SAE R-358-2004 Pioneers Engineers and Scoundrels The Dawn of the Automobile in America (To Purchase Call 1-800-854-7179 USA Canada or 303-397-7956 Worldwide).pdf

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1、fpid- and Si ny/nq I Beverly Rae KimesPioneers, Engineers, and Scoundrels TheDawn ofthe Automobile inAmericaOther SAE titles of interest: Pioneers ofthe U.S. Automobile Industry By Michael J. Kollins (Order No. R-251.SETfor completefour-volume set, or order individual volumes as listed below) Volume

2、 1: The Big Three (Order No. R-251/1) Volume 2: The Small Independents (OrderNo. R-251/2) Volume 3: The Financial Wizards (Order No. R-251/3) Volume 4: The Design Innovators (Order No. R-251/4) Formore information or to order a book, contact SAE at 400 Commonwealth Drive, Warrendale, PA 15096-0001;

3、phone (724) 776-4970; fax (724) 776-0790; e-mail CustomerServicegsae.org; website http:/store.sae.org.Pioneers, Engineers, and Scoundrels TheDawn ofthe Automobile inAmerica Beverly Rae Kimes Leading Our World In Motion AiInternational Warrendale, Pa.All rights reserved. No part ofthis publicationmay

4、 be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, ortransmitted, inanyformorbyanymeans, electronic,mechani- cal, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permis- sion ofSAE. Forpermission and licensing requests, contact: SAE Permissions 400 Commonwealth Drive Warrendale, PA 15096

5、-0001 USA E-mail: permissionsgsae.org Tel: 724-772-4028 Fax: 724-772-4 Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kimes, Beverly Rae Pioneers, engineers, and scoundrels the dawn ofthe automobile inAmerica / Beverly Rae Kimes. p. cm. ISBN 0-7680-1431-X 1.Automobiles-United States-History. 2.Au

6、tomobile industry and trade-United States-History. I. Title. TL23.K55 2005 629.2220973 dc22 2004056643 SAE 400 Commonwealth Drive Warrendale, PA 15096-0001 USA E-mail: CustomerServiceqsae.org Tel: 877-606-7323 (insideUSA and Canada) 724-776-4970 (outside USA) Fax: 724-776-1615 Copyright ( 2005 Bever

7、ly Rae Kimes ISBN 0-7680-1431-X SAE Order No. R-358 Printed in the United States ofAmerica.For my sister Sharon, whose lovinggenerosity gave me back my lifeContents Acknowledgments ix Prologue . . xiii Chapter 1 Oliver Evans, Where It Began . Chapter 2 Steaming from Turnpike to Rail l. Chapter 3 Fru

8、stration, Limitation, Show Business .17 Chapter 4 Internal Combustion Arrives .25 Chapter 5 Taking a Back Seat to Little Egypt .37 Chapter 6 Pedaling Toward the Automobile 45 Chapter 7 Sorting Out and Moving On .63 Chapter 8 The Electrifying Pope and Whitney 73 Chapter 9 Growing Pains 83 Chapter 10

9、The Horseless Carriage Becomes anAutomobile .91 Chapter 11 Reaching for the Limelight .105 Chapter 12 Great Minds, Good Maneuvers 113 Chapter 13 Eastward, Ho! 125 Chapter 14 Licensing the Industry 135viii Pioneers, Engineers, andScoundrels Chapter 15 Hopping on the Bandwagon 149 Chapter 16 Cads and

10、BadAutos 161 Chapter 17 High Gear and Turbulence 173 Chapter 18 Sticks and Stones: Autophobia and the Law 189 Chapter 19 OfIlls and Remedies . 197 Chapter 20 Highwheelers and Panic 213 Chapter 21 “Theres Millions in It“. 229 Chapter 22 The Whirlwind Man 243 Chapter 23 The Race for Empire .255 Chapte

11、r 24 Selden Undone, Hooray . 271 Chapter 25 FromLawn to Dust 281 Chapter 26 Cheap, Reliable, Saleable 301 Chapter 27 Henry and Lizzie 317 Chapter 28 Games ofMix, Match, and Hatch 333 Chapter 29 Whoa: Beyond MotorMecca 349 Chapter 30 Electrified, Gentrified, and Politicized .363 Chapter 31 Roads and

12、Recession, Other Battles Loom 379 Chapter 32 Gearing Up for War, Other BattlesWon . 395 Chapter 33 Hardships ofWar 407 Chapter 34 Boom Goes Bust 421 Chapter 35 Forever a Roller Coaster 439 Epilogue. 453 Research Sources 457 Index 485 About the Author 531Acknowledgments INAWAY, I began writing this b

13、ook in the autumn of 1963, shortly afterAutomobile Quarterly(AQ) publisher L. ScottBaileytookachance on a fresh college gradwho loved history butknew nothing about cars. My first assignment was an article about the curved dash Oldsmobile, and I was hooked. What could be more exciting than automobile

14、 his- tory? I told myselfthat one day I would know enough about it to tell everybody else how exciting it was. Most of the books in AQs library at the time had been written in England. OfAmerican authors, the firsttwo volumes ofAllanNevins and Frank Ernest Hills Ford trilogy were on the shelves, and

