A Select Bibliography of BOOKS on the history of the automobile in America, A-E

Hi folks -- it seems that a number of viewers thought that my listing of articles was valuable, so I am following up with a list of books, with this installment spanning authors A-E. Comments and your personal responses, including suggestions for additions, are always appreciated!

John

Books
Adler, Dennis. Chrysler. Osceola, WI: MBI, 2000.
------. Duesenberg. N.P: Krause Publications, 2004.
Allen, Frederick Lewis. Only Yesterday. New York: Harper and Row, 1931.
Antonick, Michael. California Screamin’: The Glory Days of Corvette Road Racing. Osceola, WI: MBI, 1990.
Arnold, Horace Lucien, and Fay Leone Faurote. Ford Methods and Ford Shops. New York: The Engineering Magazine Company, 1915.
Assael, Shaun. Wide Open: Days and Nights on the NASCAR Tour. New York: Ballantine Books, 1998.
Bailey, Beth L. From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988.
Baldwin, Neil. Henry Ford and the Jews: The Mass Production of Hate. New York: Public Affairs, 2001.
Barnard, John. American Vanguard: The United Autoworkers during the Reuther Years, 1935-1970. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2004.
Barnes, H.E. Society in Transition. New York: Prentice Hall, 1939.
Batchelor, Dean. Dry Lakes and Drag Strips: The American Hot Rod. St. Paul, MN: MBI, 2002.
Batchelor, Ray. Henry Ford: Mass Production, Modernism and Design. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994.
Bayley, Stephen. Harley Earl and the Dream Machine. New York: Knopf, 1983.
------. Sex, Drink and Fast Cars. New York: Pantheon, 1986.
Beasley, David. The Suppression of the Automobile: Skullduggery at the Crossroads New York and Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1988.
Beatley, Timothy. Green Urbanism: Learning from European Cities. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2000.
Belasco, Warren James. Americans on the Road: From Autocamp to Motel, 1910-1945. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979.
Bel Geddes, Norman. Magic Motorways. New York: Random House, 1940.
Belloc, Hilaire. The Road. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1925.
Berger, Michael L. The Devil Wagon in God’s Country: The Automobile and Social Change in Rural America, 1893-1929. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1979.
Bernstein, Arnold. A History of The American Worker: The Turbulent Years 1933-1941. Los Angeles: University of California, 1969.
Billington, David P., and David P. Billington, Jr. Power, Speed, and Form: Engineers and the Making of the Twentieth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006.
Binder, Alan K., and Deebe Ferris, eds. General Motors in the 20th Century. Southfield, MI: Wards Communications, 2000.
Blackford, Mansel G., and K. Austin Kerr. B. F. Goodrich: Tradition and Transformation, 1870-1995. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1996.
Blank, Harrod. Wild Wheels. San Francisco: Pomegranate Artbooks, 1993.
Bliss, Carey S. Autos Across America: A Bibliography of Transcontinental Automobile Travel: 1903-1940. Austin and New Haven: Jenkins & Reese, 1982.
Blum, John Morton. V Was For Victory: Politics and American Culture during World War II. New York: First Harvest, 1976.
Borg, Kevin L. Automechanics: Technology and Expertise in Twentieth-Century America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007.
Borgeson, Griffith. Miller. Osceola, WI: Motorbooks, 1993.
Bonsall, Thomas E. The Cadillac Story: The Postwar Years. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004.
Bottles, Scott. Los Angeles and the Automobile: The Making of a Modern City. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987.
Boyer, Paul S. By Bomb’s Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age. New York: Pantheon, 1985.
Bradsher, Keith. High and Mighty: SUVs – the World’s most Dangerous Vehicles and How They Got that Way. New York: Public Affairs, 2002.
Braverman, Harry. Labor and Monopoly Capital: the Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974.
Breer, Carl. The Birth of Chrysler Corporation and its Engineering Legacy. Warrendale, PA: Society of Automotive Engineers, 1995.
Brinkley, Douglas. Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company, and a Century of Progress, 1903-2003. New York: Viking, 2003.
Brown, Kurt, ed. Drive, They Said: Poems about Americans and Their Cars. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed, 1994.
Brown, Lester R., Christopher Flavin, and Colin Norman. Running on Empty: The Future of the Automobile in an Oil-Short World. New York: W. W. Norton, 1979.
Buehrig, Gordon M. Auburn. The Year 1936 is Viewed 50 Years Later. N.P.: n.p., 1986.
Buel, Ronald. Dead End: the Automobile in Mass Transportation. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1972.
Burlingame, Roger. Henry Ford. New York: Knopf, 1955.
Burnside, Tom, and Denise McCluggage. American Racing: Road Racing in the 50s and 60s. Cologne: Kőnemann, 1996.
Burton, Walter. The Story of Tire Beads and Tires. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1954.
Butler, Don. Auburn Cord Duesenberg. Osceola, WI: Motorbooks, 1992.
Carson, Iain, and Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran. Zoom: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future. New York: Twelve, 2007.
Casey, Robert. The Model T: A Centennial History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.
Chandler, Alfred D. Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of Industrial Enterprise. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1962.
Chrysler Corporation. The Story of an American Company. Detroit, MI: Chrysler, 1955.
Clymer, Floyd. Floyd Clymer’s Steam Car Scrapbook. New York: Bonanza Books, 1945.
------. Henry’s Wonderful Model T 1908-1927. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1955.
------. Those Wonderful Old Automobiles. New York: Bonanza, 1953.
Cowan, Ruth Schwartz. More Work for Mother. New York: Basic Books, 1983.
Cray, Ed. Chrome Colossus: General Motors and Its Times. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980.
Crews, Harry. Car. New York: William Morrow, 1972.
Critchlow, Donald T. Studebaker: The Life and Death of an American Corporation. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996.
Crosse, Jesse. The Greatest Movie Car Chases of all Time. St. Paul, MN: Motorbooks, 2006.
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, and Eurgen Rochenberg-Halton. The Meaning of Things: Domestic Symbols and Self. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Curico, Vincent. Chrysler: The Life and Times of an Automotive Genius. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Cusumano, Michael A. The Japanese Automobile Industry: Technology and Management at Nissan and Toyota. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985.
Dammann, George H. Seventy Years of Chrysler. Glen Ellyn, IL: Crestline, 1974.
Davis, Michael W. R. Detroit’s Wartime Industry, Arsenal of Democracy. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2007.
Davis, Mike. Buda’s Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb. London: Verso, 2007.
Davis, Susan S. The Stanleys: Renaissance Yankees: Innovation in Industry and the Arts. New York: Newcomen Society of the United States, 1997.
Deming, W. Edwards. Out of the Crisis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982.
Dettelbach, Cynthia Golob. In the Driver’s Seat: The Automobile in American Literature and Popular Culture. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1976.
Donaldson, Gary. Abundance and Anxiety: America, 1945-1960. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1997.
Donnelly, Nora, ed. Customized: Art Inspired by Hot Rods, Low Riders and American Car Culture. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2000.
Downey, Fairfax. Jezebel the Jeep. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1944.
Duncan, Dayton. Horatio’s Drive: America’s First Road Trip. New York: Knopf, 2003.
Duryea, J. Frank. America’s First Automobile. Springfield, MA: Macaulay, 1942.
Eastman, Joel W. Styling vs. Safety: The American Automobile Industry and the Development of Automotive Safety, 1900–1966. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984.
Elbert, J. L. Duesenberg: the Mightiest American Motor Car. Arcadia,CA: Post-Era Books, 1975.

