Art: Party by Fisher

Oldtimers insist that there are still carriages on the streets of Norwalk, Ohio, built by Andrew Fisher. Andrew begat Lawrence, also a wheelwright, and Lawrence begat seven sons. They were named William Andrew, Frederic John, Alfred Joseph, Charles Thomas, Edward Francis, Lawrence Peter, Howard. William Andrew was the lazy one. He would cock his hat over his eye, pretend not to see his father beckoning him into the blacksmith shop. But ultimately he and all the rest except Howard industriously followed their father’s and grandfather’s trade. After the turn of the century the six Brothers Fisher started Fisher Body Corp. William Andrew became president. General Motors took them in and today they are the most numerous, most affluent guild-family in the world. Partly to advertise Fisher Bodies, and partly because they relish good craftsmanship, last week they had a party.

To the Fisher party, held in the auditorium of the GM building in Detroit, went 104 boys from 48 States and the District of Columbia. They were all either junior (12 to 16) or senior (16 to 19) members of the Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild. Each had constructed a model of the Napoleonic coach which is the Fisher Body trademark. Some 1,350 other U.S. boys had built models too, but these 104 were the best. In the pocket of his Sunday suit, each boy had some part of $50 which General Motors had given him for spending money during his visit to Detroit. While Graham McNamee gushed a description of the setting over a national hookup on the General Motors Family Party radio hour, each boy wondered if he was going to be one of the four to receive a $5,000 four-year scholarship at college.

Formed last August, the Guild had sent its members specifications for the coach. Technicians had examined hundreds of models, alike to the lay observer as two peas in a pod. The judges included President Thomas Stockham Baker of Carnegie Institute of Technology; Board Chairman Robert Andrews Millikan of California Institute of Technology; Board Chairman Samuel Wesley Stratton of Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Dean Dexter Simpson Kimball of Cornell’s College of Engineering and eight other engineering deans and professors. Also there was Daniel Carter Beard, national Boy Scout commissioner, who served as honorary president of the Guild, of which William Andrew Fisher is president.

President Fisher, who wanted to see what the nation’s boys could do with plane, chisel, glue and mould, had sounded the Guild’s keynote last year: “It is our endeavor to foster . . . that spirit of fine workmanship which permeated the craft guilds of bygone centuries. . . . There was a pride in workmanship which kept alive a competitive spirit among Guild workers, and there was a healthy rivalry between Guilds in the same industry. . . . Regardless of the advancement in machinery, there is today and will continue to be a need for real artisans and craftsmen.”

Hushed was the hall when the ice cream plates were cleared away. Impressively the winners were announced. One of the senior Guildsmen had won on his home ground—Raymond S. Doerr of Battle Creek, Mich. Graduated from high school in February, he was encouraged by his father—a pattern maker for a plumbing manufacturer—to build a coach instead of looking for work. He set up a workshop in the family’s basement. The other senior winner was a boy named Albert Fischer from Waukegan Ill. He was let out of his draftsman’s job, spent 1,200 hours on his coach.

Howard Jennings, one of the junior scholarship winners, came from Denver, Colo., used the machinery at the printing shop where his father is a steel engraver. Donald Burnham of West Lafayette, Ind., worked at home in a little basement. An old hand at modelling, he once got a trip to Europe for making a miniature airplane.

When they have finished their college courses all the winners will be offered General Motors jobs.