Outing . to take up the manufacture and improve-ment of this wagon without shafts. Theprocess of making it has increased thepopulation of one city alone, Detroit,some 75,000 souls, has added $5,200,-000 to the capital invested there, andhas raised its annual output of manu-factured goods $27,000,000. That is the story of the commercialgrowth of the automobile industry inAmerica. The synopsis of the other storyof the automobile is contained in the dif-ference between the slow, uncomfortable,and uncertain horseless carriage of1893, with its difficulty of management,its straight-backed seats, its
Outing . to take up the manufacture and improve-ment of this wagon without shafts. Theprocess of making it has increased thepopulation of one city alone, Detroit,some 75,000 souls, has added $5,200,-000 to the capital invested there, andhas raised its annual output of manu-factured goods $27,000,000. That is the story of the commercialgrowth of the automobile industry inAmerica. The synopsis of the other storyof the automobile is contained in the dif-ference between the slow, uncomfortable,and uncertain horseless carriage of1893, with its difficulty of management,its straight-backed seats, its hard-tired,jouncing wheels, and the motor car of1907, roomy, luxurious and capable oftraveling sixty miles in as many minutes—not a wagon without a horse, but a parlorcar without a track or a cinder. The story of develop from knickerbockers to shavingcup, the American automobile has de-. Henry Fords first car, built in 1893. veloped from a cart whose lack of a hotsewas sadly felt to a distance-annihilating ?fpH Plant of the Electric Vehicle Company, Hartford. The Growth of the Automobile Industry in America 209 machine, which evenour progressive olderbrothers who went tothe Columbian Expo-sition while we stayedhome to disturb thequiet of the swimmingpool, would not havebelieved possible. To the lay mind, thedifficulties which hadto be overcome to makethe difference between1893 and 907 are somany and diverse asto be almost incom-prehensible. The ob-jects which had to beattained were comfort,ease of handling, speed,and durability, and each object involved amaze of difficult interdependent problemswhich kept an army of experts in all linesof mechanical production busy, working,puzzling, and experimenting. How welltheir work succeeded is shown by the con-trast between the little shaftless wagon ofSturgess, alone in one corner of one oflarge numbers of great buildings, a
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade, booksubjectsports, booksubjecttravel
