Made In America - Bill Bryson [109]
No technology in history has taken off more swiftly, more breathtakingly, than the car. And nowhere did it take off faster than in America. In 1898, there were not thirty working cars in the whole of the United States. Within a little over a decade there were not just 700 cars in America, but 700 car factories. In just the first four months of 1899 – just the first four months – American investors provided no less than $388 million of start-up capital for new automobile companies.27
They came from every walk of life. John F. and Horace E. Dodge had run a Detroit machine shop. David D. Buick made plumbing supplies. Studebaker was the world’s largest producer of horsedrawn carriages. Pope, Winton and Rambler all started out as makers of bicycles. A striking number of the first manufacturers were from the Midwest and particularly from Michigan – Ransom Olds, creator of the Oldsmobile, from Lansing; David D. Buick and Henry Ford from Detroit; William C. Durant, founder of General Motors, from Flint – which helps to explain why Detroit became the Motor City. As well as the celebrated names of the early years like Packard, Duesenberg and Cord, there were scores of companies now almost entirely forgotten – Pathfinder, Marmon, Haynes, Premier, McFarland, Ricker (which held the world speed record of 26 m.p.h. in the late 1890s*23), Maxwell, Briscoe, Lexington. Many of the early cars were named for explorers, reflecting the sense of adventure they imparted: De Soto, Hudson, La Salle and Cadillac (named for a French nobleman, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, who would almost certainly have been long forgotten except that he had the good fortune to found Detroit). But buyers could choose among a positive galaxy of names now sadly forgotten: the Black Crow, the Bugmobile, the Averageman’s Car, the Dan Patch, the Royal Mail, the Lone Star, the Premier, the Baby Grand, the Hupmobile, the Locomobile.
It is not easy to conceive from this remove just how improbable was the success of the car. In 1900 cars were costly, unreliable and fearsome. ‘You can’t get people to sit over an explosion,’ remarked one observer sagely. Being in control of several hundred pounds of temperamental metal was a frightening challenge that proved too much for many. On her first attempt to drive, Mrs Stuyvesant Fish, a wealthy Boston socialite, switched on the engine and promptly ran over a servant who had been stationed near by should she required assistance. As the man struggled dazedly to his feet, Mrs Fish threw the car into reverse and backed over him. Panicking, she changed gears and mowed him down a third time. At this Mrs Fish fled to the house in a pique and never went near a car again. I suspect the servant didn’t either.
All the infrastructure necessary to support an automotive society – petrol stations, traffic signals, road maps, insurance policies, drivers’ licences, parking lots – was entirely lacking in the first years of this century. Cars were not just unnecessary but, since there was almost no place to go in them, effectively pointless. As late as 1905, America possessed not a single mile of paved rural highway. Such roads as existed were unmarked dirt tracks, which became swamps in the wet months and were hopelessly rutted for much of the rest. In many parts of the country even a dirt track would have been welcome. To drive through Nebraska or Kansas often meant to cross a trackless prairie.
Those who made long journeys were deemed heroic or insane, often both. In 1903, the year that the Ford Motor Company was incorporated, Dr Horatio Nelson Jackson of Vermont, accompanied by a mechanic named Crocker and a dog named Bud (who, like his companions, wore goggles throughout the trip), made the first transcontinental crossing by car in a two-cylinder, open-top Winton. It took them sixty-five days, but it made them heroes. For the most part, cars of the period simply weren’t up to the challenge. Those who tried to drive through the Rockies discovered that the