot ass! ... I bet all your candy-ass writin' pals think you're clever. Let me tell you what I think. You're nothin' more than a dumb cunt with diarrhea mouth. The only way you can get your garbage printed is by suckin' up to commie assholes who've got nothin' better to do by sit around, all doped up, tearin' this country down." Round two came after lunch. "Where the hell do you get off writin' that I rented my wedding tux from Outdoor Life? ... And what about this part where you state that the NRA stands for Nuts Run Amuck? Where do you come up with this crap?" Hamper replied that it was just a joke, to which Poison informed Hamper that hunters keep the deer population down and healthy. Hamper suggested, foolishly, "I think you just enjoy killing things." And Polson exploded, "And faggots are at the top of my list!" [2]

Hamper's antipathy notwithstanding, the activity of hunting does need to be explored as an important non-work activity of male autoworkers (and certainly a large group of white men of all classes in Michigan and elsewhere) and a source of this group's evolving identity as white, male, worker-citizens. Even though workers hunted both before and after World War II, the war represented a watershed for the popularity and extent of this outdoor activity for auto men. Through the United Auto Workers Union and as individual, private citizens, autoworkers pushed for and enacted their own rights to the public lands and the game those lands contained. Poison represents an important constituency in auto factories in Michigan that needs to be addressed and understood. That a man like Poison had so much invested in his identity as a hunter and gun owner and the gendered language he used to disparage those not like him (faggot, dumb cunt), speaks to the importance of these activities to the masculine identity of many of t hese workers.

Even though I intended my project on the history of the workers, community, and management of the Reo Motor Car Company to be sensitive to gender, I was caught off guard by the constant refrain on hunting in the materials in the archives, company journals, personnel records, grievance reports, and union materials. These materials concerned the opening and closing of various hunting seasons, information about places, gear, and weather conditions, the arrangement of time off for these various seasons, the accounts of humorous or dangerous hunting trips, controversies over unauthorized vacations always around hunting time and reports about behaviors related to hunting (drinking, card playing.) The frequency of these accounts increased after World War II and through the 1950s and 1960s. Individually, these were prosaic scraps of daily life; together, they began to take on meaning. Two informants of the Reo Oral History Project, Otto and Layton Ayes who came from Reo families (their grandfather, father, and vario us other relatives all worked at Reo) and worked for Reo between the 1940s and 1970s both talked about their yearly excursions to their hunting camp up north with male co-workers and relatives. As they both insisted, farming was better than working in the factory, and hunting was better than farming. Their eyes sparkled and their voices became animated when they talked about hunting pheasant or deer. [3]

The three areas of scholarship that might address the issue of autowork and hunting (or even the general issue of masculinity and hunting in the twentieth century) masculinity studies, autowork/labor history, and work culture/leisure studies are virtually devoid of any discussion on this relationship. In the new area of "men's studies" or masculinity studies, working-class men are relatively understudied; yet, when hunting is considered, it is presented as a throw-back, a carry-over of a primitive male behavior; the discussion is a historical. Peter Stearns, in his important Be A Man! Males in Modern Society asserts the fundamental relationship between early man, hunting, and war and suggests that a great deal of the history of modern masculinity is some version of recreating the challenges, skills, bonding, and values associated with this activity. Ancient "hunting societies provided models for personal identification that long survived their economic basis and remain valid simply because models are needed. " Because we live in a "post-hunting" society other forms such as war, sports teams, secret societies took the place of hunting as a site for the enacting and transmission of these characteristics and values. Perhaps because Stearns focuses on primarily European working class men, the actual activity of hunting itself is not explored as an enduring, if changing, source of masculine identity; [4] however, recent works on manhood in U.S. history are similarly silent on hunting and the working class in the twentieth century. [5]

Even though there is a growing body of excellent, historical, anthropological and sociological work that considers working class leisure and culture, there is virtually nothing about hunting. [6] Pathbreaking works by Roy Rosenzweig and Kathy Peiss proposed that an exploration of leisure or non-working activities of the working class can reveal spaces where alternative (although not necessarily oppositional) working class culture can be forged and worked out. [7] Historians, like Ron Edsforrh, Lizabeth Cohen, and Robert Lipsitz, interested in the rise of mass consumer culture throughout the twentieth century and its effect on the working class have explored consumption patterns, radio, television, the roller derby, car customizing, country music, rack and roll, and film. Often these types of non-work activities are understood as a safety-valve, a source of alternative (or diversionary) identity to class consciousness, a site for resistance or opposition in a safe, managed way, and/or a means by which a worke r became a participant in (or was coopted by) a national consumer culture. [8]

Hunting in the twentieth century does not lend itself to this kind of analysis. Even though hunting is an ancient activity freighted with meaning, bound up with notions of masculinity, it changed and evolved throughout the twentieth century. Scholars in many fields have revealed that it was and continues to be a sort of craft that passed on from father to son, often in ritualized fashion. [9] Even though hunting involves the consumption of gear and ultimately and hopefully game, it is not consumption in the same way one consumes soap or soap operas. It is a sport, but it is not organized or attended like a baseball game. And, even though there are multitudes of local variations, all hunting regulation throughout the twentieth century came under the purview of the state.

Even though I do not think that it is accurate to understand hunting by twentieth century Michigan autoworkers as a form of resistance, the literature on workers' resistance to state hegemony does prove helpful. E.P. Thompson in Whigs and Hunters describes how state law and policies regarding game and the land it inhabits can reveal political tensions brought about by changing conditions of capitalism; James Scott in Domination and the Arts of Resistance understands poaching in Europe as a way that powerless, subordinate groups could exercise their own understanding of traditional rights to the forest and its game. Poaching was not a safety-valve weakening 'real resistance;' rather, it was a performance of rights denied. [10] This way of conceptualizing hunting was presented in the most recent and I think helpful book on hunting, Louis Warren's The Hunter's Game: Poachers and Conservationists in Twentieth Century America. His book provided two insights that helped me understand the material I had been encoun tering. First is that the twentieth century witnessed the construction of the idea of public lands and game as a common or a public good which the state controlled and to which it sold access. Even though this certainly did not prevent the political manipulation of these public holdings, it allowed conservationists in service to the public to "deflect local charges that poor people were being shunted from the hunting grounds to make them a playground where the rich could recreate." The other important issue raised by Warren was that "disputes over what constituted proper hunting were clashes over rival masculine ideals." For example, "killing female deer or songbirds might have been considered unmanly, even cowardly, in [upper class] sporting circles, but for many locals it was a part of life." [11] Perhaps then, through the twentieth century, members of the working class came to understand their own access to the land and its game as a both a right of American citizenship and as an emblem of a particular typ e of working class masculinity. This isn't just "boinging Bambi" anymore.

