Elwood Haynes |
American Pioneers
The
transition in national automotive leadership away from Europe and to the United
States that took place during the first decade of the twentieth century is
complex. One aspect that remains to be explored is the immigration of European
automotive engineers to the United States. This matter of technology transfer
is a phenomenon that certainly happened in the case of the Thomas Company
located in Buffalo, New York where a number of French engineers were employed,
and may have occurred elsewhere as well.25 The automotive history
literature celebrates American innovation, but ignores European influence on
the early development of the industry. It is as if the American industry
evolved out of virgin soil, which is highly unlikely given the nature of the
trans-Atlantic connections of that day. Certainly the United States had its
native pioneers in terms of constructing prototype vehicles, or those made in
small numbers, and also automobile manufacturers, who more often than not had
previously been bicycle or carriage and wagon manufacturers.
The
pioneers included Charles and Frank Duryea, who assembled their first vehicle
in 1893.26 The brothers would later engage in bitter priority
disputes that continued to the early 1940s. Elwood Haynes, along with Edgar and
Elmer Apperson, built their first car in 1894 in Kokomo, Indiana. In 1895 Hiram
Maxim installed a gasoline engine on a tricycle, and a year later Henry Ford
demonstrated his Quadricycle.27 Alexander Winton, a bicycle
manufacturer in Cleveland, Ohio would soon follow with an unoriginal design of
his own, but he was also among the first to manufacture vehicles in some
quantity, marking him as a leader in the early automobile business, along with
Colonel Albert A. Pope of Hartford, Connecticut.
While
Pope’s influence in the business would last only two years, to 1899, the Winton
Motor Carriage Company flourished into the early twentieth century. Winton,
like Henry Ford, raced his cars, and in 1903 a Winton became the first car to
cross the continental United States. Other manufacturers of the period included
George N. Pierce in Buffalo and Thomas L. Jeffery, who built the Rambler. Most
significant was Ransom Eli Olds, whose curved-dash “Merry Oldsmobile,” built in
Michigan, became an industry leader, with a production volume of 5,000 units in
1904. A dispute unfortunately followed – disputes were all too common among
pioneer inventors and manufacturers of the era – and while Olds would later set
up another company called REO, his influence on the industry diminished. Former
employees of Olds who got their start there and then proved to be influential
later in the automobile industry included Jonathan D. Maxwell, Robert C. Hupp,
Roy D. Chapin and Howard E. Coffin.
During the
first decade of the twentieth century, the number of firms active in the
industry is staggering by today’s standards. Some of the names of the early car
companies were Orient, Monarch, Walker, Gale, Wolverine, Maxwell,
Stoddard-Dayton, Wayne, Holsman, Logan, and Lambert. John Rae summarized the
state of the infant industry as characterized by easy entry, virtually no
government restrictions, literally hundreds of companies, and sources of
capital varying from giants like J. P. Morgan to local banks and patrons.28
As the
superiority of the gasoline automobile was increasingly demonstrated over its
steam and electric competitors, the geographic center of automobile
manufacturing in the U.S. shifted from New England to the Midwest. The early,
overwhelming choice of the internal combustion engine by Midwestern
manufacturers was influenced by the region’s poor roads, which were nearly
impossible for electrics to negotiate, relatively vast spaces when compared to
the East, and by the availability of gasoline for fuel in sparsely-settled
rural areas that lacked electricity. Since village blacksmiths were accustomed
to repairing wagons and carriages, they can be considered the first generation
of auto mechanics.
The
presence of a vibrant carriage trade and other economic and geographic factors
contributed to the emergence of Detroit as the hub of automotive manufacturing
in America. Most certainly, however, the elusive factor of personality and the
presence of the likes of Ransom Olds, Henry Ford, Henry Leland, and Billy
Durant proved critical to the rise of Detroit as the “Motor City.”
To make a
single prototype of a car is one thing, but to make it with uniform quality and
in quantity is a very different challenge. The importance of high tolerance,
uniformly machined parts like crankshafts and engine blocks, is usually
credited to Henry Leland.29 Leland learned machine tool techniques
from a craft tradition that can be traced back to Eli Whitney at the Mill Rock armory
and then later diffused and improved upon by Simeon North at Springfield and
Roswell Lee and Harpers’ Ferry. High volume and economies of scale would be the
central achievement of Henry Ford and his key employees at Ford Motor Company
after 1908. The spectacular rise in American auto production is reflected in
Table 1:
Table 1: American
Motor Vehicle Production, 1899-1910
Year
|
Number
|
Value
($)
|
1899
|
600
|
1,290,000
|
1903
|
10,576
|
16,000,000
|
1904
|
13,766
|
24,500,000
|
1905
|
20,787
|
42,000,000
|
1906
|
23,000
|
50,000,000
|
1907
|
42,694
|
105,000,000
|
1908
|
49,952
|
83,000,000
|
1909
|
114,891
|
135,000,000
|
1910
|
200,000
|
225,000,000
|
Source: “Motor
Vehicles,” Encyclopedia Britannica (13th Edition), vol. 18, 920.
Despite the
presence in Cleveland, Ohio of pioneering firms that included Winton, Stearns,
Gaeth, Washburn, Marr, Owen Rogers & Hanford, and Pennington, Richard Wager
made the argument that Cleveland’s decline as the center for the automobile
industry was the consequence of conservative bankers. In contrast, Detroit’s financial
institutions were far more willing to take risks.30
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