Michael W. Nagle at the AADL

Friday, February 24, 2023 - 6:30pm

Literati is pleased to partner with the Ann Arbor District Library to welcome Michael W. Nagle as he discusses The Forgotten Iron King of the Great Lakes: Eber Brock Ward, 1811-1875.

Michael W. Nagle discusses his new book about Eber Brock Ward (1811–1875).

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.

Michael W. Nagle is a professor of history and political science at West Shore Community College in Scottville, Michigan. He is the author of Justus S. Stearns: Michigan Pine King and Kentucky Coal Baron, 1845-1933 (Wayne State University Press, 2015), which won the Kentucky History Award. He lives in Ludington, Michigan.

Event address: 
343 S 5th Ave
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
Books: 
The Forgotten Iron King of the Great Lakes: Eber Brock Ward, 1811-1875 (Great Lakes Books) By Michael W. Nagle Cover Image
$26.99
ISBN: 9780814349939
Availability: Usually Available in 2-5 Days
Published: Wayne State University Press - November 8th, 2022