The St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project: An Oral History of the Greatest Construction Show on Earth by Claire Puccia Parham (review)

118 The Michigan Historical Review scope and his own advanced age relegated these efforts to a mere footnote. Pardoe’s research is comprehensive, making use of the Lafayette Flying Corps’s best data repositories, as well as Zinn’s own trove of information. The book’s organization is novel, as Pardoe alternates chapters, covering a segment of Zinn’s life in one, then recounting the history of one of his searches in the next, and so forth. The book also includes a generous number of helpful photographs, although maps of Zinn’s target areas would have been a helpful addition. Nevertheless, Pardoe has done us a great service in sharing with readers the life of Fred Zinn. In the midst of the carnage that was World War I, there is something redemptive and humanizing about the life of a man who was well-nigh obsessed with doing the gut-wrenching work of finding comrades’ remains, not only to bring a sense of closure to the surviving families, but also to dignify those remains with a proper burial. Colonel John D. Plating U.S. Air Force Academy Claire Puccia Parham. The St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project: An Oral History of the Greatest Construction Show on Earth. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2009. Pp. 353. Bibliography. Index. Notes. Photographs. Cloth, $34.95. The construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway (1954-1959) is one of the greatest engineering feats in history. Built upon the St. Marys Falls Ship Canal (the Soo Locks) between lakes Superior and Huron and the Welland Ship Canal linking lakes Erie and Ontario, the St. Lawrence Seaway created a continuous, all-water route that ranged over twenty-five-hundred miles, from saltwater to several Great Lakes ports, including Chicago and Duluth. The project created some of North America’s greatest hydroelectric power plants, assets that supported post-World War II growth in eastern Canada and the United States. And as an endeavor of international cooperation, the project was also arguably second to none. In The St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project, Claire Puccia Parham presents the story of the controversial construction project dubbed “the greatest construction show on earth” (p. xxiii). The concept of the seaway as it appeared in the late nineteenth century was neither Book Reviews 119 immediately nor universally embraced. The vision for the outlet/inlet for maritime commerce and a massive hydroelectric capacity was opposed by railroads concerned with the potential loss of profits, other business interests that felt threatened, environmentalists, and local communities destined for destruction or relocation when lowlying areas were flooded. Even the argument that the seaway would fit the “changing role of the United States in terms of national and general defense, international trade, and foreign relations” (p. 20) did not push this joint U.S.-Canadian project through Congress until 1954, nearly sixty years after serious public discussion began. Parham uses oral histories to present the story of the project from an intimate perspective, dividing the book into chapters that use personal narratives to illuminate the seaway’s scope and scale, the peculiar problems related to marshaling and controlling the necessary workforce, the changing lives of workers, special challenges, the effects on local communities, the role of women, and the long-term impact on the people whose lives the project touched. Parham provides an international perspective, though one feels a slight emphasis upon the American over the Canadian experience. Among the extensive collection of oral histories are many that provide valuable glimpses of life inside a project that was transformative for many Canadian and American communities. Despite its value, the organization of the book and its apparently light editing leave it disjointed. Whenever passages from oral interviews are included, the text does not universally identify the nationality, employment, or community position of informants, which requires the reader to search for the interviewee’s connection to the venture. Although Parham compares the project with the Panama Canal, there is no adequate explanation for why the St. Lawrence Seaway is not accorded the same notoriety or respect in the popular imagination. Nevertheless, The St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project is an important work that adds to the collective knowledge of...