Author pens book on Windsor’s rise as an automotive powerhouse: 1901-1945
Windsor’s transformation from nondescript small town to critical industrial centre is the focus of author Patrick Brode’s latest work.
His new book, Border Cities Powerhouse: The Rise of Windsor 1901-1945, looks at the characters and events that morphed a town of 12,000 into the country’s fourth largest industrial complex and eighth largest city in the span of just 25 years.
“Beginning in 1904, we take off like a rocket,” Brode said of the year entrepreneur Gordon McGregor convinced Detroit automaker Henry Ford to ship car components across the Detroit River for assembly in Windsor.
“Before that, there was nothing different about Windsor,” he said. “It was a really bland, border village. There was nothing different about it until 1904. This whole period is really fascinating. Windsor really takes off in a very different direction.”
As Brode describes it, the significance of Windsor’s complex and colourful journey from village to capital of industry goes way beyond its borders.
“I don’t look at it as local history,” he said. “This is Canadian history. This is the industrial growth of Canada. “
A byproduct of this area’s rapid industrial expansion was, as Brode describes it in the book’s introduction, making “Windsor one of the first multicultural experiments in Canada.” The influx of men and women came from around the globe to work in its factories.
Far from a dry recounting of facts and figures, Brode enjoyed exploring the social aspects of a rapidly changing landscape.
He recalled the ill-advised visit of William Johnson, a temperance advocate from Detroit in 1921 when prohibition ruled the day.
Johnson was the guest speaker at a temperance rally at the Windsor Armouries. The crowd had its share of veterans, none too pleased that they had returned from war unable to share a drink with friends at their favourite watering hole.
“It was a pretty raucous bunch and they don’t like this at all. They’re all yelling and screaming and there’s no order to this meeting,” Brode said.
When Johnson ignores the furor around him and takes a long pull on a glass of water, the crowd loses it.
Brode describes a dangerously comical scene of police hustling Johnson out of the building and being chased by the angry mob down Ouellette Avenue. The officers hold them off just long enough for Johnson to escape by ferry back to Detroit.
First-hand interviews he had done years ago with prominent Windsorites of the era gave Brode unique insights into the city’s desperate climate during the Great Depression.
He also studied the factory scene through the Second World War when, for the first time, women stepped through the door in great numbers to keep production lines moving.
One picture shows young mothers and wives smiling as they assemble Browning machine guns at a Walker Road facility.
Brode finishes by chronicling the bitter 99-day strike by Ford workers in 1945.
“The Ford strike was a major event in the history of Canada,” Brode said. “All of Canada was watching to see what happens next.”
It defined Windsor as a union town and changed forever the relationship between manufacturers and their labour force.
Published by Biblioasis, the book’s official launch is June 15. Brode will mark the day by giving a talk about his latest work at the main branch of the Windsor Public Library at 6:30 p.m.
He will also appear at the Coles Bookstore in Tecumseh Mall, June 17, The Chapters Bookstore at Devonshire Mall, July 1, and the library’s Riverside branch July 15 at 2 p.m.
The book will also be available for sale at Biblioasis.