BOOK DISCUSSION: Great Lakes/Great Books

Now in its 10th season, Great Lakes/Great Books meets the first Thursday of the month September – May to discuss books that have the Great Lakes as setting or subject matter or that are related to water and/or the Great Lakes region. All are welcome, whether you have read the book or not! The selection for this month is The Forgotten Iron King of the Great Lakes: Eber Brock Ward, 1811-1875 by Michael W. Nagle.

About the book:

Eber Brock Ward began his career as a cabin boy on his uncle’s sailing vessels, but when he died in 1875, he was the wealthiest man in Michigan. His business activities were vast and innovative. Ward was engaged in the steamboat, railroad, lumber, mining, and iron and steel industries. In 1864, his facility near Detroit became the first in the nation to produce steel using the more efficient Bessemer method. Michael W. Nagle demonstrates how much of Ward’s success was due to his ability to vertically integrate his business operations, which were undertaken decades before other more famous moguls such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. And yet, despite his countless successes, Ward’s life was filled with ruthless competition, labor conflict, familial dispute, and scandal. Nagle makes extensive use of Ward’s correspondence, business records, contemporary newspaper accounts, and other archival material to craft a balanced profile of this fascinating figure whose actions influenced the history and culture of the Great Lakes and beyond.