15、 John B. RaesAmericanAutomobileManufacturers hadjustbeen released. We had Floyd Clymers scrapbooks, bless him, and the popular histories publishedby Fawcett, Trend,Arco, andTrue. Ralph Steinhadrecently given us his Treasury ofthe Automobile, and the incomparable Ken Purdy was awakening an entire gen

16、eration to the joys ofthe automo- bile inKings oftheRoad. AQs library consisted ofthree halfsections ofshelves built above storage cabinets, and I daresay Scott had every book published on the subject. My library today consists of seven sections offloor-to-ceiling bookcases, and I cant claim to have

17、 all the books in the field. The growthofautomobile history in forty-oddyears has been nothing short of astonishing. I regard myselflucky to have been part of it.x Pioneers, Engineers, and Scoundrels Because this book reflects four decades of automobile research, my acknowledgments must begin with t

18、he National Automotive History Collection (NAHC) of the Detroit Public Library. During the years Jim Bradley and George Risley shepherded the collection, Iwas known as the “lady with the dimes,“ which I fed relentlessly into an ill- performing copy machine to commit to print as much automobile his-

19、tory as possible. The collection grew as phenomenally as its subject. Today,NAHC is mecca. It is the sine qua non ofautomobile lore in America. Since 1994, Mark Patrick has been curator and is a good friend. When asked, he turnedmy request forphotos for thisbook into a mission ofhigh adventure, enli

20、sting Terez Franklin andJohnBean to join him in combing NAHCs vast files for images reflecting the automobiles birth and adolescence that had rarely or never been pub- lished. A formidable task. Formidable thanks. Revisiting forty years ofresearch has made me aware ofthe extent to which hobby clubs

21、and museums have contributed to the cause of automobile history. The enthusiasts who vigorously pursue data and documentation have been enormously helpful to those ofuswho write about automobiles. Poring through my files also brought back fond memories ofthosewhohave left us in recent years, particu

22、larly Austin Clark(whose Long Island archivewasmyhomeawayfromhome) and RalphDunwoodie (inwhose collection I lived foranextended period). And I found many notes taken during or after visits in Detroit with John Conde, Jeff Godshall, Dave Lewis, and Jim Wren; in Philadel- phia with Mary Cattie and Lou

23、 Helverson; and in Indiana with many friends at the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum. To the museums Jon Bill goes specific gratitude for help with photos. To thank everyone who has played a part in helping me realize this bookwouldbe impossible. Everyone towhom I expressed gratitude in the lengthy ack

24、nowledgments to the Standard Catalog ofAmerican Cars 1805-1942 is extended appreciation again. Othercolleagueswho have helped, some probably without knowing it, include Leroy Cole, Sue Davis, Kit Foster, Joe Freeman, Ferdy Hediger, Leslie Kendall, DavidKolzow, Carl Larson,DeanLehrke, Skip Marketti,T

25、aylorVinson, Mike Worthington-Williams, and Bob Zimmerman. Reference notes at the end ofthe book indicatemy gratitude to many others. Among the reasons for the great strides automobile history has enjoyed since the 1960s hasbeenteamwork, most especiallythrough the SocietyAcknowledgments xi ofAutomot

26、ive Historians (SAH). Collegiality is theSAH hallmark. We are there to assist each other, whichmakes moving to the next plateau ofour overall knowledge amuch shorter trip. When several readers of the manuscript suggested I write an epilogue and I decided upon the industrys Golden Jubilee in 1946 as

27、the focus, one phone call to Jim Wren, who had witnessed the event, sent him to his files to share his notes with me. Specific research for this book was conducted in areas in which I had not yet delved deeply and entailed countless sessions at theNewYork Public Library, both theMain Library on Fift

28、hAvenue and42nd Street and the Science, Business, and Industry Library on 34th Street and Madison. I appreciate the kindness and efficiency I encountered on each visit. To my old friend, Karl Ludvigsen, and my comparatively new one, Jonathan Stein, thankyou for the title and subtitle to this book, r

29、espec- tively. I was the editor for Karls first story forAQ in 1965, Jonathan wasmy editor three decades later during his tenure there, and both are better at writing book titles than I am. Three long-time friends read the manuscript formewhen I finished it. Profuse thanks to Fred Roe for putting me

30、 right where I went wrong, and to JoeMalaney andMatt Sonfield for spottinggrammar lapses and typos thathadeludedme. Thankyou, too, toKim Strickler,who typed the manuscript, andto herhusband Eric,whoproofread it forher. Finally, tomy husband Jim Cox, for writing chapter titles (again, notmy forte) an

31、d for his unequivocal support and sainted patience, my boundless gratitude. This has been a wonderful time. BeverlyRae Kimes New York, NY May 15, 2004Prologue GAS LAMPS LIT streetlights, and the only vehicles on Main Street were driven by horses. Big cities hummed to the sound ofclomping hooves and

32、moved at equine pace. On a small towns street, cows walked to pasture by day and returned to the barn at night. In rural areas, most people were born, raised, and died within a twenty-five- mile radius ofthe family farm. Within a decade, this early twentieth-century scenewas being dramati- cally red

