Mariners' Museum with Expo on Chris-Craft

The Mariners' Museum, in Newport News, Va., will present Chris-Craft: The Affordable Dream through December 31, 1999; an exhibit that traces the American love affair with the company's mahogany boats, while giving visitors a taste of life in the 1920s and 1930s. Woven through the exhibition are themes of these decades: the growth of the American middle class; the rise of technological innovation; the lure of high society and the disabling depression of the 1930s. Four Chris-Crafts, including Miss Belle Isle, one of the oldest known Chris-Crafts, are displayed in the exhibition among artifacts of their era. In 1925, Chris Smith revolutionized boatbuilding by borrowing new mass-production methods from the automobile industry and introducing a production line into his Algonac, Mich. plant. Smith standardized his products to make the production line efficient, offering, in 1926, 11 models in four lengths from 22 to 30 ft. Smith also adapted the concept of vertical integration - the control of all aspects of production, such as the creation of brass fittings and the harvesting of Philippine mahogany.