A Castle in the Clouds: Tom Plant and the American Dream

by Barry H. Rodrigue

The story of Tom Plant (1859-1941) gives us a gritty, real-life view of the American dream. Born into a poor French-Canadian family in Bath, Maine on the eve of the Civil War, he began his career as a boy laborer, cutting ice on the Kennebec River. Tom then became a union shoe-maker in the "shoe capital of the world," in Massachusetts, financing his first workshop with a baseball wager. He went on to pioneer new trends in American business and to build the world's largest shoe factory. An inventor, his name became front-page news in the New York Times during a fight with the most notorious monopoly in the United States. A celebrated outdoorsman, he laid out a vast estate on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee, as well as a retirement home for workers in his hometown. An advocate of the progressive movement, Tom Plant spoke for a new, pragmatic America, one based on fairness in the workplace, conservation of nature, plural heritage, and global harmony. His d?nouement was as surprizing as his triumph.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0991542703
• ISBN13: 9780991542703
• Release Date: January 2014
• Publisher: Archipelago Inc.
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.