A Select Bibliography of Articles on the History of the Automobile in America

Hi folks -- as I am starting on a bibliography of automobile racing in America to 1941, I thought I would share a more general bibliography to those interested in the history of the automobile. Note that this is a select and not a comprehensive bibliography, yet still should be helpful to those interested in the field.
Select Bibliography
Journal Articles
Alkalay-Gut, Karen. “Sex and the Single Engine: E. E. Cummings’ Experiment in Metaphoric Equation.” Journal of Modern Literature 20 (Winter 1996): 254-8.
Ames, Roy Clifton. “Cars in Song.” Special-Interest Autos (January-February 1977): 40-45.
Andrews, Robert F. “On Designing the ‘Step-down’ Hudson.” Automobile Quarterly 9 (Summer 1971): 393-7.
Ariout, Jacqueline Fellague. “The Dearborn Independent, A Mirror of the 1920s.” Michigan History Magazine 80 (1996): 41-7.
Arnold, Robert F. “Termination or Transformation? The ‘Terminator’ Films and Recent Changes in the U.S. Auto Industry.” Film Quarterly 52 (Autumn 1998): 20-30.
Aronson, Sidney H. “The Sociology of the Bicycle.” Social Forces. 30 (March 1952): 305-12.
Artz, Nancy, Jeanne Munger, and Warren Purdy. “Gender Issues in Advertising Language.” Women and Language 22 (Fall 1999): 20-6.
Behling, Laura L. “ ‘The Woman at the Wheel:’ Marketing Ideal Womanhood, 1915-1934.” Journal of American Culture 20 (Fall 1997): 13-31.
Bernstein, Barton J. “The Automobile Industry and the Coming of World War II.” The Southwestern Social Science Quarterly. 47 (1966): 22-33.
Blaszczyk, Regina Lee. “DuPont and the Color Revolution.” Chemical Heritage. (Fall 2007): 20-5.
Burnham, John C. “The Gasoline Tax and the Automobile Revolution.” Mississippi Valley Historical Review. 48 (December 1961): 435-59.
Busby, Linda J., and Greg Leichty. “Feminism and Advertising in Traditional and Non-Traditional Women’s Magazines.” Journalism Quarterly. 70 (Summer 1993): 247-64.
Carr, Lowell Julliard. “How the Devil –Wagon Came to Dexter: A Study of Diffusional Change in an American Community.” Social Forces. 11 (October 1932): 64-70.
Casey, Robert. “The Vanderbilt Cup, 1908.” Technology and Culture 40 (1999): 358-62.
Chesterton, G. K. “The Hollow Horn.” G. K.’s Weekly. 24 (October 1, 1936): 57.
Clarke, Sally. “Managing Design: the Art and Colour Section at General Motors, 1927-1941.” Journal of Design History 12 (1999): 65-79.
Cooper, Gail. “Frederick Winslow Taylor and Scientific Management.” In Technology in America, edited by Carroll W. Pursell, Jr., 163-176. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cubitt, Sean. “ ‘Maybellene’: Meaning and Listening Subject.” Popular Music. 4 (1984): 207‑24.
Edmondson, Amy. “Who Was Buckminster Fuller Anyway?” American History of Invention & Technology 3 (1988): 18-25.
Edsforth, Ronald, and Robert Asher. “The Speedup: The Focal Point of Worker’s Grievances, 1919-1941.” In Autowork, edited by Robert Asher and Ronald Edsforth, 65-98. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995.
Fine, Sidney. “The Origins of the United Automobile Workers, 1933-1935.” The Journal of Economic History 18 (September 1958): 249-82.
Flink, James J. “The Olympian Age of the Automobile.” American Heritage of Invention & Technology. 7 (Winter 1992): 54-63.
------. “The Path of Least Resistance.” American Heritage of Invention & Technology. 5 (Fall 1989): 34-44.
------. “Three Stages of American Automobile Consciousness.” American Quarterly. 24 (October 1972): 451-73.
French, Michael J. “Structure, Personality, and Business Strategy in the U.S. Tire Industry: The Seiberling Rubber Company, 1922-1964.” The Business History Review 67 (Summer 1993): 246-78.
Fuller, Wayne E. “Farmers, Postmen, and the Good Roads Movement.” In Indiana History: A Book of Readings, edited by Ralph D. Gray, 221-7. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1994.
Garamvári, Pál. “100 Years of the Carburetor.” Technikat Ort Enetio Szemle 20 (1993): 11‑15.
Gartman, David. “Three Ages of the Automobile: The Cultural Logistics of the Car.” Theory, Culture & Society 21 (2004): 169-195.
Gerber, Timothy. “Built for Speed: The Checkered Career of Race Car Designer Harry A. Miller.” Wisconsin Magazine of History 85 (2002): 32-41.
Gianturco, Michael. “The Infinite Straightaway.” American Heritage of Invention & Technology 8 (1992): 34-41.
Graebner, William. “Ethyl in Manhattan: A Note on the Science and Politics of Leaded Gasoline.” New York History 57 (1986): 436-43.
Grammage, Grady Jr., and Stephen L. Jones. “Orgasm in Chrome: The Rise and Fall of the Automobile Tailfin.” Journal of Popular Culture 8 (1974): 132-47.
