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a c k n o w l e d g m e n t s I must break with the usual academic acknowledgments format and recognize up front the significant contributions of my spouse and partner, Jere Borg. Throughout this book’s decade-long gestation she has been a patient listener and my most reliable editor. She has read and commented on draft upon draft of every section of every chapter—sacrificing time, emotional energy, and sleep beyond what either of us had anticipated when we began our life journey together. To her I owe a personal and professional debt that I can never repay, though I vow to make the effort for the remainder of my days. Over the course of many years the research presented here has profited from the help of far too many individuals to recount in detail. Some of them stand out, however, and must be thanked publicly. Ron Tobey’s remarkable undergraduate teaching ignited my interest in the history of science and technology and set me on this exciting, if uncertain, path. This book grew out of my graduate studies in the Hagley Program in the History of Industrialization at the University of Delaware. The financial support and intellectual climate of the Hagley Program and the Department of History provided a fertile bed for inquiry and growth. There Arwen Mohun directed my doctoral work and supported my unorthodox research topic from its inception in one of her graduate writing seminars until long after her official responsibilities had been fulfilled. She always allowed me enough freedom to pursue my own ideas and sources with just enough “directing ” to maintain a viable research project. In addition, George Basalla, Reed Gieger, Roger Horowitz, Bill Leslie, John Staudenmaier, and Susan Strasser each read my early research, in whole or in part, and offered valuable suggestions, sources, and literature that enriched my thinking, my research, and my writing. Historian Steve McIntyre contributed doubly to this project. First, by plowing a research path into the auto repair industry through his earlier dissertation on the topic and, second, by sharing his research photocopies, his friendship, and many conversations about auto repair research topics. Phil Scranton has been the most helpful and patient editor I could have hoped for. His initial critique of my earliest work on this topic while I was a young graduate student was transformative, and his fertile mind has been a constant inspiration. His sharp editor’s pen has urged me toward better writing, and his unfailing support has been crucial to bringing this book to completion. My colleagues at James Madison University—David Ehrenpreis , Fletcher Linder, Mark Thomas, and Steve Reich—have also read parts of my research and helped me sharpen my thinking and presentation. Financial and institutional support for this project has come from the University of Delaware and the Hagley Museum and Library in the form of a Hagley Fellowship in the History of Industrialization as well as supplemental fellowship and travel funding. A Smithsonian Institution Predoctoral Fellowship supported four months of research in the National Museum of American History’s Transportation Collection, Trade Catalog Collection and Archives Center. A Clark Research Grant from the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village allowed me to travel to and use that fine collection. The History Department at University of California, Riverside (UCR), my undergraduate alma mater, granted me Visiting Researcher status while I was researching and writing in California. The Interlibrary Loan staffs of UCR’s Rivera Library and James Madison University’s Carrier Library have graciously and politely fulfilled my requests for old, hard-bound trade journals, obscure auto repair books, and other diverse resources. My home institution, James Madison University, has supported the dissertation-to-book research through an Edna T. Schaeffer Humanist Award. The Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) contributed a much-needed boost to this book project through the SHOT Writing and Publication Workshop at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in the summer of 2004. There I gained valuable insights into advanced writing for a general audience from professional writers and editors as well as specific critiques and advice on a portion of this book from Tom Jehn, Larry Cohen, Rosalind Williams and fellow participants Gwen Bingle, Vera Candiani , Maja Fjaestad, Maril Hazlett, Per Hogselius, Anders Houltz, Helen Watkins , Matt Wisnioski, Timothy Wolters, and Shana Worthen. This book, while far from perfect, is immensely better due to revisions I made in response to my...

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