The Automobile Industry 1920 1980

A chronicle of the American automobile industry through its business figures and companies.

This comprehensive reference guide reviews the literature concerning the impact of the automobile on American social, economic, and political history. Covering the complete history of the automobile to date, twelve chapters of bibliographic essays describe the important works in a series of related topics and provide broad thematic contexts. This work includes general histories of the automobile, the industry it spawned and labor-management relations, as well as biographies of famous automotive personalities. Focusing on books concerned with various social aspects, chapters discuss such issues as the car's influence on family life, youth, women, the elderly, minorities, literature, and leisure and recreation. Berger has also included works that investigate the government's role in aiding and regulating the automobile, with sections on roads and highways, safety, and pollution. The guide concludes with an overview of reference works and periodicals in the field and a description of selected research collections. The Automobile in American History and Culture provides a resource with which to examine the entire field and its structure. Popular culture scholars and enthusiasts involved in automotive research will appreciate the extensive scope of this reference. Cross-referenced throughout, it will serve as a valuable research tool.

First published in 1992. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Power, Speed, and Form is the first accessible account of the engineering behind eight breakthrough innovations that transformed American life from 1876 to 1939—the telephone, electric power, oil refining, the automobile, the airplane, radio, the long-span steel bridge, and building with reinforced concrete. Beginning with Thomas Edison's system to generate and distribute electric power, the authors explain the Bell telephone, the oil refining processes of William Burton and Eugene Houdry, Henry Ford's Model T car and the response by General Motors, the Wright brothers' airplane, radio innovations from Marconi to Armstrong, Othmar Ammann's George Washington Bridge, the reinforced concrete structures of John Eastwood and Anton Tedesko, and in the 1930s, the Chrysler Airflow car and the Douglas DC-3 airplane. These innovations used simple numerical ideas, which the Billingtons integrate with short narrative accounts of each breakthrough—a unique and effective way to introduce engineering and how engineers think. The book shows how the best engineering exemplifies efficiency, economy and, where possible, elegance. With Power, Speed, and Form, educators, first-year engineering students, liberal arts students, and general readers now have, for the first time in one volume, an accessible and readable history of engineering achievements that were vital to America's development and that are still the foundations of modern life.

The first of two volumes chronicling the history of the automotive industry through biographies of individuals and companies, buttressed by a wide range of supporting entries. All of the famous names are here, from Buick Motor Co. to John North Willys, but it's the names unknown, or only vaguely remembered, or known but not known about, that provide the most pleasure. With both portrait and automotive photographs. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR