Throughout Lansing’s 150-year history, the community’s work ethic has been the cornerstone of so many great achievements.
From early manufacturing, like the first E. Bement and Sons stove produced in the late 1890s and R.E. Olds and his first horseless carriage, to modern day high-tech companies producing computer software and alternative fuels, this city’s labor force has helped shape the state’s capital city.

To help celebrate Lansing’s rich worker history, celebration organizers have scheduled the Lansing 150 LaborFest for September 5, 2009. The family-focused event will celebrate those in the community who serve and labor for the benefit of others: teachers, law enforcement officers, union members, firefighters and military service men and women.
“This is really a celebration of all laborers who have contributed so much to what Lansing has become. It’s for all of the people who serve and labor for others,” said Mary Kane Butkovich, chair of the LaborFest committee.
The festival will take place at Adado Riverfront Park in Lansing and will include a variety of family events during the day and a beer tent in the evening with live entertainment, Kane Butkovich says.  
The LaborFest will include a display area where companies and organizations can inform attendees of their many contributions. “We are also planning to honor the many volunteers who help so many mid-Michigan service groups and organizations,” Kane Butkovich adds.
Lansing’s extensive blue-collar history is tied directly to the auto industry and Oldsmobile and General Motors in particular. But even before Ransom E. Olds drove his first motorized carriage, the rise of industry in Lansing was firmly established.
Author Justin Kestenbaum writes in Out of the Wilderness: An Illustrated History of Greater Lansing that industrial firms clustered along the banks of the Grand River by the 1880s. The Bement Company and the Lansing Wheelbarrow Company were two of the largest manufacturing companies, producing a variety of farming implements.
“A bird’s-eye view map of Lansing shows the extent to which it had become a factory town,” Kestenbaum writes in his book.
United States labor historians note that what happened next in Lansing helped steer the nation toward its manufacturing greatness. R.E. Olds tested his first automobile on the streets of Lansing in 1887. However, it wasn’t until nearly the start of the 20th century that the company began producing Curved-Dash Runabouts in the city and eventually hired thousands of workers in the city.
Through the many name changes from Reo Motor Car Company to White Motor Co., the Great Depression and a strike in 1934 that ended with the recognition of the United Auto Workers union as worker representative, the company’s workers helped form the social and political fabric of Lansing.
Lisa Fine, an associate professor of history at Michigan State University, writes in her book The Story of Reo Joe, “Reo’s worker-citizens maintained a strong local orientation in their working-class activism and politics throughout the 20th century.”
That activism and local community spirit is still evident today as Lansing celebrates its sesquicentennial and marks another Labor Day with a large celebration. The significance of a LaborFest in Lansing is evidence of local labor’s contributions.
“The Lansing area’s work ethic is why General Motors has chosen to build two new state-of-the-art assembly facilities here representing over $3.5 billion worth of investment,” says Brian Fredline, president of UAW Local 602.
It’s the local labor’s “spirit of cooperation” that has helped spur such investments, Fredline says.
Lansing’s economic base is more diversified than many other cities, explains Karen Murphy, communications coordinator for the Michigan State Employees Association and a member of the Lansing 150 LaborFest planning committee, which lends itself to a very stable workforce.
The Greater Lansing area’s major industries include state government, insurance, automobile and healthcare. There are approximately 12,000 full-time State of Michigan positions in the tri-county area with roughly 10,000 in Ingham County. Michigan State University is the next largest area employer with approximately 11,000 employees.
“I would suspect that if a time capsule were opened after the next 150 years in 2159, things would naturally be tremendously different. But the work ethic of Lansing’s citizens is a legacy that will continue and endure,” Murphy says.    
The Lansing 150 LaborFest will include an entertainment tent, children’s activity area, an ice cream social and lots of good will for those who labor and serve.
“This also will be a celebration for the men and women of the military who make great sacrifices for all of us,” says Kane Butkovich.
Fundraising efforts for the LaborFest are ongoing, with anyone interested in providing financial assistance urged to contact Lansing 150 officials through their website, www.lansing150.com.