Grayson, Stan. “Crosley of Cincinnati.” Automobile Quarterly 16 (First Quarter 1978): 6-20.
Greenberg, Harvey R., Carol J. Clover, et al. “The Many Faces of ‘Thelma and Louise.’” Film Quarterly 45 (Winter 1991-1992): 20-31.
Griggers, Cathy. “Thelma and Louise and the Cultural Generation of the New Butch-Femme.” In Film Theory Goes to the Movies, edited by Jim Collins, Hillary Rader, and Ava Preacher Collins, 129-141. New York: Routledge, 1993.
Hendry, Maurice D. “Henry M. Leland.” In Automobile Design: Twelve Great Designers and Their Work, 2nd ed., edited by Ronald Barker and Anthony Harding, 81-112. Warrendale, PA: Society of Automotive Engineers, 1992.
------. “Pierce-Arrow: An American Aristocrat.” Automobile Quarterly 6 (Winter 1968): 240‑265.
------. “Thomas!” Automobile Quarterly 8 (Summer 1970). 418-30.
Herlihy, David V. “The Bicycle Story.” American Heritage Invention & Technology 7 (Spring 1992): 48-59.
Howard, John Robert. “The Flowering of the Hippie Movement.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 382 (March 1969). 43-55.
Hugill, Peter J. “Good Roads and the Automobile in the United States, 1880-1929.” Geographical Review 72 (July 1982): 327-349.
Hyde, Charles K. “The Dodge Brothers, the Automobile Industry, and Detroit Society in the Early Twentieth Century.” Michigan Historical Review 22 (1996): 48-82.
Irwin, Howard. “The History of the Airflow Car.” Scientific American 237 (August 1977): 98‑104.
Jackson, Richard H., and Mark W. Jackson. “The Lincoln Highway: the First Transcontinental Highway and the American West.” Journal of the West 42 (2003): 56-64.
Katz, John F. “The Challenge from Steam.” Automobile Quarterly (First Quarter 1987): 15‑29.
Kimes, Beverly Rae. “The Dawn of Speed.” American Heritage 38 (1987): 92-101.
------. “His Cord and His Empire.” Automobile Quarterly 18 (Second Quarter 1980): 193-201.
------. “Plymouth: Walter Chrysler’s Trump Car.” Automobile Quarterly 5 (Summer 1966): 74-85.
Konig, Wolfgang. “Adolf Hitler vs. Henry Ford: The Volkswagen, The Role of America as Model, and the Failure of a Nazi Consumer Society.” German Studies Review 27 (2004): 249-68.
Kosher, Rudy. “Cars and Nations: Anglo-German Perspectives on Automobility Between the World Wars.” Theory, Culture, & Society 21 (2004): 121-44.
Laird, Pamela Walker. “ ‘The Car Without a Single Weakness’: Early Automobile Advertising.” Technology and Culture (1996): 796-812.
Lamm, Michael. “Are Car Keys Obsolete?” American Heritage Invention & Technology. 23 (Summer 2008): 7.
Langworth, Richard M. “The Glorious Madness of Kaiser Frazer.” Automobile Quarterly. 9 (Spring 1971): 266-83.
------. “The True Tale of Uncle Tom McCahill.” Automobile Quarterly 14 (First Quarter 1976): 68-73.
Lankton, Larry. “Autos to Armaments: Detroit Becomes the Arsenal of Democracy.” Michigan History 75 (1991): 42-9.
Lee, Matthew T. “The Ford Pinto Case and the Development of Auto Safety Regulations, 1893-1978.” Business and Economic History 27 (1998): 390-401.
Lewchuck, Wayne A. “Men and Monotony: Fraternalism as a Managerial Strategy at the Ford Motor Company.” Journal of Economic History 4 (December 1993): 824.
Lewis, David L. “‘Sex and the Automobile: From Rumble Seats to Rockin’ Vans.” In The Automobile and American Culture. Edited by Lewis and Laurence Goldstein, 123-133. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1983.
Lichtenstein, Alex. “Good Roads and Chain Gangs in the Progressive South: ‘The Negro Convict as a Slave’.” Journal of Southern History 59 (1993): 85-110.
Lichtenstein, Nelson. “Auto Worker Militancy and the Structure of Factory Life, 1937-1955.” Journal of American History 67 (September 1980): 335-53.
Lipski, Patricia W. “The Introduction of “Automobile” into American English.” American Speech 38 (October 1964): 176-87.
Loeb, Alan P. “Birth of the Kettering Doctrine: Fordism, Sloanism and the Discovery of Tetraethyl Lead.” Business and Economic History 24 (1995): 72-87.
McCaffrey, Donald W. “The Evolution of the Chase in the Silent Screen Comedy.” Journal of the Society of Cinematologists 4 (1964-5): 1-8.
McCarthy, Tom. “The Coming Wonder? Foresight and Early Concerns about the Automobile.” Environmental History 6 (January 2001): 46-74.
MacDonald, Thomas H. “The History and Development of Road Building in the United States.” Transactions, American Society of Civil Engineers 92 (1928): 1197.
McIntyre, Stephen L. “The Failure of Fordism: Reform of the Automobile Repair Industry, 1913-1940.” Technology and Culture 41 (2000): 269-99.
