Technology as symbol
& as system;
Ford factory as
system,
Other auto systems of
infrastructure & support.
Europe interest in steam
for road transport.
1769 Nicholas Cugnot -
French govt experiment with steam tractors pulling cannon.
1801 Richard Trevithick
(Britain) - steam carriage, 12 mph.
1805 Oliver Evans (US) -
steam-powered dredge "Orukter Amphibolos" (amphibious digger).
Britain political
dispute - 1865 Locomotive Act or Red Flag Act - 2 mph in town, 4 mph highway -
not repealed until 1896.
France, corps of civil
engineers, good roads;
1890s "bicycle
craze" - "safety bicycle" (low wheels, gears, pneumatic tires) -
League of American Wheelmen.
Bicycle manufacture -
experience with special machine tools, sheet metal stamping, steel-tube frames,
ball bearings, pneumatic tires, chain drive & differential gearing.
Opel in Germany, Peugeot
in France, Morris in Britain, Pope & Willys in US.
what type of power?
1870s, French
experiments with steam cars; buses in Paris;
1898 Francis &
Freelan Stanley - Locomobile or “Stanley Steamer” best-selling car
in US 1900, under $1000 - made 5000.
Steam – advantages
& disadvantages;
improvements - late
1800s lightweight, high-pressure steam engines, automatic controls & flash
boiler.
electric car -
experiments 1890s France,
1897, 12 electric taxis
in New York.
Pope Manufacturing
Company by 1898 made 500 electric & 40 gas autos.
Electric –
advantages & disadvantages;
internal combusion
–
advantages &
disadvantages –
"you can't convince
people to sit over an explosion."
Specific driving
conditions;
Gender;
Internal combustion
engine - Otto, Daimler & Benz.
Karl Benz commercially
feasible gasoline car - 1893 car, 3-horsepower engine, sold 1,132 cars by 1898,
509 in France, 334 in Germany, 120 England, a few in US.
Paris world center of
auto production, turn of century,
over 130 different auto
manufacturers by 1901, including Darracq, Delahaye & Renault - skilled
labor & metal-working firms, upper-class market.
1895 auto race Paris to
Bordeaux back to Paris, 732 miles - 22 cars started, nine finished, eight
internal
combustion. One 15 mph.
1898 auto show in
Paris.
French auto
production 320
cars in 1896, 16,900 in 1904.
World's Fairs &
public expositions.
Charles & Frank
Duryea Mass. bicycle mechanics - Scientific American - first successful
US gas car 1893.
1895 first US auto race
- 55-mile course, Chicago Times-Herald - 6 cars started (two electric,
three Benz, one Duryea). Duryea 55 miles, just under 8 hours
1895 magazine
Horseless
Age.
Duryea car $1500.
1896 produced 13
"Buggy-aut"s
US early auto makers
- mechanics,
carriage makers or bicycle makers.
1899 thirty US
manufacturers, 2500 motor vehicles,
hundreds of other
experimental makers;
shift from electric
& steam to gas, from New England to Midwest.
Ransom Olds - first
large-volume US producer of gas cars - one-cylinder, three-hp, tiller-steered,
chain-drive, curved-dash car $650
1901 Roy Chapin Detroit
to NY, ten days, average speed 14 mph.
Olds 5,500 cars 1904.
1900 auto show, NY
Madison Square Garden.
long-distance trips
& races,
1903, San Francisco to
New York.
1909 Alice Ramsey - 41
day trip, publicity stunt,
1906 San Francisco
earthquake,
1904, US overtook French
auto production.
1910, 458,500 motor
vehicles registered in US.
engine under hood,
larger & more powerful engines, differential gear on rear axle, smaller
wheels & wider pneumatic tires, steering wheel, shock absorbers,
headlights,
folding top.
1912 Charles Kettering -
self-starter.
Buyers – wealthy,
businessmen, doctors.
1905 need of making
lower-priced cars for middle-class market.
Alanson Brush - 1906
Brush Runabout, $500 - wood body.
Henry Ford
–
"a car for the
great multitude," combining quality & reasonable price.
inexpensive but powerful
& sound.
precision compatible
with mass production.
Henry Ford –
myth vs. reality.
Engineer & machinist
with Detroit branch of Edison Illuminating Company.
1896 Ford
"quadricycle"
- 8-mile run Detroit to Dearborn.
1899 financial backing -
Detroit Automobile Company - failed in one year.
1901 Cleveland auto
maker Alexander Winton.
1901 Henry Ford Company;
1902 racer 999 - 70
horsepower - bicycle racer Barney Oldfield "might as well be dead as dead
broke." – new speed records.
1903 Ford Motor Company
- $28,000 in capital,
1904, sold 658
autos, profit
of $150 each.
1905 larger building
- 300
workers, 25 cars per day.
1908 Model T - four
cylinders & 20-hp - heat-treated steel - $825 for runabout.
"No car under $2000
offers more & no car over $2000 offers more except the
trimmings." First year, sold
over 10,000,.
Reliability &
simplicity - manuals & diagrams.
mass production
–
1910 plant Highland
Park, Michigan.
machinist Walter
Flanders, engineer Charles Sorensen,
machines arranged in
sequential, logical order of production.
Special-purpose machine
tools & precise gauges.
customized system of
power transmission.
1910, assembly teams,
parts brought by handtruck.
"moving the work to
the man".
April 1, 1913, test
assembly line in flywheel department.
old system, one man 40
per day; new assembly line 95 flywheels per worker per day.
August, 1913, final
stage of auto assembly;
conveyor belts &
gravity slides;
cut assembly time
for chassis
from 12.5 hours to 1.5 hours.
1916 River Rouge, 115
acres.
Ford's work force
skilled
workers (machinists, engineers) & unskilled assemblers &
machine-tenders.
Skilled US, Britain,
Germany; unskilled workers southern or eastern Eur.
Charlie Chaplin -
Modern
Times.
370% labor turnover
1914 $5 day
Sociological Dept, Ford
English School.
Model T 1916 $345 for
runabout - 739,000 cars in 1916.
1.5 million cars per
year 1920s.
Model T withdrawn
1927, over
15 million, price as low as $290.
mid 1920s, car
making leading
US industry,
tremendous demand for
steel.
revolutionized petroleum
industry –
rubber, glass,
service;
Model T image
problem - "you
can get a Model T in any color as long as it's black."
1920s, search for style
& status.
General Motors manager
Alfred Sloan - annual model change, colors, move customer up to more expensive
line.
Flexible mass
production,
1927 Ford Model A.
Ford worshipped in
Soviet Union.
1929, Muncie, Indiana:,
"Why on earth do you need to study what's changing this country? I can tell you what's happening in just
four letters: A-U-T-O!"
Home design, city
layout, lifestyle (recreation).
idea of US prosperity
& consumerism.
"machine Age" in America.