Marilyn Chamberlain talks about working at REO Motor Car Company/Diamond-Reo Trucks, Inc., in Lansing, MI, from 1965 to 1975. She talks about her many bosses and the unique family atmosphere in the plant, which she says she never found in any other workplace. Her husband, Calvin Chamerlain, talks about coming to REO from Motor Wheel in Lansing and working his way up from machine operator to time study analyst on the truck and lawnmower lines. He says that workers often felt threatened by time studies and reacted to them with hostility. The Chamerlains recount the decline and end of the company, the loss of the REO Clubhouse, hard feelings and tension throughout the factory and leaving the plant for the last time. The interviewers are Shirley Bradley and Lisa Fine. Recorded as part of the "REO Memories" oral history project.
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• Interview date: 1992-06-11
• Duration: 1:22:43
• Interviewees:
  • Chamberlain, Calvin
  • Chamberlain, Marilyn
• Interviewers:
  • Bradley, Shirley J.
  • Fine, Lisa M.

• Transcripts
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