33、rawn. In a “curiosity to necessity“ story in 1913, The New YorkTimes declared, “thecomingofthe automobile has literallychanged the face ofthe earth.“ Given that assessment, it is interesting that the inventionwas so long in arriving. Its roots datedback to theAmerican Revolution, but for more than a

34、 century, inventors faced ridicule and contempt in their struggle to make the vehicle a reality. Then, in a comparative nanosecond, it was here, producing both autophile and autophobe, as well asthousandsofwould-be entrepreneurswhobelieved they had a better idea or were anxious to cash in. The trans

35、ition of America from horse-drawn to horse-less society boasts an epic cast of characters-from stalwart heroes to dastardly scoundrels, from social grandees to street toughs, from wise men to wise guys. The automobile was the most important invention ofthe last century. The basic facts of its emerge

36、nce are known, but the reader has never been taken behind the scenes and introduced to the rollicking saga of what happened, how it happened, and who made it happen. That is what this book has attempted to do.CHAPTER 1 Oliver Evans, Where ItBegan “IFYOU WILL, amongst thejockeys, make up a purse of $

37、3,000, I will make a steam carriage that will outrun the swiftest horse you can produce.“ Oliver Evans was fighting mad. He had a good idea, and nobody was buying it. Since steam was revolutionizing industry, why could it not also revolutionize travel? It was 1805. Already Evans had spent more than

38、three decades trying to convince somebody-anybody-that a horseless carriage would work. The desire to transport oneself from place to place without need of human or animal propulsion is as old as recorded time. The twenty tricycles Vulcan built in a single day moved by divine will, Homers Iliad tell

39、s us, which did not advance the practical cause much. Nor was significant progressmade for centuries thereafter. Inthe thirteenth century, Roger Bacon prophesied the self-propelled vehicle; in the fif- teenth, Leonardo da Vinci sketched one; and in the seventeenth, Isaac2 Pioneers, Engineers, andSco

40、undrels Newton talked about the subject further. Carriages propelled by sails or clockwork proved of dubious merit. In 1771, Nicolas Joseph Cugnot invented a three-wheeled steam tractor he hoped to sell to the French military for towing artillery. That it ran at all was remarkable given contemporary

41、 technology, but after being tested at 3 miles per hour, the vehicle was abandoned in a dusty cornerofthe Paris Arsenal. One year later, in the British colonies across the Atlantic, a teenager named Oliver Evans began thinking about horseless transport, too. Like 90 percent ofthe population inNew Ca

42、stle County (Delaware), the Evans family made its living by farming, which bored Oliver to tears. At age fourteen, hebegged his father tobe apprenticed to a local wheelwright, which provided him access to technical books that he devoured, often by light ofwood shavings he burned when his frugal mast

43、er wouldnt give him a candle. Vehicle propulsion fascinated Evans. Around Christmas in 1772, he learned that a neighboring blacksmiths son had stopped up the vent of a gun barrel, poured in water, rammed down some tight wadding, put the breach into the smithys fire, and was surprised by a wet explos

44、ion. “It immediately occurred to me that there was a power capable of propelling any waggon,“ he wrote, “provided that I could apply it.“ Hittingthebooks again, Evanscameupon a descriptionofNewcomens atmospheric steam engine, which, so far as he knew, was state ofthe art. TheNewcomen was too bulky a

45、nd inefficient for his purposes, so Evans set to adapting it. Recuperation from a scythe injury provided him themanyhours heneeded to build a smallwoodenmodel ofa self- propelled land carriage. Alternately amused and annoyed, his father had a few words with the blacksmith, who in turn flatly turned

46、Evans down when the lad asked him to build a full-size version. Unlikemany seminal events in history, the onset ofthe Industrial Revo- lution cannot be precisely dated. As worthy a year as any othermight be 1775, when Scottish instrument-maker James Watt formed a part- nership with English engineer

47、Matthew Boulton to produce the low- pressure steam engine that was Watts monumental improvement on theNewcomen concept. Acurious George III stoppedby the partners Soho works one day to ask what was going on. “Power, Your Maj- esty,“ Boulton answered, “Ipossesswhat all theworld desires.“ What the kin

48、g replied is notknown. Hemay have beenpreoccupiedby other mat- ters, not the least ofthem the treason being perpetrated in his colonies.Oliver Evans, Where ItBegan 3 Oliver Evans 1778 enlistment in the Continental army is a matter of record; his subsequent service is not. Perhaps he regarded politic

49、s as something ofan intrusion. Evans was certainly a patriot, but most of the truths he held to be self-evident focusedon technology. The previ- ous year, he had invented amachine to process wool. Nowhewasjust another soldier. Fortunately, the revolutionaries had the war won by the fall of 1781. Managing acountry store inTuckahoe, Maryland,madeEvans enough money to marry Sarah Tomlinson, a Delaware farmers daughter, in 1783. At the same time, he invented the automated grist mill and set out to demonstrate how it worked. Millwrights looked upon Evans invention warily.