The labor set-piece: the first auto sit-down was the county's — and its length is disputed in print

The set-piece itself is the county's, on South Bend ground, and it is a first in American labor history: on the morning of November 17, 1936, employees of the Bendix Products Corporation plant in South Bend sat down at their machines to win recognition for their United Automobile Workers local — the first sit-down strike in the history of the American automobile industry, ten days before Midland Steel and six weeks before Flint. Its duration is disputed in the published record, and the dispute is printed whole, never merged. The History Museum (South Bend) tells it as seven days in the plant, with agreement “finally reached on November 25.” The Michigan Daily of December 18, 1936, looking back “three weeks ago Wednesday,” tells it as nine days of self-incarceration. A modern labor-history account tells it as eight days in an unheated factory. The calendar is its own fourth witness: November 17 to November 25 spans nine days counted inclusively, eight counted as elapsed time — which may explain two of the three figures, but the Museum's seven stands unexplained beside them, and this section does not reconcile what its sources leave split. What is not disputed: the strikers won the main of their demands, the company union was to be dismantled, the UAW gained its recognition — and the tactic they proved in South Bend became, within weeks, the weapon that organised Flint. Penn Township's share is the share of a dormitory township: its autoworkers struck, when they struck, at Bendix and Studebaker gates in South Bend and Mishawaka, not at any gate of their own.

Sources: The History Museum, South Bend — “Bendix Sit-Down Strike” (began November 17, 1936; “for seven days”; agreement November 25; first sit-down in the American automobile industry). The Michigan Daily, December 18, 1936 (“after nine days of self-incarceration”). Labor History in 2:00, November 27, 2017 (“eight days in an unheated factory”; ten days before Midland Steel). Sidney Fine's Flint account as excerpted (the UAW local at Bendix “won a contract after a nine-day sitdown”). This build's this history (the township-seated locals) and Businesses (no industry in the town).