The first complete biography of G. Mennen "Soapy" Williams, former governor of Michigan Soapy Williams was one of the most controversial and colorful politicians in 20th-century American history. In 1948, winning a stunning upset, he became Michigan's second Democratic governor since the Civil War and was reelected five times. Williams built an unrivaled political machine in Michigan, bringing organized labor, African Americans, and ethnic groups into a new coalition. Author Thomas Noer bases his book on materials from the Bentley Library in Ann Arbor, the John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential libraries, State Department records in Washington, and interviews with Williams' widow and other members of the family.