Maxwell, James A. and Margaret N. Blacom. “Gasoline Rationing in the United States, I.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 60 (August 1946): 564.
Melder, F. Eugene. “The ‘Tin Lizzie’s’ Golden Anniversary.” American Quarterly 12 (Winter 1960): 477-8.
Messer-Kruse, Timothy. “You Know Me: Barney Oldfield.” Timeline 19 (2002): 2-19.
Moraglio, Massimo. “Per Una Storia Della Autostrade Italiane.” Storia Urbana 26 (2002): 11‑25.
Mueller, Mike. “Tucker: A Man and his Car.” American History Illustrated 23 (1989): 36-41.
Nelson, Bruce. “Autoworkers, Electoral Politics, and the Convergence of Class and Race, Detroit, 1937-1945.” In Organized Labor and American Politics, 1894-1994. Edited by Kevin Boyle, 121-58. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1998.
Newcomb, James. “Depression Auto Styling.” Winterthur Portfolio 35 (Spring 2000): 81-100.
Norbye, Jan P. “Panhard et Levassor: Limelight to Twilight.” Automobile Quarterly 6 (Fall 1967): 127-43.
O’Brien, Anthony Patrick. The Importance of Adjusting Production to Sales in the Early Automobile Industry.” Explorations in Economic History 34 (1997): 195-219.
Offer, Avner. “The American Automobile Frenzy of the 1950s.” In From Family Firms to Corporate Capitalism: Essays in Business and Industrial History In Honour of Peter Mathias. Edited by K. Bruland and P. K. O’Brien, 315-53. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Ostrander, Stephen G. “A Car Worthy of its Name.” Michigan History Magazine 76 (January/February 1992): 24-7.
Oestreicher, Richard. “The Rules of the Game: Class Politics in Twentieth-Century America.” In Organized Labor and American Politics, 1894-1994. Edited by Kevin Boyle, 19-50. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998.
Peterson, Joyce Shaw. “Autoworkers and their Work, 1900-1933.” Labor History 22 (1981): 213-36.
------. “Black Automobile Workers in Detroit, 1900-1933.” Journal of Negro History 64 (Summer 1979): 177-90.
Peterson, Richard A. “Why 1955? Explaining the Advent of Rock Music.” Popular Music 9 (January 1990): 97-116.
Pfau, Hugo. “Dr. Rumpler’s ‘Volkswagen.’” Cars & Parts 20 (August 1977): 28-32.
Rieger, Bernard. “ ‘Fast Couples’: Technology, Gender, and Modernity in Britain and Germany During the Nineteen-Thirties.” Historical Research 76 (August 2003): 364-88.
Rollins, William H. “Whose Landscape? Technology, Fascism, and Environmentalism on the National Socialist Autobahn.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 85 (September 1995): 494-520.
Rosner, David, and Gerald Markowitz. “A ‘Gift of God?: the Public Health Controversy Over Leaded Gasoline During the 1920s.” American Journal of Public Health 75 (1985): 344-52.
Sandoval, Denise Michelle. “Cruising Through Low Rider Culture: Chicana/o Identity in the Marketing of Low Rider Magazine.” In Velvet Barrios: Popular Culture and Chicana/o Sexualities. Edited by Alicia Gasper de Alba, 179-98. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
Schuler, Dustin. “Skinning Cars in the American West: Transforming Automobile Bodies into Relief Sculptures.” Leonardo 17 (1984): 241-44.
Scott, Cord. “The Race of the Century.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 96 (2003): 37-48.
Shand, James D. “The Reichsautobahn: Symbol for the Third Reich.” Journal of Contemporary History 19 (1984): 189-200.
Smith, Julian. “Transports of Delight: The Image of the Automobile in Early Films.” Film & History. 11 (1981): 59-67.
Sonkin, Robert. “Bleeding Betty’s Brakes: Or, the Army Names a Jeep.” American Speech 29 (December 1954): 257-62.
Stewart, Doug. “Hail to the Jeep! Could we have won without it?” Smithsonian 23 (1992): 60‑73.
Todd, Jan. “Cars, Paint, and Chemicals: Industry Linkages and the Capture of Overseas Technology Between the Wars.” Australian Economic History Review 38 (July 1998): 176-93.
Tuttle, William M. Jr. “The Birth of an Industry: the Synthetic Rubber “Mess” in World War II.” Technology and Culture 22 (January 1981): 35-67.
Wells, Christopher W. “The Changing Nature of Country Roads: Farmers, Reformers, and the Shifting Use of Rural Space, 1880-1905.” Agricultural History 80 (2006): 143-66.
Wilkinson, Stephan. “Tanks, Hot Rods, and Salt.” Air & Space Smithsonian 12 (1997): 60-3.
Wright, John L. “Croonin’ About Cruisin’.” In The Popular Culture Reader. Edited by Jack Nachbar, Deborah Weiser, and John L. Wright, 109-17. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green University Press, 1978.
Yanik, Anthony J. “Harley Earl and the Birth of Modern Automotive Styling.” Chronicle: Quarterly Magazine of the Historical Society of Michigan 21 (1985): 18-22.
Yates, Brock. “Duesenberg.” American Heritage 45 (1994): 88-99.

