Auto Mechanics: Technology and Expertise in Twentieth-Century America

6. Suburban Paradox: Maintaining Automobility in the Postwar Decades

c h a p t e r 6 Suburban Paradox Maintaining Automobility in the Postwar Decades “Why, if my kid wanted to be an auto mechanic, I’d take my hammer and knock him in the head,” groused a middle-aged Iowa mechanic at the close of the 1960s.1 In the quarter-century following World War II the imagined freedom and prosperity of suburban automobility ran hard up against the social hierarchy of technological knowledge. World War II and the years that followed established a milestone in the development of America’s automobile culture and suggested a bright future for all things automotive. On the battlefield a flood of military technology flowed from Detroit’s converted automobile factories into Europe, the Pacific, North Africa, and even the Soviet Union, eventually proving decisive in the global industrial slugfest. Wartime spending ended the Great Depression, and at war’s end American consumers engaged in a great car-buying orgy as they were unleashed from rationing and prodded to purchase. Automobile ownership reached unprecedented levels, ushering in an era of automobile enthusiasm, road building, home sales, and increasingly automobile-centered lives. Americans worked, shopped, dined, and vacationed from behind the wheel. Race car drivers and their mechanics achieved celebrity status in a host of new and growing motor sports. The future looked bright for boys who liked to poke around under the hoods of cars. Yet by the end of the 1960s any such implied promise for the average mechanic remained unfulfilled. In late 1968 the United States Senate launched an extensive, two-year investigation of fraud in the auto repair industry; employers decried a critical shortage of mechanics; large numbers of vocational auto shop graduates chose not to enter the trade; and the public reputation of the automobile mechanic reached an all-time low. A central paradox of technology’s middle ground grew glaringly apparent: almost any involvement with automobiles— owning, racing, tinkering—bestowed status, except for those who repaired them for a living. 116 Auto Mechanics Wartime Mechanics: GI Joe and Mary Jo World War II differed from World War I in that automotive technology no longer remained a novelty to most Americans. American car manufacturers produced a record 3.7 million passenger cars in 1940, and the number of registered cars reached a peak of 29.5 million in 1941—eight times the level at the start of World War I.2 In addition, the social structure of the auto mechanic’s occupation , and the institutions for perpetuating that structure, stood well established and relatively stable by the outbreak of World War II. As a result, U.S. military brass could tap a deep reserve of mechanical experience that would be crucial on the battlefield. Historian Stephen Ambrose noted how this relatively widespread mechanical ability among American soldiers contributed to their effectiveness on the battlefield vis-à-vis German troops. The American GIs “replaced damaged tank tracks, welded patches on the armor, and repaired engines. Even the tanks damaged beyond repair were dragged back to the maintenance depot by the Americans and stripped for parts. The Germans just left theirs where they were.”3 The army expanded its motor vehicle training center at Camp Holabird, Maryland, and the training there and elsewhere could focus more on training soldiers in the specific maintenance and repair requirements and procedures of the now more specialized machinery of war.4 Even so, wartime labor demands soon exceeded the supply of experienced mechanics and drew a number of women into military and commercial repair shops. Paralleling Rosie the Riveter’s move into manufacturing plants, Mary Jo the Mechanic crossed the well-established gender barriers to work in the shop during the war emergency. Effective February 1942, the federal government ordered a halt to passenger car production in order to shift the materials and production facilities of U.S. automakers to war production. This move essentially dried up the supply of new cars for the duration of the war, and therefore Americans had to maintain and repair their existing vehicles more intensively.5 Also, following the shock of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the rush of men to enlist in the armed forces left a labor vacuum among garages. Additional men left garage jobs to take higher paying and seemingly more urgent war production jobs. Overall, “mechanic manpower” dropped 40 percent between December 1940 and December 1942 according to a survey conducted by the American Automobile Association (AAA). Surveying more...