The Lumber Barons of Manistee, Michigan

Agathe Kraußmüller

The Lumber Barons of Manistee, Michigan: Reconstructing the World of Louis Sands

ISBN 978-3-86821-184-9, 170 S., 82 Abb., € 18,00 (CD-ROM, 2010)

(Cultural Studies in the Heartland of America, Bd. 22)

In the United States of the nineteenth century, a group of successful lumber entrepreneurs, the “lumber barons”, achieved extraordinary success. Among these men was Louis Sands, a poor Swedish immigrant who came to America in his late twenties. Through courage and hard work in the abundant forests of Michigan he created a legacy of wealth and achievement. This work presents the world of Louis Sands and the social and economic conditions that he personally experienced at the time he built his lumber empire in the growing town of Manistee, Michigan. His biography sheds light on an exceptional life and on the tales and myths surrounding the lumber business. A genealogical study of the Sands family traces its story through eight generations up to the present day.