Making and Selling Cars: Innovation and Change in the U.S. Automotive Industry (review)

The significance of the American automobile industry for the history of twentieth-century technology and culture cannot be overstated. As the nation's largest industry, and, indeed, the world's largest industry, U.S. automakers have been pioneers in developing mass production, spurring a consumer culture, and transforming spatial development. The modern suburb, where most Americans live, is unimaginable without the automobile. Air pollution, global warming, and trade deficits are in large part the result of the nation's dependence on motor vehicles. Cars are one of the epoch-making innovations of modern times. Almost one in five jobs is related, directly or indirectly, to the industry.

James Rubenstein's new book adds to the voluminous literature on the industry. What makes his book noteworthy is that he has brought together material that is usually the preserve of different types of scholarship, and done so in a straightforward manner impressive in scope. Rubenstein examines the evolution of the labor process, from Henry Ford's development of the moving assembly line to the postwar Japanese development of lean production. He provides a detailed account of the steps involved in vehicle assembly at Ford's Highland Park plant. He offers an analysis of how the industry has marketed its vehicles from the Model T to annual style changes. He shows the connection between lean production and consolidation within the industry, the relationship between automakers and parts producers, how cars are assembled and how they are advertised. Few authors have attempted such an undertaking, let alone done so by focusing on the changes in how cars were produced and marketed throughout the twentieth century.

In any effort of this sort, specialists will find things with which to quibble. This book, however, does not appear to be intended to engage, let alone settle, the debates among scholars about the various topics covered. Instead, Rubenstein has written an overview, apparently in hope of whetting the appetite of readers who want to delve more deeply. While it would be unfair to expect anyone to master the vast array of issues that are touched upon in this work and offer his or her own evaluation, Rubenstein could have hinted at the different interpretations and made passing reference to the critical literature.

Perhaps this could have been handled in the notes, which are sometimes sketchy. For example, the discussion of Ford's early problems in managing labor would have benefited from consideration of Stephen Meyer's book on the five-dollar day. Bradford Snell's pathbreaking work is indispensable here. At the same time, Rubenstein could have made mention of the literature on the labor process and the de-skilling associated with Taylorism, as covered by Harry Braverman or Richard Edwards. He could have noted the work on lean production and post-Fordism by Ernest Yanarella. The material on the United Automobile Workers could have been supplemented by Nelson Lichtenstein's work, while reference to many authors could have strengthened the address to transportation policy and how automakers set out—beginning in the 1930s with the creation of the National Highway Users Conference—to transform the nation's ground transportation system. The history of government regulation beginning in the 1960s could have been improved by considering the work of Ralph Nader and Joel Eastman, among others, since the dictum "safety doesn't sell" structured the industry's approach to marketing for decades.

These brief suggestions only touch on a few of the issues could have been amplified. Still, Rubenstein has covered an enormous ground and done so clearly, bringing together material that few have been ambitious enough to connect.