Finally, the conclusions drawn from exploring this association between autoworkers and hunting need qualification. Not all members of the working class were hunters, and not all hunters were members of working class. The fit is certainly not perfect and the link between hunting and the working class may be stronger in Michigan than elsewhere. But the association is strong and most importantly from the perspective of a historian, the changes over time reveal links between the growth of an automotive working class and hunting specifically and outdoor activity as leisure, generally. Two of the most distinctive features of the state are the automotive industries and hunting and it seems fruitful to explore how this form of work and leisure was linked to illuminate gender identity in Michigan automotive industries

Hunting Has A History

Even though the activity of hunting has a trans-historical, trans-cultural dimension to it (men and women everywhere have hunted since the beginning of recorded history and undoubtedly before) the activity, regulation, ideas about, and those who could, couldn't and did engage in hunting have a history. In the United States, the two most important figures regarding hunting nationally are probably Theodore Roosevelt and Aldo Leopold. [12] The crises or questions of the late nineteenth century, urbanization, immigration, industrialization, race and gender equity all challenged elites to redefine the experiment of United States republicanism (or to revert and reassert older ideas.) As Gail Bederman has skillfully and provocatively described, all of this suggested a challenge to ideas of manhood at the turn of the century, addressed and resolved in a number of ways. [13] Christian values, vocational training, organized sports in the inner city playground and at universities, military service, the boy scouts, and getting close to nature, whether you explored a remote and dangerous wilderness or pursued a large animal, could be acceptable outlets for masculine urges as well as ways to mold good men.

The turn-of-the-century saw the first meaningful efforts by the state to regulate the taking of game. In response to the depletion of deer by market hunters supplying out-of-state suppliers and loggers with venison and fur, Michigan passed its first law limiting seasons, regions, and amount of deer taken in 1895. It has been a popular refrain since the 1920s for hunters to reminisce about the good old days when herds of hundreds of deer roamed in full view, but one would probably have to go back to Michigan before 1850 to see anything closely resembling that golden age. Three constituencies were interested in making some effort to preserve a variety of game animals and their habitat: professional conservationists, sportsmen who tended to be from more elite classes, and workers. Sportsmen, "in high boots and whipcords, armed with fine gunnery, who kill for sheer joy of the hunt and seeing things die," formed their own private sportsman s clubs to assure their access to land and game in light of the poor enfor cement of the early regulations. [14] The growing urban labor force's, particularly the autoworkers', desires for outdoor recreation placed a greater strain on an already stressed resource. Researchers for the WPA doing research for a book on the history of Michigan Fish and Game identified the growth of the auto industry, the availability of cheap cars and the improvement of roads as the key factors that brought more people to the woods throughout the state to hunt. [15] Urban workers invaded farming regions contiguous to cities during various game seasons. "The city amateurs respected the rights of neither the farmer nor the sportsman, but raided the farm and reserve alike, sometimes killing pets and livestock. This stirred hot rural resentment and eventually brought the farmer into the sportsman's camp." The result was the creation of the Department of Conservation in 1921 which began to innovate to accommodate these various constituencies. In his 1931 report on game management in the North Central States, Aldo Leopold identified Michigan, with its "able leadership in the conservation and an extraordinary pressure of hunters by reason of the heavy industrial populations of the automobile manufacturing towns," as being distinguished not only for its efforts at providing public lands for hunting, but also for establishing creative ways to ease hunter-farmer conflicts. [16] As the Department of Conservation became entrenched in the state bureaucracy, hunters from many constituencies became concerned that appointments and policies would reflect political patronage rather than hunters' admittedly diverse interests. To respond to this, sportsmen in 1937 formed the Michigan United Conservation Clubs, an amalgamation of the scores of sportsmen clubs throughout the state. Functioning as a clearing house and a lobbying group, MUCC (which is presently one of the largest sportsman's clubs in the nation) disseminated information about hunting throughout the state and monitored the Department of Conservation (which later be came the Department of Natural Resources) to make sure they kept hunters' interests foremost in their minds. [17]

Even though the number of hunters reflected changes in the law, economic and ecological conditions, and historical circumstances such as war, the long trend was relentlessly upward. Surveys done by the Michigan Department of Resources Research and Development Division during the 1960s and 1970s documented that,

1. Since 1920, the number of resident firearm deer hunters has generally increased much faster than the Michigan population.

2. The proportion of the Michigan population that hunted deer in 1968 was about seven times the proportion in 1920.

3. In 1968, about 20 percent of all Michigan males 15 years old and older hunted deer with a gun. Between the ages of 25 to 44, over 26 percent did. Nearly thirty percent of all males 25 to 44 years hunted deer or small game or both.

4. All but 6% of deer hunters in 1968 were male.

5. In 1961/2, when 10.2 percent of the population of Southern Michigan was listed as Negro, only 2.8 percent of hunters surveyed self-identified as such. [18]

6. A study of the 1961/2 hunting season reported that, "almost three-fourths of the hunters were employed in some form of skilled, semi- or unskilled labor ... The professions, sales, and managers were less represented than they existed in the population." A 1966 survey reported that 49.5% of firearm deer hunters listed their occupations as craftsman, foreman, operatives or kindred workers. [19]

Firearm deer hunters were/are not the only type of sportsman in Michigan, just the largest group. By the 1960s, a sportsman could organize his whole year around the openings and closings of various fish, fowl, small and large game seasons, using rod and reel, bow and arrow or firearms. Tourism, including hunting and fishing, is the second largest industry in Michigan behind auto (farming is third), and hunting is the most popular form of recreation in the state of Michigan. Hunters were overwhelmingly white, male and workers and these associations became stronger as the state took on the regulation of hunting and the land on which it was done throughout the twentieth century.

