I have spent a fair amount of time researching the invention of the wood canvas canoe along with Dan Miller and many other people. None of us have had much success in finding out exactly who to credit as the originator of this concept.
The book titled "The Man Behind the Microchip, Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley" by Leslie Berlin never mentions canoes but it covers how two modern inventions happened in some detail. Ironically, the first concepts of the integrated circuit and the microprocessor came together in the late 1900s in ways that might be very similar to how the wood canvas canoe's concepts did in the late 1800s. Page 183 says "In the same way that the ideas about interconnecting components were 'in the air' for years before Noyce and Kilby independently demonstrated their integrated circuits, so too were ideas about a general-purpose logic device 'in the air' for years before anyone at Intel began working on what would come to be called microprocessors. 'This is a funny deal with the microprocessor,' explains Gordon Moore. 'There was no real invention [in a technical sense]. The breakthrough was a recognition that it was finally possible to do what everyone had been saying we would some day be able to do.'"
It appears that the concepts of clinched tacks, waterproof canvas, steam bent wood, solid forms, and all of the other standard elements of a wood and canvas canoe were all similarly 'in the air' when the North American canoe builders of the late 1800s were searching for better ways to satisfy the unprecedented demand for their products.
Benson
The book titled "The Man Behind the Microchip, Robert Noyce and the Invention of Silicon Valley" by Leslie Berlin never mentions canoes but it covers how two modern inventions happened in some detail. Ironically, the first concepts of the integrated circuit and the microprocessor came together in the late 1900s in ways that might be very similar to how the wood canvas canoe's concepts did in the late 1800s. Page 183 says "In the same way that the ideas about interconnecting components were 'in the air' for years before Noyce and Kilby independently demonstrated their integrated circuits, so too were ideas about a general-purpose logic device 'in the air' for years before anyone at Intel began working on what would come to be called microprocessors. 'This is a funny deal with the microprocessor,' explains Gordon Moore. 'There was no real invention [in a technical sense]. The breakthrough was a recognition that it was finally possible to do what everyone had been saying we would some day be able to do.'"
It appears that the concepts of clinched tacks, waterproof canvas, steam bent wood, solid forms, and all of the other standard elements of a wood and canvas canoe were all similarly 'in the air' when the North American canoe builders of the late 1800s were searching for better ways to satisfy the unprecedented demand for their products.
Benson