Brief Review of Ben Hamper's Rivethead -- Proabably the best book I have ever assigned students

By the end of the twentieth century, the power of the unions was severely diminished. Several reasons exist for the union’s contemporary impotence. The 1979 Oil Shock prompted a consumer shift from gas guzzling autos to smaller, more efficient vehicles. Global competition ended both management and worker’s era of the “American Dream,” and foreign competition encroached on the industry’s profits and worker’s jobs. Global events, combined with advances in robotics and the advent of the “team concept” also eliminated positions. “By 1985, the auto industry had eliminated half its jobs.” In addition, a conservative political atmosphere – evinced by Ronald Reagan’s immediate firing of striking air traffickers – abolished the dwindling clout of the labor bloc. Most importantly, both labor and capital enjoyed the gluttony of postwar American prosperity. The days of conflict had passed, and unions began to tacitly accept the dictates of management. Steven Jeffreys noted, “The UAW was now a junior partner with Chrysler management. It shared the same goal as Iacocca – the economic survival of the company – and was committed to cooperation to attain it.”⁷ Perhaps more poignant was the prescience of a worker interviewed in Michael Moore’s documentary Roger and Me, who stated, “the union is getting weaker, we are losing power. Too many union guys are friends with management.”⁸ He chided the auto industry and stated, “some people know what time it is, some don’t.”⁹ By the 1980s the union had lost its clout, and the impotence continues as it enters the twenty-first century. When the Flint, Michigan, Fisher Body plant, famous for sit-down strike of 1937, was shut down in 1983, the UAW promised to stage a major demonstration. Rather, it was a pathetic gathering – only four workers showed up, and they were relegated by security to the sidewalk. Dodge Main also quietly closed in 1980. As Emma Rothschild suggested a decade before all this happened, the auto industry auto industry was now Paradise Lost.

The Rivethead and the Quality Cat

Certainly paradise was hard to find for those working the line. In 1991, Ben Hamper’s Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line was published, a memoir of his time toiling at the General Motors Flint Truck and Bus factory. Hamper was a factory worker with a remarkable ability to write with humor and sensitivity. His partnership with muckraker Michael Moore earned him a national reputation as a cutting edge blue-collar writer.¹⁰ Hamper was a third-generation “shop rat.” His grandfather had moved from Springfield, Illinois to Detroit in 1925 and worked at Chevrolet. During World War II, his grandmother built machine guns at the AC Spark Plug factory, and then worked in an aircraft factory. His uncle worked for 45 years at the Buick Engine Plant. Hamper’s father, a womanizer and drunk, floated in and out of the factories. An early memory recounts the day that the Hamper family visited the father while he was working on the line. Ben watched his father install car windshields over and over. That night he observed, “Car, windshield. Car, windshield,” and thought, “Do something else!”¹¹

Yet Hamper sees his life as largely predetermined, and for him, that unfortunately meant the same assembly line work that his father had detested. Hamper grew up in a broken home and a sense of inevitability hung over his future. After a drug-ridden high school experience, and an unplanned pregnancy, Hamper painted apartments. When the recession of the 1970s began to lift, his sister-in-law scored him an application to work at General Motors. Claiming his “birthright,” Hamper was ushered to the Cab Shop, known by workers as “the Jungle,” and “began to install splash shields with a noisy air gun in the rear ends of Chevy Blazers and Suburbans.”¹² Within a shift and a half, Hamper had conquered his assignment.

For leftist intellectuals, the degradation of labor is lamentable; for Hamper, the degradation of labor is something to revel in. To Hamper, labor in the automobile industry was enjoyable because it was mindless, and at $12.82 an hour, lucrative. After he mastered his initial job, Bud, a linemate, convinced Hamper to ‘double-up.’ This setup required that one worker do two jobs at the same time, while the other worker rested. Hamper read novels, newspapers, drank at local watering hole, and occasionally wandered through the factory. When Bud left, Hamper convinced Dale, a new worker, to double-up. Hamper’s pen revealed the insanity created by the line as many workers drank and took hard drugs. A worker named Roy took acid and vomited all over the line. A few nights later, Roy incinerated a pet mouse with a brazing torch, of which Hamper wrote, “The money was right, even if we weren’t.”

Even with the layoffs of 1979, Hamper continued to receive money – a comfortable $268 a week. When his grandfather commented that he was getting a free ride, Hamper thought, “indeed I owed a tremendous debt to my grandfathers and uncles and to all those who bravely took part in the historic sit down strikes of 1937 . . . but hold on, we worked damn hard also,” Hamper continued, “some things never did change . . . the factory was still a shithole, comparisons be damned.” Hamper concluded that the generations of shoprats could not relate to each other’s era.

When Hamper came back from his layoff, he was in the cab shop, this time with a scheme to produce tailgates faster than they came off the feeder line. For his efficiency, he earned 45 minutes of free time. This glory quickly ended with another set of layoffs. After a few weeks of debauchery, Hamper was back at GM, this time on the rivet line.¹³ Hamper began working the ‘pin-up’ job. This position riveted a cross bar, a four-wheel drive spring casting, a muffler hanger, and another cross bar to the vehicle’s underbelly. The worker aligned the holes and then drove the rivet in with a gun. Compared to his earlier placement in the cab shop, the rivet line was in constant motion and Hamper was in relative solitude. He used a myriad of strategies to conquer the monotony of the assembly line:

Desperation led me to all the usual dreary tactics used to fight back the clock. Boring excursions like racing to the water fountain and back, chain-smoking, feeding Chee-tos to mice, skeet shooting Milk Duds with rubber bands, punting washers into the rafters high above the train depot, spitting contests . . . [and ] pretend that my job was an Olympic event.¹⁴

After a few weeks, Hamper was laid off and then called back. Both Hamper and General Motors indulged in the gluttony of the postwar automobile industry. Both the machines and the workers were interchangeable. Hamper recalled an incident where a woman was knocked unconscious by a rivet gun, and a fellow line member shut down the line. Hamper wrote, “within thirty seconds, every tie within a 300-yard radius was on the scene,” and they wanted to know who turned the line off. The line was immediately turned back on and Hamper thought, “It was all so typical of General Motors. . . . It was perfectly fine for a foreman to the line and chew on your ass about some minor detail, but it was practically an act of treason for a worker to top the line in order to extricate an unconscious old lady out of harm’s way.”¹⁵ Hamper lamented about the relationship between production and safety. In the 1980s, Japanese competition began to take bites out of American automobile manufacturing hegemony. General Motor’s answer, as exposed by Ben Hamper, was a mascot named Howie Makem. Howie was a life-sized cat who encouraged workers to build quality automobiles. Hamper wrote, “Howie was to become the messianic embodiment of the Company’s new Quality drive. A livin’ breathin’ propaganda vessel assigned to spur on the troops.”¹⁶ The mascot became a company-wide joke. A few weeks later, Hamper was again laid off.¹⁷

