Graduation Semester and Year

Spring 2025

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in History

Department

History

First Advisor

Scott W. Palmer

Second Advisor

Christopher Morris

Third Advisor

Charles Travis

Abstract

This dissertation examines the design and manufacture of the mass-produced automobile in North America from its inception at the start of the twentieth century through the height of production in the late 1950s. This network of producers constituted the single largest industry in North America. The success of this market required producing a product that was desirable to consumers in design, affordable to purchase, and could be built in high enough quantities to justify the realignment of the rest of North American society to serve this new method of transportation. This dissertation is a shift away from demand studies concerned with the creation and impact of a society built around near-universal automobile ownership. It instead focuses on the challenges of supply: the design and manufacturing of inexpensive yet desirable automobiles.

Rather than a singular moment made possible by Henry Ford, the Model T, and the ideology of Fordism, mass automobility was achieved through a long collaborative process of continuous improvement. Advancements in Automobile design and efficiency gains in production capacity came not only from big automobile assemblers like Ford and General Motors, but also from independent suppliers of all sizes. This network of firms, ranging from machine tool manufacturers to automotive assemblers, operated across a geography stretching from New England and Quebec to the Mississippi River. Once basic mass automobility was achieved in the late 1920s, the automobile continued to develop as consumer expectations grew to expect more powerful, capable, and luxurious automobiles. As a complex manufactured object, automobile production interacted with hundreds of materials, transforming many industries to serve the needs of automobility. In this study, the relationship between the American aluminum industry and automobile design and manufacturing is examined.

Keywords

Technology, Motordom, Detroit, Toledo, Engineering, Aluminum, Transportation

Disciplines

Canadian History | Cultural History | Digital Humanities | History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | Other Geography

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