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Joseph A. Galamb
- Wayne State University Press
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Joseph A. Galamb 1881-1955 "Joe, I've got an idea to design a new car. Fix a place for yourself on the third floor way back." —Henry Ford* For an automotive body engineer, Henry Ford depended almost entirely on Joseph Galamb. Model T bodies were designed to be both durable and inexpensive. That was the way Ford wanted them; he was not interested in style. Galamb bent the heavy sheet metal over a strong hardwood frame into a configuration to defy destruction—not to appease the stylish. Joseph A. Galamb was born on February 3,1881, in Mako, Hungary. After graduating from the Mako schools, he attended the Budapest Industrial Technology Engineering Course, from which he graduated in 1899. He next served the required one-year military service in the navy as an engineer. After the navy, as he stated in his reminiscences, "I went to see the world—Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen.,, He worked in Federracht at a large German shipbuilding firm for a few months, then went on to Dusseldorf for about two weeks of employment . In Frankfurt, a German automotive center, he was hired to assemble automotive engines in a process in which each engine was built completely by one man. Galamb was working there in early 1903 when the Adler Automobile Company produced their first four-cylinder engine. Joseph Galamb came to America in October 1903, to be on hand for the St. Louis Exposition and World's Fair of 1904. He arrived in New York on October 6, with two friends and twenty-seven dollars to split three ways. His first job was in a New York paper box factory at three dollars a week, putting metal corners on the boxes. After two months in New York, he left for Pittsburgh, where he worked for Westinghouse as a toolmaker for six months at twenty-eight cents an hour. Planning to go back to Germany in late 1904, Galamb attended the *From the oral reminiscences of Joseph A. Galamb, recalling a statement made to him by Henry Ford in 1907 as they started work on the Model T. 123 Henry's Lieutenants St. Louis Exposition that summer. But instead of returning to Europe, he obtained a job as a carburetor maker with the Stearns Automobile Company in Cleveland. Then he was at Niles, Ohio, as a tool designer for the Harris Automotive Press Company. Although now he might be criticized as a job hopper, he was obtaining valuable experience. Galamb had friends in Detroit, and while he was visiting them, he applied for work at the Silent Northern plant, the Cadillac plant, and the Ford Piquette plant. All three employers offered him work within a three-hour period. But it was C. Harold Wills of Ford Motor Company who offered Galamb the best pay—twenty dollars per week. Wills hired Galamb in November 1905. Galamb was released from his job with Harris and started work with Ford on December 11, 1905. There were about 300 men employed at the Ford Motor Company assembling the Model A from purchased parts. Ford was not manufacturing his own automobile parts yet. Galamb was soon assigned to designing parts needed for the fourcylinder Model N. Samples of this car were to be shown at the January 1906 automobile show. During 1906, the big six-cylinder Model K was under development. Ford was pleased with the more expressive European style of draftsmanship, and for experimental projects he provided Galamb with a private drafting room with drafting board and blackboard. It was in this closely guarded cubicle adjoining Ford's experimental shop that Galamb did the design work for the Model T. Although the Model T was the result of ideas of several men, Galamb's contributions, along with those of Ford and Wills, were particularly important. Wills's contribution was primarily metallurgical. Ford spent considerable time in Galamb's private room, sketching his ideas on the blackboard. Between sketches, he sat in his rocking chair, his "thinking chair," discussing these ideas and studying the designs as Galamb drew them in detail on paper. For a period of two years, Ford and Galamb, with Eugene Farkas as one of Galamb's assistants, spent many late evenings together working out the final character of the Model T. The Model T was revolutionary in automotive design. Whereas today there are the separate entities of styling design and engineering design, the Model T resulted solely from engineering design. It was not styled...