Rites of Masculinity

The activity of hunting, as it came to be understood in the twentieth century, tapped into a number of enduring sources of masculine identity which changed slowly over time. Because hunting was traditionally done by rural people, hunting's initial popularity either continued or evoked the rural roots and ways of many factory workers. [20] Throughout Reo's history, ties to the land, like evidence of hunting, was yet another quiet yet constant refrain. During August of 1919, for example, the company gave one hundred and eleven employees the "privilege of volunteering to assisting the farmers of Ingham and surrounding counties," holding these employees' jobs until they returned. An analysis of the names of the employees and the names of the farmers they were helping reveals that at least 41 were related, suggesting that these were workers released to help their families. [21] The Annual Labor Reports of the Reo Motor Car Company reveal that between 1918 and 1938 the number of workers leaving to "go to farms." w as consistent yet peaked during years of economic crisis. [22] And many worked on farms and in the factory. As Glen Green, who worked at Reo between 1937 and 1975 and was a member of a Reo family, told us, "Reo started in working winters because they could hire farmers that couldn't work on the fields, ... and then in the spring when it came time for planting they'd shut down and maybe build up a supply of parts to work the next winters." Green's dad Howard had a farm north of Potterville in the 1920s and 1930s, "He would come home from work, jump on the tractor and go out after work and run until dark, come back up and milk cows, go back out and run until close to midnight, get up at 3:00 in the morning to down, he had 26 cows to milk by hand and milk those cows, go down to Reo, work all day and come back out." [23] During the company's heyday during the 1920s, the company sponsored a popular annual Fun Fair which took place in late summer or early Fall and resembled in many ways, rural country fairs. (To co mmemorate the 50th anniversary of Reo, one more Fair was organized in 1954, and it is probably no accident that the annual Reo retirees' luncheon takes place in August.) And this rural identification persisted into the post World War II period. At least one-third of the individuals interviewed for the Reo Oral History Project had come from farming backgrounds. Two of our interviews were actually conducted in the farm homes of former Reo workers and these were farms they had lived in since the 1940s and 1950s. [24] Through the 1950s, farmer-workers at Reo were still being identified as a distinctive group in the plant in the Lansing Labor News. [25]

Even more important as a source of masculine identity, however, was probably the association of hunting with war. Throughout the century, but particularly during the periods around the world wars, the links between the activity of hunting and military preparedness were common. Theodore Roosevelt stated in 1905 that "the qualities that made a good soldier are ... the qualities that made a good hunter." [26] The Michigan Sportsman echoed this sentiment in 1919 in an article entitled "Sport and National Security" arguing that "free shooting and fishing must not be allowed to disappear, for directly thereon rest not only the health and happiness of thousands of our citizens, but in a large measure our national security." The editors called upon the federal government, the states, associations or philanthropic individuals to "set aside at once as many public hunting preserves as possible to ensure that our nation is composed of strong, healthy men, not only ... prepared for future military service, but ... better able to withstand the duties of a successful civil life." [27]

The workers at the Reo Motor Car Company in Lansing were already reading about the association between hunting and military preparedness in their company journal the Reo Spirit. In 1918, an editorial first humorously declared that "Hunting is a disease that attacks human beings, but comes in the most virulent form during the fall and winter months ... making men do strange things," then turned serious claiming that, "just now there seems to be much good in it, for several gentlemen so infected are in Europe, hunting the Kaiser. That gentleman thinks Huntergetis a bad disease, wishes that all who have it had been quarantined." [28] This language undoubtedly resonated with the scores of Reo employees who joined the Reo National Rifle Club during the late teens and 1920s. [29]

By World War II, hunting was even more popular among autoworkers. As the rationing of various foods became a tedious reminder of a long war, autoworkers in Lansing took to the woods to supplement the diets of their families. On November 14, 1944, the Lansing State Journal reported that the "hunter army was "crippling war factories. Excessive absenteeism due to deer hunting season" brought on an unprecedented number of cases of, "grip, severe headache, rheumatism, and other ailments," and affected production at Reo, Motor Wheel, and Fisher Body with whole shifts canceled at Oldsmobile. It was reported that Carl Swanson, Regional Director of the UAW-CIO Region for Flint and Lansing, had suggested to local civil defense committees that, "we in the state of Michigan should get together all the DeerHunters and put them in squadrons to help with the home defense ... they have high powered rifles and if put together they could help in case of invasion as a temporary relief." Swanson who was himself a deer hunter sa id that "there were over 100,000 deer hunters in the state of Michigan ... " [30] The offices of the Michigan State Police and Military District who became aware this information while infiltrating the CIO during World War II were not anxious to empower these deer hunters in the national defense, but veterans clearly took to hunting after the war. One of the largest single increases in hunting was right after World War II, when veterans returning to the factories sought an outlet for their new skills, cash, and leisure.

During the late 1960s, during an era of protests against militarism and an unpopular war, the number of worker/hunters increased even as workers became more defensive about their right to bear arms and pursue game. The "Reo Local Sportsman," column in the Lansing Labor News reported in 1969 that "the antigun forces have been quietly awaiting an opportunity to force their 'hang-ups' on you the sportsman ... Don't let Clubwomen and sentimental popgun crusaders disarm you and arm the criminal." [31]

If the association of war and hunting was only reinforced episodically, certainly the association of certain masculine qualities with hunting presented an enduring source of appeal. Nevertheless, characteristics of masculinity generally, and working class masculinity specifically, were not fixed or unitary throughout the first three quarters of the twentieth century. From Theodore Roosevelt's initial endorsements of hunting as a character-building activity for men, workers and their various representatives have identified hunting as an activity that produced and reproduced characteristics of multiple (although not necessarily dichotomous) masculine identities. Before World War II it was recognized by conservation officials that hunting both instilled and reflected democratic values. In 1932, the Michigan Conservation Department described providing "everyone, regardless of financial status, a chance to fish and hunt," as a form of "social welfare." [32] Gerald Fitzgerald, who wrote the "Outdoor Corner" column for the Michigan CIO News through the 1950s, used the Christmas holiday to remind worker/hunters of more spiritual lessons. "If only everyone knew the God of the sportsman ... We are all neighbors who share the fields and streams ... we share our knowledge and the products, of the rod and gun ... this is truly the season of the true sportsman." [33] The mutualism and fair-mindedness of the sportsman and union man went hand-in-hand. [34]

