Car Country: An Environmental History

2. Automotive Pioneers

37 tWo automotive Pioneers the motor-vehiCle inDUstry in the UniteD states rose so quickly into prominence, overcoming such formidable obstacles along the way, that in retrospect its success seems almost to have been foreordained .1 On Thanksgiving Day, 1895, when the Chicago Times-Herald sponsoredthecountry’sfirstwidelypublicizedmotor-vehiclerace,only six contestants made it to the starting line; of those, only two managed to finish over the snow-covered course. From these shaky beginnings, however, the U.S. industry grew rapidly. Europeans scoffed at the comparative crudity of early American vehicles, but in just more than a decade the United States had overtaken France as the world’s leading producer. From the relatively paltry total production in 1900 of 5,000 motor vehicles, for example, American factories boosted their output by 1910 to a total of 187,000.2 Although passenger cars remained expensive, ownership continued to grow rapidly, reaching 194,400 in 1908, 618,727 in 1911, 2.3 million in 1915, and an eye-popping 8.1 million in 1920 (fig. 2.1).3 Viewed from another angle, the automobile ’s popularity was also evident in the ratio between numbers of motor vehicles A pioneering motorist in the automotive equivalent of battle armor. Detail from the collections of The Henry Ford, thf25029. 38 || automotive Pioneers and Americans old enough to drive, which plummeted from one automobile for every 6,255 adults in 1900, to one for every 133 adults in 1910, and finally to one for every 7.8 adults by 1920 (fig. 2.2).4 The quality of the industry’s products also grew as their popularity swelled. By 1908, the watershed year in which Henry Ford introduced his revolutionary Model T and William Durant founded General Motors, the typical American motor vehicle had achieved a level of technological sophistication and everyday acceptance that would have astounded observers a decade earlier. From very early on, the United States embraced the role of the world’s leading nation on wheels. From the introduction of the Model T in 1908 until the United States entered World War I in 1917, the American automotive industry underwent a complicated but significant process of realignment as a single company (Ford) and a single car (the Model T) challenged prevailing orthodoxy on such fundamental issues as basic automotive design, manufacturing processes, and the demographics of automobile ownership. Ford’s Model T played such a dominant role during these years that the entirepioneeringperiodcanbeviewed,withlittledistortion,throughits lens. Unlike any other car before or since, the Model T became a ubiquitous and celebrated feature of everyday American life—the benchmark against which all automobiles were compared—prompting one contemporary to dub it “the first log cabin of the Motor Age.”5 2.1 Total registered automobiles in the United States, 1900–1920. Federal Highway Administration, Highway Statistics to 1985, 25. automotive Pioneers || 39 As the auto industry began its spectacular rise, however, automakers and motorists alike confronted a series of substantial environmental obstacles. Unlike later years, when cars and roads worked together almost seamlessly as mutually complementary parts of a larger, coordinated transportation system, wretched road conditions in the early twentieth century threatened both the viability and popular appeal of automobiles. Early automakers struggled to design cars with the power and durability to handle the mud and ruts of typical country roads, and they experimented with a variety of approaches and adaptations before Ford’s dramatic success with the Model T. Early motorists , too, braved various hardships in traveling by car and increasingly enlisted the aid of a wide range of accessories to pad the bumps and bruises of driving and to seal out the harsher effects of inclement weather. In many ways, the pioneering period before World War I is best understood in terms of the constant efforts of automakers and motorists to adapt to—and prevail over—challenging environmental conditions. overComing Bad roads Although the year 1895 marked something of a beginning for the American automobile industry, by then the self-propelled road vehicle 2.2 Ratio of population aged fifteen years and over to total registered motor vehicles, 1900–1920. Federal Highway Administration, Highway Statistics to 1985, 39. 40 || automotive Pioneers already had a long lineage on both sides of the Atlantic. The earliest motor vehicles on record, for example, date back to huge, lumbering steam wagons built in the late eighteenth century, although the pace of innovation did not accelerate until...