Charles C. La Croix was born in Saskatchewan, Canada. He was 20 when he started to work for the Ford Motor Company at the Rouge River Plant stringing cable for the electric railroad and repairing telephone systems. That was the beginning of a 40-year career that eventually included more than a dozen different jobs. In 1927 he became bindery supervisor for The Dearborn Independent. Next, he handled guest relations at Ford Airport and test drove Model A's. In 1929 La Croix became a guide at Henry Ford's Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. When the Village opened to the public in 1933, he was named assistant director and trained Henry Ford Trade School boys as the first guides. When the war closed the Village in 1942, Henry Ford asked La Croix to write a history of the Willow Run Bomber Plant. La Croix prepared fifty volumes of material documenting the war production efforts of the company. In addition to tanks, trucks, jeeps, amphibians, and gliders, Ford produced 8,658 B-24 bombers, 57,581 Pratt & Whitney engines, and 1,202 anti-aircraft detectors. Each volume contains one or more summaries of Ford war effort projects and includes an index, an introduction, a summarization of contract negotiations, a description of the facilities required to execute the contract, engineering contributions and changes, tooling, laboratory research and developments, methods applied in manufacturing and assembly, inspection, testing, shipping, termination and reconversion. In 1945, he summarized this data into seven succinct volumes. In subsequent years, LaCroix worked in advertising and public relations for the company.
From the description of Charles C. La Croix records, 1941-1956. (The Henry Ford). WorldCat record id: 301732048