In the late 1940s and 1950s hunting was endorsed as an antidote to two basic concerns of the era: domesticity and the new factory system. As veterans and female war workers journeyed 'homeward bound,' hunting represented a form of family leisure although this usually meant that it provided an opportunity for fathers and sons to play together. As one poem which appeared a Grand Rapids journal the Sportsmen's Voice (1948) began, "If you have a son mister, give him a gun, plus a dog and a reel and a rod, For the lad who knows both water and wood has a keener knowledge of God ... " [35] Hunting was also described as an antidote to the stresses of modern life, a way to have an adventure and to refresh and renew. After reporting on those who had returned victorious from the "battle of the North" the writer of Reo Items column in the Lansing Labor News described the condition of those who returned empty handed: "long and lean from the need of a well-cooked meal; bleary eyed from lack of sleep and glassy eyed, not a lways from driving straight through ; perhaps disappointed but not dismayed; full of stories and an experience never to be forgotten. They'll invade the woods again en mass next season. Even if only a brief respite, you're not thinking of all your everyday problems while peering in the quiet woods for the sign of a spike." [36]

These values associated with hunting continued through the 1960s, when they were joined by less lofty appeals. As the above quote hinted, the less 'respectable' aspects of post-war masculinity could also emerge during the yearly hunting excursion. Hunting was an opportunity to escape women (wives, really, as one hunter I know suggests that the season could also be called 'dear' hunting), abandon daily rituals of hygiene, play cards, and drink a lot. As one joke put it, "Six men on a deer hunting trip ran out of provisions and sent one of their men to a nearby town to shop. He returned with six bottles of wine, a case of beer, a bottle of whiskey, and loaf of bread. One of the group was heard to exclaim, 'Good boy! You've even brought something for the birds.'" [37] The values associated with hunting ranged from the sacred to the profane, all masculine and having enormous appeal for all men.

Rights of Men

Hunting was not just a masculine rite R-I-T-E, an activity associated with the land and war and manly characteristics and values, it was also a right R-I-G-H-T that needed to be negotiated. It is in this process of negotiation that we can see how workers at Reo and perhaps automotive workers in Michigan generally came to see this as a condition of employment and an emblem of identity.

In 1957, Michigan's CIO unions proclaimed that they were proud that Michigan was the best year-round vacation state in America and that they intended to keep it that way, "by actively pushing for better and better recreational facilities and more and more time for people to enjoy them." In this way, workers, through their unions, made claim to more space, i.e. land for recreation and more time, freedom to pursue these activities. Even though these contests over space and time were not as dramatically featured in dailies, periodicals, and histories as workplace conflicts, they were passionately argued by workers. They demonstrate that important sources of identity for and ideas about rights of white, male worker-citizens existed outside as well as inside the workplace. And the local labor periodicals recognized this even if the national leadership did not. [38]

By the post World War II era, a great deal of land had already been set aside for recreational use, including hunting. Because of the state's retrieval of marginal and abandoned farm lands, particularly around urban areas, there was a well established network of nature areas after the war. [39] Workers applauded any increase in available land or better accessibility to that land and they protested any restrictions. Workers and their unions understood this issue of land accessibility as a class issue. In 1958, for example, there was universal praise for the building of the Mackinac Bridge which connects the lower and upper peninsulas in Michigan. "Thanks to the new bridge at the Straits," workers could make it back from the U.P., "in about six hours. In the past years," they "waited longer than that just to cross the ferry." [40] Sunday hunting bans persisted through the 1950s, although they were determined by individual localities, creating a patchwork of regulations throughout the state. Farmers in localiti es that allowed Sunday hunting, particularly around large cities, felt invaded during open seasons. Workers pushed for uniform laws that allowed them to engage in hunting on their day of rest. [41] Workers and their union representatives responded most vociferously to any efforts to limit access to existing public lands. When fishermen became aware that a state-owned fish hatchery had become a private fish club supplied with fish from the state, the letters in the Lansing Labor News went on about it for months. [42]

By the post World War II period, Michigan autoworkers had developed a collective consciousness about their rights to the land. In 1957, when the Republican legislature was preparing to get Governor Williams to sign a bill allowing for the creation of private game preserves with longer hunting seasons and virtually no restrictions, the Michigan C.I.O Council asked him to veto. The president of the Michigan C.I.O Council August Scholle wrote, "This is the worst kind of class legislation. It permits wealthy people who are able to spend large sums of money to hunt on these preserves to buy themselves a license to hunt 120 days of the year, while the rest of the population of Michigan would be restricted to the very limited season for bird hunting ..." Many of these preserves would be created, "gobbling up every potential bird hunting area in the state. It would ultimately evolve into the same situation as prevailed in most European countries where hunting was reserved for the aristocracy, and the only sport in w hich a working man could indulge would be bush-beating for the aristocrats." [43] Space for hunting had become an inalienable right of the Michigan autoworker.

It was not enough to have the space to hunt if you had no time to do it and to get that, you needed to bargain with your employer. Workers in Michigan understood the timing of the opening of hunting seasons was also a class issue. An editorial in the Saginaw Valley Sportsman in 1949 proclaimed, "They ought to open the season on Saturday so we'll all get an even start without missing work ... Saturday openings for bird and deer hunting seasons would give working men a chance to participate without time from work." [44] Contests over time to hunt between Reo management and its employees surfaced in three ways: discussions about absenteeism, grievances regarding workers who simply took off to hunt without authorization, and finally, the special provisions in vacation stipulations oriented to hunters.

Whether the company liked it or not, it had to contend with absenteeism, some authorized and some not, during the openings of various game seasons. During negotiations over piecework rates on October 12, 1948 a remarkable interchange took place between management and labor. From the mid-1940s through the early 1950s, Reo was plagued by dozens of unauthorized work stoppages, most of which were the result of piece rate changes or heavy handed foremen (and the two often went hand in hand). The union/management bargaining committee met at least weekly during these contentious times and then on October 12, 1948, Miller, a union rep asked if the plant would be open on Friday to which management answered yes. Miller responded," ... some of the supervision ... do not seem clear on the agreement that we arrived at as far as deer hunters are concerned." Barnes for the union continued, "People that waived a portion of their vacation in the summer time, it was agreed when we set up the vacation period, they would take i t during deer season." Management responded that if the supervisor had been informed and had given the O.K. then the worker could go hunting. Barnes then added:

"From what I hear and the people have told their supervisors, about 50% will not be here Friday." Smith, the company attorney asked Barnes, "All day, Ralph?"