Hamper was unemployed for nearly a year until GM landed a contract with the U.S. Army to build trucks, which Hamper referred to as “Ronnie’s death wagons.” Hamper managed to politic his way back to a position on the rivet line. Hamper then met a worker he called the ‘steering gear man,’ who worked a job at the end of the line. The steering gear man worked so hard that sweat poured from his chin. Hamper wondered how “the apportionment of duty in the plant so inconsistent that you would have half of the work force breaking their backs and chugging the work load while the other half were off playing cards.”¹⁸ Hamper observed his surroundings and found free time to write articles.¹⁹ Meanwhile, the steering gear man found the bottle. He began to drink so much that he talked to himself, and other workers on the line had to compensate for his negligence. The macabre episode reached a climax when the steering gear man, Hamper’s words, “turded in his skivvies,” and was sent home. A few days later the steering gear man was back on the line, working next to Hamper. Hamper worked with a crew that invented games like Rivet Hockey and Dumpster Ball to pass time. The cadre included a Black man named Eddie who could match Hamper drink-for-drink. Also in the crew was Janice, a woman who conquered the rivet gun. Finally, there was Jerry, who Ben nicknamed “the Polish Sex God” for his ability to court women. Alcohol played a central role in the lives of the workers. Hamper and his coworkers would drink before work, during breaks, at lunch, and after work. Hamper’s account exposed the naïveté of General Motors. Management had placed a massive electronic message board directly across from Hamper and used it to transmit messages like QUALITY IS THE BACKBONE OF GOOD WORKMANSHIP, A WINNER NEVER QUITS & A QUITTER NEVER WINS, SAFETY IS SAFE, and SQUEEZING RIVETS IS FUN!²⁰ To the last of which Hamper replied:

I had several definitions of fun. Riveting was nowhere on the list. Taking in a Tiger’s game from the right field overhand was fun. Listening to Angry Samoans records while getting’ sloshed was fun. The episode of Bewitched where Endora hexed Dick York with elephant ears was fun. Dozing past noon with the phone off the hook was fun. Having sex in a Subaru was difficult – however, that was fun too. Squeezing rivets was not fun.²¹

Ben Hamper did not consider squeezing rivets fun, but he did consider it his specialty. When General Motors eliminated 30,000 jobs from factories in Flint, Hamper’s job at the Truck and Bus Plant was moved to a new facility in Pontiac, Michigan. Hamper had two years to make the move, during which time he continued work on the assembly line. Then on July 12, 1986, Hamper thought he was having a stroke, but in actuality it was an intense episode of panic attack syndrome.²² He ended up at a mental hospital.²³ He attempted to work at the new plant in Pontiac, but the attacks returned. The plant at Pontiac went beyond what Hamper had experienced in Flint. Hamper wrote, “Everything in this plant reeked of science gone too far.”²⁴ After his second day at Pontiac East, Hamper had another panic attack on the way home. Finally, after one more try, the hospital nurse sent him home. He never returned to General Motors. Hamper described the work:

The jobs were timed out to make sure workers wouldn’t be allowed a moment’s intermission. Anyone caught reading a newspaper or a paperback would be penalized. The union was nothing more than a powerless puppet show groveling in the muck.²⁵

The only song I know of about a Japanese car -- making love in a Subaru, 1977

Making Love in a Subaru

That's what I wanna do with you

We can always feel around the steering wheel

There seems to be so much that we can do

An alibi that I will not allow

is when you tell me that you don't know how

'Cause it's just like being in bedall your clothing you must shed

You can stick 'em in the glove box for now

Don't try to tell me it's a sin

Just lie back, I'll put a hickey on your chin

When you act this indiscreet, creating so much body heat

the tachometer will nearly start to spin

And now let us lie between the sheets

and thank heaven for reclining bucket seats

Don't touch that, for goodness sake

you'll release the parking brake

We'll both start to roll down the street (yipes)

Now I'm gonna try to lock your door

Wait a minute, now I'm feeling soreI

t's not that I'm not able, something's sticking in my navel

My gosh, it's the four-on-the-floor (ouch)P

igeons overhead flying high

Circling above us in the sky

Now I'm feeling ill-at-ease, my darling would you please

close the sunroof; something just fell in my eye (yuck)

