World War I

World War I marks the point by which the American automobile industry had been transformed from a crowded field of competing designs and manufacturers into a mass-production industry dominated by gasoline-powered cars. In the book’s account, the war is not a cause of that transformation but a chronological measure of how far it had gone: more than four hundred car companies had gone out of business or been acquired, and Henry Ford was making almost half of the nation’s automobiles.

The industry before the war

At the start of the twentieth century, hundreds of companies were trying to make automobiles, and there was no settled definition of what a car should look like or what engine should power it. Electric and steam vehicles remained serious contenders. One third of the cars on American roads were electric at one point, while the Stanley Steamer became known for speed and comfort; in 1905 it reached 127 miles per hour. The gasoline engine’s eventual dominance was therefore not inevitable.

Consolidation and mass production

As the decade progressed, electric cars were limited by the distance they could travel before recharging, and steam cars took too long to heat up. Gasoline-car manufacturers also gained an industrial advantage by investing in mass production and seeking a mass market. Ransom E. Olds was the first automaker to buy different parts from different manufacturers rather than make everything in-house. Cadillac successfully introduced standardized components, reducing manufacturing time and cost, while Ford’s moving assembly line and concentration on producing one kind of car as cheaply as possible further changed the industry.

World War I as a measure of change

By the time of World War I, more than one hundred automakers still operated in the United States, but more than four hundred companies had already gone out of business or been acquired. Olds Motor Works, among them, had been bought by General Motors. The contrast between the surviving firms and the much larger number that had disappeared captures the scale of consolidation without suggesting that the market had become a literal monopoly.

Ford and the settled automobile

By the war years, Henry Ford made almost half the cars in America. Ransom E. Olds, who had left his original company after a dispute with Samuel Smith’s sons and later founded REO, had not retained the advantage of his early success. Ford completed the transformation that Olds had begun: discussion of steam- and electric-powered vehicles receded, and cars no longer appeared in a bewildering range of shapes and sizes. The book closes this historical contrast with the Model T as the now-familiar image of an automobile.