"Yes" said Barnes. And when management pointed out that the deer season didn't open until noon, Barnes responded, "By the time they get oiled up and their guns ready it would be noon."

President of the union Reed added, "Last year they did shut down for the day if I recall."

To which Gerald Byrne, director of personnel replied, "We were forced to shut down."

We attempted to start the line."

Smith added, "The year before last, wasn't that?"

Barnes, "It was the year before and we sent them home at 10."

Smith, "Last year, we found in advance we were going to have the same situation so they did not run at all, as I recall."

Foust (Mgmt) "There is just as good hunting on Saturday as on Friday."

Reed: "it is only normal they want to go out the first day."

Byrne: "You are telling us now that we can expect about 50% absenteeism on Friday."

Barnes: "I would not say it would be full 50% but there will be a lot of them off."

Reed: "This is every year." [45]

This candid interchange occurred in the middle of a negotiating session devoted to resolving important issues but both sides had to resign themselves to the fact that this absenteeism around the opening of hunting season was not open for negotiation. Certainly there was a give and take here, but both parties understood that given the history of hunting and their workers, altering these practices would be futile. Even union officials suffered the same fate whenever their meetings were scheduled in October and November. [46]

Official and legitimate leave for hunting was dispensed by the foreman, which left for a great deal of favoritism and inequality. Grievances and sometimes discharges resulted when certain employees were held to the letter of the law as others around them experienced privileged treatment. [47] In many ways, the dispensation of hunting leave might be one of the last vestiges of the prerogative of the foreman in the twentieth century.

From the middle of the 1940s through the 1950s, the company and the union sought to codify in print the relationship between vacation leave and hunting leave undoubtedly to avoid excessive absenteeism and grievances. The company made it clear through its stated vacation leave policy statements, as well as through its representatives on the management bargaining committees that, "Time off during fishing or hunting season should be discouraged excepting to employees eligible for regular vacations," and objected to the practice of some supervisors who granted so-called deer hunting leaves to employees without seniority or who had previously used up their vacation time. [48] Reo's management not only had their hands full with errant workers, anxious to exercise their rights to make their annual exodus to the forests, but also had to keep their foremen and supervisors in line with regular reminders regarding the language of the contract. [49] None of this seemed to make any difference. At the start of hunting sea son, 1957 the workers reported an "epidemic of Asian Flu," on Monday, October 21, the beginning of pheasant season. [50]

During the 1960s and early 1970s, the history of hunting in Michigan and the history of Reo intersected in profound ways. As hunting reached new heights of popularity during the 1960s and early 1970s, Reo (then called Diamond Reo because of the many by-outs it was experiencing) was in decline. With remote and changing ownership and uncertain government contracts, in part because of the Vietnam War, the company declined as hunting became more important to the workers that remained. In the increasingly depressing Reo columns in the Lansing Labor News, the juxtaposition of items describing the company's decline and items joyfully recounting hunting activities is striking. In October of 1963, along with news that the company that had taken over Reo had engaged in yet another merger, the men formed a Buck Club, [51] and every year thereafter had Buck contests. In 1968, the year the Reo local formed its own Sportsman's Club and signed 150 members in its first month, the company changed its production manager, pers onnel director, supervisory staff and foremen. [52] In 1969, amidst continuing concerns over the viability of the company in Lansing and the threat of the plant moving, the men of the Reo Sportsman's club affiliated with the MUCC and began publishing their own column, "Local 650 Sportsman's Club Column," in the Lansing Labor News, the only Lansing local to do so. [53] Packed filled with information, the first column alone announced classified ads relating to hunting and the opening of a club library at the 650 union hail, wholesale buying at a sportsman store (if you show your union card), a fishing contest, information about shooting carp, news about the smelt run, a special turkey season in May, state congressional hearings about financing of state recreational facilities, meetings of the MUCC and information about a local shooting range. These sorts of activities continued until the Lansing plant's demise.

"Class is defined by men as they live their own history, and, in the end, this is the only definition." [54]

The Bonds of White Working Class Manhood

It's not that hunting provided a subterfuge for class consciousness, diverting the energies and attention of workers from useful protests against their alienated work, their place in the increasingly global capitalist system, the increasing bureaucratization (or ineffectiveness) of their union or the threat to their jobs and pensions. Perhaps some of the workers at Reo recognized these developments and used the retreat to the woods as a way to respond; perhaps some even were motivated enough to engage in a range of political activities (of the left and right) to address these issues. As scholars, we might decide that it was the deskilling of the workplace, the bureaucratization of the unions, the co-option of the workers by good wages and fringe benefits, the politically repressive atmosphere of the Cold War, or the challenges to traditional masculinity made by the civil rights and women's movements that contributed to the growing popularity of hunting as a form of leisure for Michigan autoworkers. Perhaps h unting can be understood as a particular response of the working class to their "blue collar blues" during the 1950s and 1960s, similar to the middle class men's flight from job and family that Barbara Ehrenreich described in The Hearts of Men. [55] Perhaps the increasing popularity and importance of hunting among the automotive working class is evidence of the "Remasculinzation" occurring during the 1960s and 1970s that Susan Jeffords described in her The Remasculinization of America: Gender and the Vietnam War. [56] Hunting might also be seen as a Midwest automotive version of the hyper-masculine 'hard hat' phenomenon of the late 1960s and early 1970s so well described by Joshua Freeman. [57]

The reason for the increasing popularity of hunting among autoworkers in the twentieth century and its importance as a source of white, working class masculine identity needs to be understood as proactive rather than reactive. There is no question that many men who took (and take) to hunting did so because of it was considered one of the few remaining authentically masculine and white, male-only activities left in an increasingly feminized and integrated world. But, there is a danger in using the hunter/worker presented at the start of this paper, Poison, as representative of all hunter/workers. The act of hunting, the yearly ritual of taking to the woods with workmates, friends, and male kin cannot be simplified to an act of resistance or the reaction of men under assault. Because of hunting's long history in the State of Michigan (and elsewhere), its regulation by the state and the century-long, secular increase in importance to those who do it, and the consistent and varied ways working men sought to ensu re and extend their rights to land and game, it needs to be understood as a right won. As surely as Reo's workers came to expect to earn enough to support their families, to rely on the state to ensure minimum wages, hours, working conditions, and fringe benefits, to be treated equally and fairly in their workplace and communities, they also expected to have the time and space to hunt. For Reo workers, the right to hunt was all they were left with after 1975 when their plant closed down.

