The Forgotten Iron King of the Great Lakes: Eber Brock Ward, 1811-1875
Eber Brock Ward (1811-1875) 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.
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Michael W. Nagle is a professor of history and political science at West Shore Community College. He is the author of Justus S. Stearns: Michigan Pine King and Kentucky Coal Baron, 1845-1933 (Wayne State University Press), which was the recipient of the Kentucky History Award. Nagle lives in Ludington, Michigan.
Eber Brock Ward may be the Forgotten Iron King, but in the history of Great Lakes shipping his name certainly had not been forgotten, and will be even more prominent in the studies that build on Nagle's work.
--Walter Lewis "The Northern Mariner"All who complete graduate work in the study of history and aspire to write published works know the expectation that the author exhaust the sources of the topic. Professor Mike Nagle is tireless in his quest for knowing and exemplifies this ultimate standard. It is surprising that no other historian has been aware of and motivated to write a biography of Eber Brock Ward, a major manufacturing leader in Michigan's history. Mike Nagle is adept at telling this intriguing and revealing story of an interesting character.
--William M. AndersonNo stone appears to have been left unturned in this remarkably detailed study and analysis of the industrialist's career.
--David J. Mrozek "The Michigan Railfan"In writing this biography, Michael Nagle leveraged the ambitious life of industrialist Eber Brock Ward to craft a comprehensive bridge between antebellum America and the roots of the Gilded Age. Nagle weaves the compelling threads of E. B. Ward's story together for the first time in this finely researched Great Lakes saga.
--Joel Stone "curator emeritus, Detroit Historical Society"Michael Nagle graces us with an illuminating biography of Eber Brock Ward, a business titan of Michigan's nineteenth century. Nagle brings complexity and nuance to the life of this influential and, some would say, nefarious public figure who lived an equally intriguing private life.
--Alan Gallay "Texas Christian University"