You say that something's pinching at your feet

Hey look what you just found, hey ain't that neat

It's my roach-clip and my bong

They've been missing for so long

All this time they must have been beneath the seat

Now you're suffocating and I'm water-logged

All the windows are beginning to get fogged

So my dear with your consent

I'll open up the flow-thru vent

I only hope it also isn't clogged

There are other things that we can do

but only if you're tired of getting scratched

Honk the horn real good

and you'll wake the neighborhood

and they'll have a marvelous view

Making Love in a Subaru, my friend

Making Love in a Subaru

James Bond, Steve McQueen, Automobiles, and the Action Thriller

James Bond, Steve McQueen, and the Action Thriller
While Japanese cars were successful in penetrating the American market, they were far less successful in becoming a part of contemporary American culture. In film, high horsepower and elegant body lines, not unlike the actresses in the cast, were featured. The 1960s introduced a completely new film genre, the action thriller.48 These were mostly big-budget films that starred some of the biggest names in Hollywood, including Steve McQueen, James Garner, and Sean Connery. These films employed a fast-paced sequence of action scenes, impossible stunts, and fiery explosions. It was also during this period that the automobile moved to center stage as a major part of film and the film industry. Cars, often unusual and expensive, became a requirement for any action film, as it was necessary for a “real” action film to contain at least one major chase scene that culminated in a major crash or explosion. The true pioneers of this sort of film were Harry Saltzman and Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, the creators of the James Bond film series.
The James Bond films set the stage for all the films of the action genre that would follow. Bond is perhaps the most enduring character in the history of the screen, with a resumé spanning forty years and nineteen films. No less than five actors have assumed the role of the secret agent. James Bond films are famous for their exotic locations, beautiful and often-willing women, and stunning scenes. Over the forty-year film career of Bond, his films have contained some of the most memorable car chases and stunts that have ever been brought to the screen, as well as some unforgettable “modified” cars that have almost become icons of car culture. The impact of the James Bond series on the industry is unquestionable.
Perhaps the most memorable of all Bond films was the third installment in the series, Goldfinger. In the film, Bond (Sean Connery) is equipped with an Aston-Martin DB5 with modifications that included revolving license plates, a bulletproof front and rear windscreen, a homing device on the dashboard, left and right front fender machine guns, two battering rams, and a device under that tail lights that sprayed oil, nails and a smokescreen. A passenger ejector seat was the most unforgettable of the DB5’s accessories, and a feature that actually worked. As the plot unfolds, Bond trails Goldfinger to Switzerland, where he uses nearly all of these gadgets while trying to escape Goldfinger's henchmen. The silver Aston-Martin again made a brief appearance in the next Bond film, Thunderball, and Pierce Brosnan can be seen driving it briefly thirty years later in GoldenEye. This car is certainly the most memorable of any Bond car, and perhaps the most memorable car in any film.
Though among Bond fans Goldfinger is most revered, many of the other films in the series provided memorable chase scenes, stunts, and unforgettable cars. Featured cars included a Lotus Esprit that turned into a submarine after Bond (Roger Moore) dives into the sea to avoid an attacking helicopter in The Spy Who Loved Me, and a BMW 750iL that Bond (Pierce Brosnan) drives via a remote control (Tomorrow Never Dies). These cars were occasionally overshadowed by death-defying automobile stunts. One such stunt was performed by Bumps Willard in The Man with the Golden Gun, and has since become one of the most celebrated scenes in film history. While Bond (Moore) is chasing Scaramanga (Christopher Lee), the film's antagonist, from the opposite side of a river, he spots a fallen bridge with only the two ends remaining intact. Bond then does the unthinkable by jumping the river across the fallen bridge, while doing a 360-degree spiral jump in midair. Willard had previously performed this spectacular jump at a stunt show in the Houston Astrodome. It is the classic cars and stunts such as these that have made the James Bond series endure over the years.
Though Bond films are considered to be the true pioneers of the action film and chase scene, the film that truly set the stage for all future Hollywood chase sequences was the much celebrated scene from the film Bullitt. This chase featured all of the essential components that would become a necessity for all future chases: high speeds, fast turns, and of course, plenty of destruction. The cars involved in this classic were McQueen's 1967 Ford Mustang GT390 fastback (the Mustang was among the most popular of cars to be featured in films of this era, and this has probably contributed to the “icon” status that these original Mustangs carry) and a 1968 Dodge Charger 440. McQueen, playing the character of a San Francisco detective in a plot that is far from clear at times, senses that the Charger, carrying two bad guys, is following him. He quickly turns left while the Charger is caught in traffic, doubles back, and he closes in on the Charger from behind. Realizing this, the driver of the Charger tries to outrun Bullitt. What followed were two cars flying through the streets of San Francisco at speeds upwards of 110 mph, leaving hubcaps, wrecked cars, and an injured motorcyclist in their wake (the stuntman who drove the motorcycle in the scene was actually the same person who performed most of the driving of the Charger). The Mustang eventually caught the Charger, shotgun blasts follow, and finally McQueen rams the Charger off of the road, where it explodes spectacularly. McQueen, who had earlier received accolades for his motorcycle driving in The Great Escape, did his own driving in the chase, set the standard for all similar scenes that followed.
The cinematography in Bullitt was unique, since it was the first film to use a new Arriflex camera design exclusively during production.49 Specific camera placement resulted in unprecedented realism. A Chevrolet camera car, named the “Bullittmobile,” took close-up shots of the actors and stunt men at high speeds. Additionally, a camera mounted on the Mustang resulted in the perception of high speeds without having to break away to a speedometer shot. Cameras were also placed on the sides of the cars, as well on the street.
McQueen’s love affair with automobiles went back to his childhood.50 At age 13, along with a friend, he built a dragster using a Ford flathead V-8 and a Model A frame. Once he became established as a leading actor, his interest in automobiles turned to sports car racing, and between 1959 and 1970 he participated in at least twenty races in all classes and on all types of tracks, including Sebring. Invited by Sports Illustrated in 1966 to test eight exotic sports cars, McQueen said of himself that “I’m not sure whether I’m an actor who races or a racer who acts.”51 His car collection included a 1961 Austin Mini Cooper S, a 1963 Ferrari Lusso Berlina and a 512, a Jaguar D-Type XKSS, and three Porsches – a 356 Speedster, a 917, and a 908.
McQueen followed Bullitt with the Lemans in 1971, a remarkable film in its own right, but only popular with a small group of racing and Porsche devotees who appreciated the attention to detail that was taken in the film. Cast as Michael Delaney, an American driver who was severely injured in an accident at Lemans the year before, McQueen is drawn to Lisa Belgetti (played by Elga Andersen), widow of a Ferrari driver, who was killed in the same accident. Delaney’s chief racing rival is Erich Stahler (Siegfried Rauch), who is driving a Ferrari. With spectacular cinematography and a sensitive portrayal of the French countryside and fans, Lemans was undoubtedly the best film depiction of European racing of that era. For McQueen, it proved to be an obsession that never paid off, a docudrama that failed to resonate with American audiences since it had no dialogue during the first forty minutes of the film. In addition, character development was poor and the dialogue deadening. But for McQueen, it was the ultimate racing film that he always wanted to make.
John Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix (1966) was another European racing spectacular of this period, but was far more slow-moving than Lemans. What Frankenheimer contributed to the genre, however, was technical; his use of NASA-developed cameras and microwave systems, monster camera cars that were capable of 150 mph, and helicopters, were imitated in other films, and set a benchmark in terms of realism.52

