Been a long time since I did some sort of book review – mostly since it’s been a while since I came across something I didn’t already have. Recently I came across the book (somewhat rare I believe) “The Early Founding and Development Herreshoff Mfg. Co.” by Jeannette Brown Herreshoff (1949). It’s a small soft cover book – you might even call it a manuscript – of less than 50 pages. I think I read (L. Francis? Louie Howland? – not sure) that it was a private published book though nothing in the book states that. Jeannette Brown Herreshoff is the eldest daughter of James Brown Herreshoff – the eldest of the Herreshoff brothers. This is an important fact to keep in mind when reading this book.
I actually read the book twice in a row because I came away with the feeling that the book was – well – “written to right a wrong”. It almost feels like Ms. Herreshoff was not happy with the way History remembered her father specific to his role with the success of the HMC. Maybe I have some pre-disposed bias in making this statement (which is why I read it twice) but the book comes across somewhat demeaning to several family members. Perhaps much here is correct and I have to re-think some of the “genius” of others in the Herreshoff clan – but little in the book actually convinces me of such.
Everything I have read previously certainly made James out to be a genius (He seems mostly remembered as an inventor Chemist) – The first (or at least one of) motorcycle, Copper/Metal smelting processes, a type of Baking Soda (Powder? I forget), Coil steam engine, Fin Keel, etc. etc. he was directly or at least partially responsible for. I have read that financially he was the most successful of all the brothers. In my own bias I have always thought of James as the experienced much older brother gently prodding NGH and JBH in their Boatbuilding Company – giving advice and encouragement – as well as financial support if needed. But this book makes him out to be the real driver behind the family boat building business – including early design, manufacturing/engineering, and marketing/sales.
The book is written as a factual work – with the author using her own recollection, stories from others and most importantly family correspondence to “prove” her version of history; – almost all pointing to the “real” genius in the Herreshoff family was James. The most glaring problem I found was that most of the written “proof” she would glean from to make her point seemed rather weak at best. She seems to try and fit the data to her own idea of “what really happened” – and not let the facts speak for themselves. I came away literally scratching my head when she would present a letter as “fact” of some proof. Not always of course but I kept thinking she was going to tell me next that James was in fact the inventor of the internet (OK Bad joke but you get my point – we all know it was of course Al Gore). About the only person in the book mentioned in a positive light other than her father was JB.
Another disturbing item was that some of the books out there that describe the early days of the HMC seem to have used this book as fact for some of its early history. Samuel Carter III’s “The BoatBuilders of Bristol” for example borrows (verbatim in many cases) passages as fact from this book. All this leads me to wonder how much do I really know about the early days of the HMC?
