Auto Mechanics: Technology and Expertise in Twentieth-Century America

Images

Fig. 1. Liveried coachmen for New York’s elite families awaiting orders from their masters. The Vanderbilt-Marlborough Wedding, St. Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street, 1895. Courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York, Byron Collection. Fig. 2. Stevens-Duryea Touring Car, 1910. The Stevens-Duryea was typical of the chauffeur-driven cars of the time. Note the toolbox on the running board for easy access. The cylinder tank at the front of the running board contained acetylene gas for the lamps. Reprinted from Charles B. Hayward et al., Cyclopedia of Automobile Engineering, vol. 1 (Chicago: American Technical Society, 1910), frontispiece. Fig. 3. Sheet music for a popular song in 1913 reflecting the temperamental nature of early touring cars. Note the tool pouch and coil of wire in the foreground. Courtesy of the University of Delaware Library , Newark. Fig. 4 Floor plan of an ideal private garage, with the chauffeur’s living quarters on the second floor. The equipment in the repair shop includes an “emery wheel,” or grinder, a drill press, and a metal lathe. Because replacement parts were not readily available, chauffeur -mechanics had to fabricate or repair many parts in order to keep the automobile in operation . Reprinted from “A Model Garage,” Horseless Age 17, 30 May 1906, 819. Fig. 5. Chauffeurs’ livery offered by Saks and Company of New York, 1903. Saks and Company, “Automobile Garments and Requisites , for Men and Women,” New York, 1903, 40–41. Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library, Trade Catalog Collection. Fig. 6. The Eureka Auto Station was on West 124th Street in New York City. Note the “Chauffeurs’ Room,” the “Space Devoted to Repairs of Cars by Owners and Chauffeurs,” and the many machine tools, including three lathes, a shaper, a press, and a forge. Reprinted from Horseless Age 23, 21 April 1909, 512–22. Fig. 7. Eager young entrepreneurs offering sporting goods, bicycle repairs, and auto repairs in Burbank, Calif., 1908. Courtesy of the Security Pacific Collection, Los Angeles Public Library. Fig. 8. Samuel Holland’s Blacksmith Shop in Park River, N.Dak., ca. 1910, showing the diversity of equipment blacksmiths might be called on to repair in rural communities. To the far left and right sit steam tractors. In the foreground three men hold wire bicyclestyle wheels with pneumatic tires. In the center middle ground sits a three-wheeled motorcycle, and behind it are three women sitting atop a horseless carriage. Courtesy of Fred Hulstrand History in Pictures Collection, North Dakota Institute for Regional Studies , North Dakota State University, Fargo. Fig. 9. A 1915 cartoon depicting the frustration some blacksmiths felt when working on tourists’ automobiles. The fashionably attired motorist and his wife sit idly by while the blacksmith drips sweat from his brow and his fire burns unattended in the shop. The road sign in the distance indicates the way to New York. Reprinted from Blacksmith and Wheelwright, November 1915, 865. Fig. 10. Unidentified early auto mechanics, ca. 1910. Note the majority of eager young faces and the confident posturing about the partly disassembled automobile. Anonymous , undated photograph from author’s collection. Fig. 11. Advertising brochure for New York’s West Side YMCA Automobile School, 1909–10 season. Courtesy of the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana—Automobile Industry, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Behring Center, Smithsonian Institution. Fig. 12. Portland Auto School brochure, 1907. Courtesy of the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana—Automobile Industry, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Behring Center , Smithsonian Institution. Fig. 13. Motor Transportation Corps full-page recruiting advertisement seeking “Gas Hounds,” 1918. Reprinted from New York Times, 3 November 1918. Fig. 14. Auto shop class at Boys’ Technical High School of Milwaukee, 1928. Graduates received a “special Trade Diploma” indicating they had “completed a course of training in his chosen field” but which did not qualify them for college admission. Reprinted from Harry W. Paine, “A Survey of the Boys’ Technical High School of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the Organization of Its Automotive Department” (master’s thesis, Iowa State College , 1928), 14, 26. Fig. 15. U.S. Office of Education photo of auto shop students in Battle Creek, Mich., public school, 1940. Reprinted from Negative no. 12-E-39884 , Record Group 12-E, Records...