Document Type
Thesis
First Advisor
Dr. Steve Case
Publication Date
5-2022
Scholarship Domain(s)
Scholarship of Discovery
Abstract
The City of Kankakee was an industrialized city which prospered economically for decades. Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, economic trends shifted for Kankakee and the surrounding communities. The major factories, such as Roper Corporation and A.O. Smith, migrated their source of production from Kankakee to other regions of the United States and abroad. As a result, the declining industrial economic activity led to changing community perceptions. Kankakee is an example of the “Rust Belt” region, a region in the Midwestern and Northeastern States of the United States where declining industrial activity occurred throughout the 1970s and 1980s. The paper uses an Oral History Approach to investigate the changing economic landscape and community and individual perceptions of Kankakee during the Deindustrialization period.
Recommended Citation
Shepard, Rachel, "Kankakee County in Deindustrialization: An Oral History Approach" (2022). Honors Program Projects. 132.
https://digitalcommons.olivet.edu/honr_proj/132
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Included in
Labor History Commons, Oral History Commons, Public History Commons, Regional Economics Commons