RUSTY MCCLURE
CROSLEY
TWO BROTHERS AND A BUSINESS EMPIRE THAT TRANSFORMED THE NATION
by Rusty McClure
Daily, you use products that were the brainchild of the Crosley brothers. Tall and charismatic, visionary genius and college flunk-out Powel Crosley conceptualized products that innovative graduate engineer Lewis made real at a price people could afford. One brother dreamed, the other built, and together they brought the world its first car radios, cars with four disc brakes, SUVs, shelves on refrigerator doors, clock radios, ice cube trays, night games for major league sports, fax machines, snowmobiles, and more. Inventive and daring, they lived the American dream and helped modernize a rural nation.
Mirroring the astonishing arch of the brothers’ success, CROSLEY: Two Brothers and a Business Empire That Transformed the Nation (Clerisy Press; $24.00) sold more than 45,000 copies in Cincinnati alone in limited release in November 2006. Promoted in southwestern Ohio, by late December, CROSLEY was on The Wall Street Journal best-selling business book list and The New York Times extended hardcover non-fiction best sellers list. In February, it hit BusinessWeek’s best-selling business book list. Written by Rusty McClure with David Stern and Michael A. Banks, CROSLEY is an engrossing true story of triumph over hardships, failure, and tragedy.
Broadcast pioneers, radio manufacturers, and maverick automakers, they were decades ahead of their time. Dubbed the “Henry Ford of radio,” Powel with Lewis created WLW—the “Nation’s Station”—the most powerful radio station in the world. Testing their remote equipment, Lewis broadcast major-league baseball play-by-play on the radio. In the depth of the Great Depression, Powel bought—and essentially saved—the Cincinnati Reds, and then installed lights, ushering in night games. They built the transmitter that broadcast the Voice of America Their company built the first “smart bomb” with a proximity fuse, called the number two breakthrough weapon, second only to the atomic bomb, that helped win World War II. The Crosley Hotshot, a $924 two-seater sports coupe (Nelson Rockefeller and Frank Lloyd Wright owned them) beat a field of Jaguars and Ferraris (costing upwards of $20,000) at Sebring track in Florida. When the brothers finally sold their company, the new owners hired 26 people to fill Lewis’s shoes; no one could replace Powel.
The brothers epitomized contrasting qualities of the American spirit. Powel, with his burning hunger to move on to the next best product, strove to build and achieve. Lewis, practical and precise, took pleasure in making things grow and a job well done. Yet, Powel, who was Bill-Gates-Roaring-Twenties rich, never knew simple happiness, and remained, long after his father’s death, driven to prove himself. He buried his beloved wife and namesakes, son Powel III and grandson Powel IV. Lewis, at age 66, finally pursued his own dream of running a working dairy farm.
Their legacy touches many aspects of American life. Now, CROSLEY shares their inspiring, remarkable, never-before-told journey. We look forward to speaking to you about CROSLEY.