Just as they had probably been doing for the forty years since the building of the Reo Clubhouse, a group of men were sitting around the lunch table in the cafeteria. It's September, 1957 and, "fishing is nearly done at the lunch table and the boys have started killing deer. Biggest deer killed Tuesday at lunch was by Gene Lewis, weight 566 pounds with 42 points. Longest deer carried was by Eddie Phile, who said he chased the deer eight miles thru a swamp then carried him eleven miles back; deer weighed 220 pounds. Ed said he didn't mind the weight of the deer as much, but horns kept probing his back." [58] After World War II, for many white male workers in automotive industries, and certainly for the men who worked at Reo, hunting and other outdoor activities became a key dimension of their identities. For Eddie, Gene and many of the men at Reo, it was the activity of hunting that tied them to their fellow workers, filled their days and minds with excitement and joy, and provided an important and enduring s ource of their masculine, white, working class culture and identity. [59]

Postscript

Even though Reo's story ended in 1975, the story of this association between hunting and the automotive working class was far from over. [60] Deer hunting and all outdoor activities are still enormously popular. During the 1998/9 hunting season in Michigan, over 500,000 mostly men bought firearm deer hunting licenses. [61] Throughout the twentieth century, the activity of hunting was one of the fastest growing leisure activities in the state that brought the automobile to the U.S. and the world. 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. What does it mean to twentieth century labor history when we include working class white men's access to land and game as a key feature of their white, masculine, working-class identities? What does it mean to studies of twentieth century masculinity when we include an understanding of hunting, not as a reaction to a crisis of twentieth century masculinity, but as the creation of a new masculine norm and right within the working class? Clearly the millions of men (and some women, but that's another paper) who engaged in this activity throughout the twentieth century need to be included in our studies of white male workers.

ENDNOTES

(1.) The author would like to acknowledge Peter Berg, Leslie Moch, Lewis Siegelbaum, Mark Kornbluh, Peter Beattie, Daniel Ernst and the members of the panel and the audience of the session on Motor Men at the North American Labor History Conference (October 1998) especially Kevin Boyle and Eric Guthey for comments and support. Thanks also to the two anonymous readers for JSH as well as my fitst year graduate student Tom Adams, who although new to history is a long standing autoworker and hunter. All faults in the piece are, of course, my own.

(2.) Ben Hamper, Rivethead; Tales from the Assembly Line (New York, 1986) p. 135-139.

(3.) Oral interviews conducted with Otto Aves, January 4, 1993 and Layton Aves, August 8, 1995.

(4.) Peter Stearns, Be A Man! Males in Modem Society (New York, 1979), P. 18.

(5.) See for example, Michael Kimmel, Manhood in America: A Cultural History (New York, 1996.)

(6.) E. Anthony Rotundo's American Manhood: Tranformations in Masculinity from the Revolution to the Modern Era (New York, 1993) has a few pages on hunting. Eli Chinoy Automobile Workers and the American Dream, second edition (Urbana and Chicago, 1992) and David Halle, Americas Working Man: Work, Home and Politics among Blue-Collar Property Owners (Chicago, 1994;) and, Kathryn Grover, Hard at Play: Leisure in America, 1840-1940 (Amherst, 1992) have little on hunting. Both, David D. Gilmore Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity (New Haven, 1990) p. 113-117, and, E.E. LeMasters, Blue-Collar Aristocrats: Life-Styles at a Working-Class Tavern (Madison, 1975) p. 132-136 have short but good sections on hunting.

(7.) Roy Rosenzweig, Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in An Industrial City, 1870-1920 (Cambridge, 1983); Kathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York (Philadelphia, 1986.)

(8.) See: Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939 (Cambridge, 1990); Ronald Edsforth, Class Conflict and Cultural Consensus: The Making of A Mass Consumer Socity in Flint, Michigan (New Brunswick, N.J., 1987); George Lipsitz, Rainbow at Midnight: Labor and Culture in the 1940s (Chicago and Urbana, 1994.) Lipsitz is the best example of this, "On the job, at home, and in popular culture, workers and others paid a terrible price for their inability to convert grass-roots militancy into a social movement capable of fighting to reform society along democractic and egalitarian lines. But the traces of working-class consciousness within popular culture in the postwar period also show the limits of coporate-liberal hegemony. They testify to profound popular dissatisfaction with the hierachies and exploitations of the cold war era. They also demonstrate the emergent possibilities of the affinity between electronic mass media and working-class culture, an affinity most powerfully de monstrated by the class dimensions of popular film and popular music during the postwar years." (p. 276)

(9.) See: Stuart Marks, Southern Hunting in Black and White: Nature, History, and Ritual in a Carolina Community (Princeton, 1991.) I would also like to thank Peter Rachleff and Kevin Boyle for insights on this point.

(10.) E.P. Thompson, Whigs and Hunters: The Origin of the Black Acts (New York, 1957;) and, James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, 1990), p. 188-192.

(11.) Louis Warren, The Hunter's Game: Poachers and Conservationists in Twentieth Century America (New Haven, 1997), p. 12 and 14.

(12.) Aldo Leopold (1887-1948), the famous author of The Sand County Alamanac and Sketches Here and There (1949), was a well-known writer and scholar on the relationship between humans and the environment. According to the editors of a recent anthology of his works," ... Leopold was a leader and innovator in the young profession of forestry, especially in recreation planning, game management, and soil erosion control. He is considered the father of the national forest wilderness system and the father of the profession of wildlife management in American ... Leopold occupied the nation's first chair of game management, which was created for him at the University of Wisconsin.... He offered his remarkable leadership talents to more than a hundred conservation organizations, agencies, and committees.' Susan L. Flader and J. Baird Callicott, The River of the Mother of God: And Other Essays By Aldo Leopold (Madison, 1991), p. ix.

