Driving Force: The McLaughlin Family and the Age of the Car

Peter Martin is a senior projects editor at the University of Ottawa
Press.

The story of the McLaughlin family and the motor car in Canada is almost
archetypical. William McLaughlin emigrated from Ireland in the days of
the Moodies and the Traills. He farmed. His son, Robert, became a
homegrown industrialist who made axe handles, then cutters, carriages,
and at last automobiles. Robert’s son, Sam, sold out to the Americans,
and the McLaughlin Carriage Company (“the largest carriage factory in
the British Empire”) became General Motors of Canada.

Heather Robertson is incapable of writing badly, and in Driving Force
she’s in typically fine form. But the book does wander; it’s a
mixture of biography and social, business, and labor history, and
sometimes the transitions from one genre to another are jarringly
abrupt. Some topics cry out for further exploration. It is never
entirely clear, for example, how Sam McLaughlin managed to stay on as
head of General Motors of Canada (and keep his seat on the GM board)
while arrogant and power-mad men ran head office. And Sam himself
remains a strangely shadowy figure, perhaps because “all but fragments
of the records of the McLaughlin family, their companies, and General
Motors of Canada have been lost or destroyed.”

Still, Robertson’s achievement is impressive and enjoyable.
Illustrations are well chosen, sources are well documented, and the
author’s account of her week on the line in Car Plant #2 is worth the
price of the book all by itself.