James Scripps Booth, an automobile designer, artist, and philosopher was the eldest son of George Gough Booth and Ellen Scripps Booth born May 31, 1888 in the Trumbull Avenue home of his grandfather James Edmund Scripps, founder and publisher of the Detroit Evening News. Educated briefly at Detroit University School and St. Luke's School for Boys in Wayne, Pennsylvania, Booth left school in the tenth grade and taught himself the basics of automobile mechanics by systematically dismantling and reassembling the family's 1904 Winston. By 1908 Booth had made the preliminary sketches of a two wheeled belt-driven vehicle, the Bi-Autogo.

While employed at the Detroit Evening News he developed his writing skills, broadened his automotive background, and refined his art techniques. In 1910 Hupp Motor Company hired Booth to write and illustrate their automotive catalogs and instruction manuals.

Following his 1910 marriage to Jean Alice McLaughlin, the Booth family-- with an entourage of nurse, chauffeur and two automobiles-- embarked on a Grand Tour of Europe. The young couple returned to Paris, James to study painting with Myron Barlow, and Jean to write.

Returning to the United States James obtained $25,000 from his father and built a prototype of the Bi-Autogo. In 1913 Booth, uncle William J. Scripps and John Batterman formed the Scripps-Booth Cyclecar Company, manufacturers of small, belt-driven vehicles, the JB Rocket and the Packet. Reorganizing in 1914, the Scripps-Booth Company introduced a small luxurious car, the JSB, featuring such innovations as a spare wheel and tire, a horn button on the steering wheel, a removable top and an electrical locking system. Conflicting design ideas led to Booth's resignation in 1916. The company was eventually sold to General Motors.

Concentrating on his art, James, his wife Jean, his son John, (born May 28, 1913) and daughter Margaret, (born September 22, 1916) moved to Pasadena, California, where his third child, Ann, was born (December 20, 1917).

Returning to Detroit in 1923, Booth introduced his latest automobile design, the daVinci, an automobile with lowered floor board, hanging foot pedals and a parking brake in the transmission. The Stutz Company expressed interest, but declined to manufacture the car. However, at the New York Auto Show Stutz showed a car so similar to the daVinci that Booth filed a patent infringement suit, eventually winning in 1935.

In the 1930's Booth settled his family in Detroit, established an industrial design/art studio in Indian Village, and assumed responsibilities as a trustee of Brookside School, Cranbrook Foundation and a director of the Cranbrook Academy of Art.

During World War II Booth published General Handbook, Motor Mechanics Simplified: Understand Your Car, used by the American Red Cross in their automotive mechanics classes. His wife Jean died July 31, 1942. On February 20, 1943 he married Ellen Catherine Norlen. Following the deaths of his parents, Ellen Scripps Booth, (January, 1948) and George Gough Booth, (April 1949), Booth edited Cyril Player's biography of his father George Gough Booth of Cranbrook; moved to New Canaan, Connecticut; and published a philosophical book, Adventure in Analysis: A Searching Biblical Commentary. James Scripps Booth died September 13, 1954 at his home in Norwalk, Connecticut.

John McLaughlin Booth, first child of Jean McLaughlin and James Scripps Booth, was born May 28, 1913 in Highland Park, Michigan. A member of the first class (September 1927) of Cranbrook School for Boys, John graduated in June 1933, then attended Wayne State University and the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts.

Between 1941 and 1943 Booth married Carol Lawson, enlisted in the United States Army Air Force, graduated from Officers' Candidate School in Miami, Florida, became the father of his first child, a son, Thomas (1943), and moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado. Booth left the U.S. Army Air Force in 1945 as First Lieutenant. Booth and his wife remained in Colorado after the war and had two more children - Carol (1945) and Nancy (1947). In 1960, the Booth family returned to Birmingham, MI where Booth was associated with various financial institutions, retiring in 1972 from Paine-Webber.

Always interested in art, as a private collector Booth focused on local contemporary artists. Aware of his civic responsibilities he served (1967-1989) as a trustee and governor of the Cranbrook Academy of Art. At the Detroit Institute of Arts he served as both a board member of the Friends of Modern Art and an honorary board member of the Graphic Arts Council. Other memberships included the Detroit Historical Society, the Florida Moorings Club and the Center for the Arts in Vero Beach, Florida. Booth was also a member of Christ Church Cranbrook, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and Trinity Episcopal Church of Vero Beach, Vero Beach, Florida. John McLaughlin Booth died August 25, 1989 in Royal Oak, Michigan.