(13.) Gail Bederman, Manliness and Civilization : A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917 (Chicago, 1995.)

(14.) Ed Langenau, "100 Years of Deer Mangement in Michigan," Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Wildlife Division Report Number 3213 (1994) (I would like to thank Dr. R. Ben Peyton of the MSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife for sharing this pamphlet with me). "Outline of Fur and Game History" manuscript by Richard Briley, dated 1940, p.6 Department of Natural Resources--Game Division: Michigan Writers' Project, 1941-1943.

(15.) See Briley and, S.E. Sangster, "Tentative Outline for Proposed History of Michigan Fish and Game," dated 1940, p. 2 Department of Natural Resources-Game Division: Michigan Writers, Project, 1941-1943.

(16.) Aldo Leopold, Report on a Game Survey of North Central State for the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturing Institute (Madison, Wisconsin, 1931) p. 198, "Michigan is the only State in the north central group which is so far embarked on a systematic program of acquiring refuges and public shooting grounds on forest lands and putting them under management." On these issue see also, pages 244-246. On the amelioration of the hunter-farmer conflicts see discussion of Williamston Pool, p. 131-133.

(17.) See: Harry R. Gaines, "History of MUCC," Michigan-Out-Of-Doors (January 1947), p. 12.

(18.) Walter L. Palmer, "An Analysis of the Public Use of Southern Michigan Game and Recreation Areas," Michigan Department of Conservation Research and Development Report Number 102, March 14, 1967, p. 41.

(19.) L.A. Ryel, G.C. Jamesen, and L.J. Hawn, "Some Facts About Michigan Hunters," Michigan Department of Natural Resources: Research and Development Report #197, April 9,1970.

(20.) The Lansing autoworkers featured in Ely Chinoy's Autoworkers and the American Dream expressed powerful nostalgia for the land, and many either owned or desired to own farms. Ely Chinoy, Autoworkers and the American Dream second edition, (Urbana and Chicago) originally published 1955, p. 86-96.

(21.) In other words they had the same last name. Therefore, many more may have been related by marriage. "In the Harvest Field," Reo Spirit (August, 1919) p. 22-23. The average monthly total of all employees for the year 1919 was 4,475 so this was hardly an exodus, only about 2% of the workforce. Annual Report of the Labor Department--From February 1,1919--February 1,1920 (February 10, 1920) Reo Motor Car Collection Box 66, Folder 4. Michigan State University Archives and Historical Collections.

(22.) See Appendix I

(23.) Interview with Glen Green conducted on December 22, 1992. I am sorry to report that Mr. Green recently passed away.

(24.) We interviewed Herbert Heinz in his home in Dansville on March 16, 1993 and Raymond Fuller in his home in Mulliken on March 19, 1992.

(25.) See from the Lansing Labor News, "Reo News," (August 7,1952) p. 3 when it was reported that, "many of the farmer members of the Reo family are quite worried lately abou the harvest of wheat and oats. Rain in excessive quantity has damaged grain very seriously" And, "Reo Items," (April 18, 1958) p. 4; "What's with these farmers, Harvey? They plow all night and come in and drag all day." On April 25, 1958, my informant Ray Fuller is referred to as the "Mullican Sodbuster," [sic] on page 6.

(26.)Theodore Roosevelt, Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter (New York, 1905), p. 228. And, in his essay, "The American Boy," in The Strenuous Life, "In the Civil War, the soldiers who came from the prairie and the backwoods and the rugged farms where stumps still dotted the clearings and who had learned to ride in their infancy, to shoot as soon as they could handle a rifle, and to camp out whenever they got the chance, were better fitted for military work than any of the mere school or college athletes could possible be." p. 156-157.

(27.) "Sport and National Security," Michigan Sportsman August 1919, From WPA Game F9 Excerpts from Publications.

(28.) "Hunting," Reo Spirit December, 1918, p. 4.

(29.) "The Reo National Rifle Club," Reo Spirit April, 1916, p. 13. News of the club continues in almost every issue through the 1920s.

(30.) Memorandum from Arlo A. Emery, Lt. Col. J.A.G.D. Officer in Charge, Detroit District, Michigan Military Area, To: Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2 Sixth Corps Area, Chicago, Illinois, Subject: CIO Dated April 3, 1942. Includes report. Copy sent to Captain Olander. Records of the Michigan State Police: Intelligence and Security Bureau, 1942-1947. Even though it is impossible to verify the spy report, I have confirmed that the number of hunters was roughly correct according to the oral history of Carl Swanson on deposit at the Reuther Library; Swanson was a hunter and did do Civil Defense work. See: Oral History Interview of Carl Swanson. Interview by Jack W. Skeels, University of Michigan-Wayne State University, Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations, August 8, 1960. p. 30 and 46.

(31.) "Local Sportsman," Lansing Labor News (November 6, 1969), p. 12. See also: "Reo News," Lansing Labor News (July 11, 1968), p.8, and, Fred Parks, "Local 650 Sportsman's Club Column," Lansing Labor News (May 1, 1969), p. 5.

(32.) "Hunting and Fishing for Everyone," Michigan Conservation (December, 1932), p. 2. And later they described it as a basic freedom. See, "Relax--You're Not So Darned Important," Michigan Conservation (August, 1946), p. 2. "Citizens of a democracy need to relax together as well as work together in order to understand one another."

(33.) See in Michigan CIO News, (December 24, 1953) p. 7 and (December 22, 1955), p. 6.

(34.) See for example, "Unionism Benefits the Fisherman," Michigan CIO News (July 29, 1954), p. 7.

(35.) Gomer Reeves, "If You Have a Son," Sportsmen's Voice (June 1948), p. 6

(36.) "Reo Item," Lansing Labor News (December 13, 1957), p.6

(37.) The joke came from the newsletter of the Reo sales staff. "Newsletter from J.M. Struble, Advertising Department to Sales Personnel" November 30, 1953 and August 4, 1954. Reo Motor Car Company Collection, Box 156, Folders 16 and 30.

