Michigan

Things get made in Michigan. Consult a schematic of Detroit history to connect the Ford dynasty and the myriad auto companies that followed to the Willow Run assembly line churning out  B-24 bombers during WWII. But this ingenuity also lives in the crispness of Vernor’s Ginger Ale and the handcrafted perfection of Pewabic Pottery. From the postwar idyll of Detroit’s Grand River and Greenfield neighborhood to the ghostly trickster at the capitol in Lansing, flip the switch on Michigan history with our Michigan history books. [View all Michigan books]
2 products
Cover image for Willow Run, isbn: 9781467117296
Willow Run
$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%
Yankee Air Museum
Yankee Air Museum
$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

Willow Run

9781467117296

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

A pictoral history of Willow Run - a relative unknown location that became the world's most famous bomber factory during World War II.


In May 1940, Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt called for the production of 50,000 military airplanes. He then drafted the president of General Motors, William Knudsen, to mobilize industry in the United States. The automotive companies were called upon to produce a massive fleet of bombers, as well as tanks, trucks, guns, and engines. By the Willow Run, a sleepy little creek near Ypsilanti, Michigan, Ford Motor Company built the world's most famous bomber factory, which was the ultimate manifestation of the automotive industry's role in building armaments during World War II. By the spring of 1944, Willow Run was producing a four-engine B-24 bomber each hour on an assembly line.

Cover image for Willow Run, isbn: 9781467117296

Yankee Air Museum

9781467129046

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%
The Willow Run Bomber Plant opened in 1941 and produced over 8,600 B-24 Liberator bombers, a key element of the Allied arsenal in World War II. In 1981, a group of aviation enthusiasts established the Yankee Air Museum about a mile away from the original bomber plant. The museum built a substantial collection of flyable and static aircraft and aviation artifacts, many of which were destroyed in a 2004 fire. Despite this loss, the museum remained open in temporary facilities while considering options for a permanent home. The museum then bought the last 144,000 square feet of the original bomber plant with a goal of renovating this facility into a state-of-the-art museum in the early 2020s. Yankee Air Museum covers some of the people and events at the center of Southeast Michigan's aviation history.
Yankee Air Museum