All photographs from the Detroit Public Library
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 published in the U.S. celebrates American innovation, but often 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.
View of J. Frank Duryea and Charles E. Duryea in Duryea phaeton during the 1895 Chicago Times-Herald Race. Handwritten on sleeve: "Subject: Races & racing--Chicago Times Herald. Collection: MS3/Charles E. Duryea Collection. Date: 1895. Source: Estate of Charles E. & M. Jerry Duryea. I.D.: Duryea phaeton. J. Frank Duryea & Charles E. Duryea in the winner, in Chicago race, Nov. 1895. Handwritten on back: "J. Frank Duryea, Charles E. Duryea in the winner of the Chicago race, 1895."
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.
View of Elwood Haynes posing in an 1894 Haynes-Apperson car. Label on back: "From the Beltmann Archive. Elwood Haynes and his first gasoline automobile in the 1890's. Advances in design, construction, and performance in automobiles have been paralleled by comparable advances in Morse timing chain drives. Here, with our compliments, is the print enlargement you requested from a recent Morse Chain Company advertisement. We hope that you will find other prints of special interest to you as the series continues. Morse Chain Company, a Borg-Warner industry." Handwritten on back: "Haynes-Apperson, 1894. 1st car."
In 1895 Hiram Maxim installed a gasoline engine on a tricycle, and a year later Henry Ford demonstrated his Quadricycle.27
View of Hiram Percy Maxim and passenger posing in a Columbia car. Man with bicycle on roadside. Handwritten on back: "Maxim in Columbia. Columbia, ca. 1905."
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. His 13 customers in 1898 were capitalists, engineers, merchants and manufacturers. Winton’s customer list tells us much about the first generation of automobile owners in the U.S. and Canada.
View of Winton American Challenger car on exhibit during the 1900 New York Auto Show held at Madison Square Garden in New York. Sign on car reads: "Winton's American Challenger driven by Alexander Winton, Nov. 1st to 4th, Cleveland to Madison Square Garden, American long distance record." "Winton" sign in background. Stamped on back: "N. Lazarnick, commercial photographers, makers of industrial motion pictures, 246 W. 42d St., N.Y., Tel. Chickering 1717-18. 5005 Euclid Ave., Cleve., Randolph 7852." Handwritten on back: "Early auto show. Shows--New York, 1900.”
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 after making 1,400 vehicles in 1900, 2,100 in 1901, 2,500 in 1902, and about 4,000 in 1903. [add endnote]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.
Front view of Percy Pierce and passengers in Pierce-Arrow car no. 27, surrounded by spectators, during the 1906 Glidden Tour. Handwritten on back: "#27 Pierce, 40-45 h.p., entrant Percy P. Pierce. Tours--Glidden Tour, 1906.”
View of R.E. Olds driving 1902 Oldsmobile car with curved dash. Handwritten on back: "Oldsmobile, 1902 curved dash model. R.E. Olds at wheel. 1902, the curved dash Oldsmobile.
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
With few exceptions, automobile manufacturers active during this first decade were assemblers of parts custom-made by suppliers. Iron castings, tubing, bearings, nuts, bolts, washers, engines, radiators, wheels, tires, and bodies – virtually every part of the car – were made to specifications common only to one brand of car. Consequently, there were so many component variants that the industry was in chaos by 1910, and only later rationalized by efforts at standardization, especially after the United States entered World War I. [add endnote]
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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