Making Waves: Michigan's Boat-Building Industry 1865–2000 by Scott Peters (review)

Certainly in the popular imagination of the nation, the motor vehicle industry defines the Michigan economy. Although this is with good reason, Scott Peters points out in a thoroughly researched and nicely presented study of the boat-building industry, the state's economy is interestingly diverse. Peters looks at the boat-building industry in Michigan from the time of the Civil War through the end of the twentieth century. The book can be read on two levels—on one level, it is encyclopedic; on the second, it is thoughtfully suggestive of new ways to think about the economy of the state.

Peters knows all about boats in Michigan. He conveys a thorough knowledge of nearly all the major companies and designers who had an impact on this—if not huge, still significant—industry in the state. In the nineteenth century, early firms included the Michigan Yacht and Power Company, the Michigan Steel Boat Company, and the Detroit Boat Company. In the early-twentieth century, larger firms such the Brooks Boat Manufacturing Company in Bay City responded to the greater demand, building six thousand boats in 1905 alone. In the 1920s, Prohibition created demand for faster boats for those transporting contraband from Canada across the Detroit River, and for law enforcement agencies trying to stop them. In response, new and ever-faster boat designs were put into production by firms such as the Purdy Boat Company, A. G. Liggett Company, and the legendary Chris-Craft Company. Many firms had difficulties during the Depression and World War II, but the industry recovered in the 1950s amid postwar prosperity. This resulted in companies forming and introducing new technologies into boat manufacturing, most notably fiberglass.

The book is more than a compilation of major firms, major designers, and the evolution of the products that they sold. There are important thematic threads that contribute to a more complete understanding of the evolution of the state's economy. For example, Peters points out how many of the pioneer boat manufacturers were inspired after seeing the Sintz gasoline engine, manufactured in Grand Rapids and exhibited at the World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago. Sintz's innovation is known primarily as a source of inspiration for pioneers in the automobile industry. As Peters points out, it was also important to ship design. From that point of view, the shipbuilding and auto industries progressed in tandem, though not in scale. This relationship is apparent in the evolution of the market for recreational boating, especially along the Great Lakes. The prosperity of the auto industry not only created a level of demand for pleasure boats, but it could also sustain the boating industry, as Peters describes well. This is critical in understanding the economic impact of leisure in the industrial age.

During World War II, the concept of Michigan as the "arsenal of democracy" is usually illustrated by the vast complex at Willow Run, which, at its height, produced a complex B-24 Bomber at the rate of one every sixty-three minutes. Peters examines the considerable impact of the war on Michigan's shipbuilding industry. One chapter shows that orders for small boats for military purposes affected the entire state economy. The Century Boat Company, in Mainistee; the Gordon Clark Company, in Benton Harbor; the Defoe Shipbuilding Company of Bay City; and, of course, the venerable Chris-Craft Company, with plants in Algonac, Holland, and Cadillac, all received contracts for military craft. In fact, Peters points out that the landing craft built by Chris-Craft made possible the amphibious invasions of Europe and the Japanese-held islands in the Pacific. Clearly, the arsenal of democracy included a variety of products manufactured throughout the state.

The parallels with the domestic automobile industry continued through to the late-twentieth century, as manufacturing generally abandoned the high cost of the unionized Great Lakes region and headed south, and eventually abroad. The boat-building industry declined...