Oil Shock I and the American Automobile Industry

Oil Shock I
In October 1973, OPEC (Oil Producing and Exporting Countries) placed an embargo on oil shipped to the U.S. as a result of American support to Israel during the October 1973 Yom Kippur War.40 Gasoline, already in short supply since the United States had reached its peak of oil production in 1970, suddenly became very scarce and more costly. Lines formed at virtually every gas station that had gas. At a number of stations, color-coded signs or flags indicated availability. Eventually, even-odd license plate rationing took place, as did a federally-mandated reduction in the interstate highway speed limit to 55 miles per hour. Gas station customers, once accustomed to service that included the washing of windshields and oil checks, now waited three hours or more. The situation led to shortened tempers and fist fights, even in laid-back southern California.
OPEC thus used oil as a weapon, and it was a weapon used well. The embargo not only brought the United States to its knees in terms of unemployment and inflation, but also increased the profits of OPEC members nearly seven-fold between 1972 and 1977. Gas prices, responding to a nervous spot market, climbed 70 percent. Along with the embargo and further price increases, OPEC announced a cut in oil production. Leonardo Maugeri recounted that, “Total Arab oil production in September 1973 had reached 19.4 million barrels per day; in November, 15.4 million.”41
Conspiracy theories abounded as the price of gas ran up. Were the Arabs or the oil companies at the heart of the problem? As studies subsequently demonstrated, it was neither. Rather, the decrease in supply wasn’t the chief cause of Oil Shock I and its impact. Looking back to that time of fear and confusion, Maugeri claimed that “considering as well additional output from other parts of the world, there was never a shortfall in supply. It was not loss of supply, but fear of possible loss that drove up the price.”42
Federal government action in response to the oil embargo of 1973 and 1974 was largely ineffectual, and indeed even made things worse. In response to the inflation that followed, the Federal Reserve Board attempted to contract the economy by raising interest rates, and in so doing only deepened the recession. President Nixon, already facing a crisis in confidence over Watergate, called for a $410 billion “Project Independence,” based on American efforts to develop synthetic rubber during WWII. Nixon’s proposal sought to make America energy independent by 1985, a worthy goal that none of the energy experts in Washington thought possible. Nixon’s successor, Gerald Ford, emphasized supply rather than a curtailment of demand on the part of Americans, and thus encouraged the development of nuclear power plants, an initiative that that hit a brick wall after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. Politicians were adverse to placing blame for the energy crisis on those who were most responsible, namely the American consumer, who used a disproportionate percentage of the world’s petroleum supplies and owned more automobiles per family compared to other developed nations.
What Oil Shock I meant to the auto industry, however, is our focus. Its consequences were far-reaching, for Detroit responded by making what were undoubtedly the worst cars in its history, while at the same time Japanese manufacturers made high quality and very reasonably priced products that consumers grew to love.
Prior to the first oil crisis and following a whimsical cycle of trying to meet consumer needs, Ford introduced a new “world” economy car, the Pinto, and GM the Vega. The Pinto was particularly interesting in terms of manufacturing processes, as it was perhaps the first modern “world car,” the result of a global assembly line that included engines and transmissions from Great Britain and Germany. It had only 1,600 major parts, as compared to anywhere between 3,500 and 9,000 in a full-sized car. These cars could be fixed by a novice mechanic with a handful of tools, making it a do-it -yourself car. Light and fuel efficient, the Pinto, however, was subsequently deemed dangerous as its gas tanks were prone to rupture, its occupants trapped by doors that had jammed shut upon rear impact.43
The Vega was also a light, four-cylinder economy design. From the beginning, however, it was built at a new state-of-the-art GM facility in Lordstown, Ohio, where worker dissatisfaction soon boiled over, leading to deliberate worker sabotage of cars coming off the line – one one such example being Coke bottles being placed in doors prior to final assembly. Also, Vega engines were based on a new aluminum block design and quickly proved to wear and burn oil far before they should have.
The American automobiles made between 1974 and 1979 were generally of poor design and poor quality. For example, my father’s 1979 Chevrolet Malibu mated a V-8 engine to a small metric THM-200 automatic transmission, an arrangement that led to repeated transmission failures. One of my coworkers during this period, an African-American proud of his ability to purchase a new Oldsmobile, soon discovered that it had a Chevrolet engine. Emissions controls that included smog pumps, decel and exhaust recirculation valves, and a maze of vacuum lines under the hood, resulted in day to day driveability problems that included dieseling and hard starting.
It was no surprise, then, that within this void a new global competitor emerged: Japan.

The Automobile and American Life: Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Ray and Pat Brown Award, St. Louis, April 2

OK, far from the greatest photo! Last Friday I received the Ray and Pat Brown Award for the best book reference/primary source. What I heard in St. Louis was most encouraging in terms of doing future work in the field of automobile history. The chair of the awards committee came up to me after the ceremony concluded and told me how the committee had uniformly ranked my book as #1, and that they were blown away by the material and the flawless writing (take that, freshman English teacher!). I later signed a number of books, and must say Good Friday was a very good day for me personally.
What I take away from all of this is the following. First, never give up. Even though life can be very discouraging, and in a field like history, the setbacks take place all the time, you must believe in your self and keep going forward, despite the rejections, adversities, disappointments, and people who are constantly trying to spoil your party. Secondly, you must find your passion and follow it despite the critics and those around you, including family, who do not see the gift and the purpose inside of you. But then you must take that passion and share it with the world, in a way that others enjoy and can learn from it as much as you have. It took me to age 50 to find my passion, so if you don't recognize it right away, keep plowing the field until it comes and looks you right in the face.
More on auto history will surely be found on these pages!