(38.) "Michigan is a Vacation Paradise All Year Round," Lansing Labor News (August 2, 1957), p. 6. I do not mean to imply that the national leadership of the UAW did not pay attention to issues of leisure and recreation. The UAW recreation and sports programs did sponsor a number of activities including Sportsman's Nights, but they did not concentrate on hunting. See in Michigan CIO News, "UAW Spring Sport Program in Full Swing" (April 21, 1955), p. 8; "Sportsnight Scheduled for Wednesday," (October 6, 1955), p. 7; and, "Union Recreation," (March 10, 1955), p. 7.

(39.) See for example, "Play Space for Millions," Lansing Industrial News (October 4, 1946) p. 3. (This article describes the ring of a dozen parks and wildlife areas around Detroit.) And, "Welcome Sign For Hunters," Lansing Labor News (October 20, 1966), p. 9 describes the opening of 100,000 acres of land for hunters in southern Michigan.

(40.) "This Bear Made him Late for Picket Duty," Lansing Labor News (October 17, 1958), p. 4 and, "Deer Hunters Looking Forward to Mackinac Bridge," Lansing Labor News (November 7, 1958), p. 1.

(41.) See for example, "Deer Herd Controversy Grows," Michigan CIO News (December, 1954), p. 7, and, Mort Neff, "Inequity in Hunting Laws," Michigan CIO News (September 7, 1955), p. 6.

(42.) See for example, "More Readers Comment on Favored Fish Club," (July 12, 1951), p. 1.

(43.) "Hit Hunting Bill for Wealthy," Lansing Labor News (May 31, 1957), p. 5 and, "Special Hunting Privileges for the Rich Hit by Scholle," Michigan CIO News (May 16, 1957), p. 3.

(44.) "Editorial," Saginaw Valley Sportsman (February, 1949), p. 12.

(45.) Piecework Negotiations, October 12, 1948 in Reo Motor Car Company Collection, Box 68 Folder 59.

(46.) "Hunters Wreck Council Meet; Date is Moved," Lansing Labor News (November 5, 1953), p. 1.

(47.) I have not done a systematic search of grievances on this matter as I should have and will in the future. See for example, "Grievance, William Earl Bailey" November 24, 1944, Reo Motor Car Company Collection, Box 54 Folder 1; "Grievance # 10386--Otto J. Bell" Minutes of the Management-Union Bargaining Committee Meeting (December 11, 1946) U.A.W. Local #650 Material Box 7, Reuther Library, and "Office Memo dated November 16, 1943," From Charles Parr, Plant Protection To E.D. Stinebower Re: G. C. Sigourney. Reo Motor Car Company Collection, Box 51 Folder 64.

(48.) "1953 Vacation Procedure for Hourly Rated Employees, April 7, 1953," Reo Motor Car Company Collection; See also, "1954 Vacation Procedure for Hourly Rated Employees, May 7, 1954," Reo Motor Car Company Collection; and, "Meetings of the Management-Union Bargaining Committee Meeting, November 6, 1945," U.A.W Local #650 Material Box 7, Reuther Library; "Minutes of the Management-Union Bargaining Committee Meeting, October 21, 1947," U.A.W Local #650 Material Box 8; "Minutes of the Executive Board Meetings, November 12, 1952," U.A.W. Local #650 Material Box 6.

(49.) See for example, "Memorandum to all Reo Deer Hunting Employees," From Byron F. Field, Personnel Manager, dated November 9, 1942 Reo Motor Car Company Collection Box 51, Folder 26; "Memorandum to All Superintendents and Foreman," From Gerald Byrne, Director of Personnel, dated October 31, 1951 Reo Motor Car Company Collection, Box 27, Folder 28; and, "Memorandum to All Superintendents, Department Heads and Foremen," From Gerald Byrne, Director of Personnel, dated October 16, 1953 Reo Motor Car Company Collection, Box 27 Folder 29.

(50.) "Reo Items," Lansing Labor News, (October 25, 1957), p.6.

(51.) "White Division," Lansing Labor News (October 10, 1963), p. 16.

(52.) "Diamond Reo News," Lansing Labor News (April 18, 1968), p. 11 and (May 16, 1968), p. 14.

(53.)"Diamond Reo News," Lansing Labor News (January 23, 1969), p.6 and, Fred Parks, "Local 650 Sportsman's Club," Lansing Labor News (May 1, 1969), p. 5.

(54.) E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York, 1963), p. 11.

(55.) Barbara Ehrenreich, Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight From Committment (New York, 1983.)

(56.) Susan Jeffords, The Remasculinization of America: Gender and the Vietnam War (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1989.)

(57.) Joshua B. Freeman, "Hardhats: Construction Workers, Manliness, and the 1970 Pro-War Demonstrations," Journal of Social History (Summer, 1993): 725-744.

(58.) "Reo Items," Lansing Labor News (September 13, 1957), p. 2.

(59.) Or as Eliot Gorn puts it, "most workers did not spend their free time reading the Rights of Man, toasting Tom Paine, and struggling to resist oppression. Probably more hours were consumed at cockfights than at union meetings in the nineteenth century. Radicals there were of course, and they have been studied brilliantly. But if historians are to understand working-class people, they must look closely at their folklore and recreations, their pastimes and sports, for it has been in leisure more than in politics or in labor that many men and women have found the deepest sense of meaning and wholeness." Page 14 of his The Manly Art: Bare-Knuckle Prize Fighting in America (Ithaca, 1986.)

(60.) During the post-Vietnam era, the association between hunting and war would be used to promote an anti-war message. Michael Cimino's popular The Deer Hunter (1978) ended with the battle-worn, disillusioned and probably unemployed steel worker played by Robert DeNiro coming face to face with a big buck in a surreal mountainous terrain. He doesn't shoot; he lets the deer go. See: Tom Zaniello, Working Stiffs, Union Mains, Reds, and Riffraff: An Organized Guide to Film About Labor (Ithaca, 1996), p. 68-69. Zaniello says,"When Michael chooses at the end of the film to let a deer escape although it is in his sight, we know that he is on his way to healing." Susan Jefford in her The Remasculinization of America also provides a rich and provocative analysis of the importance of masculine identity represented in The Deer Hunter. See pages 94-102.

(61.) WThe exact number is 502,395. 202,953 archery deer licenses were sold and 97,664 antlerless deer licenses sold. The figures for 1999 were roughly the same. I would like to thank the public relations division of the DNR of the State of Michigan for sharing these figures with me.