History 414: The Automobile Industry and Modern America
Russell Douglass Jones
Fall 2010
More than any other technology, the automobile has altered human existence (generally)
and dominated America. Our dwellings and cities have been radically altered by the
introduction of personal, high-speed mobility. Houses have adopted garages, first as a
shed in the back, then as an attachment, now as the prominent front facade. Cities coped
with the new automobility by introducing traffic controls. Urban dwellers began thinking
about streets in new ways, not as public space but as thoroughfares. City planners and
suburbanites fleeing the cities (a task made easier with the automobile) began thinking of
ways to control the social implications of the automobile. If "self-mobility" meant "selfcontrolled social mobility" then traditional class structures were under attack.
The automobile also alter other social relations. Gender relations were not so much
redefined by the automobile but became another site-specific production technology used
by women to manage the household. As "technology," it was initially colored "blue" or
male. But as automobile ownership became more diffuse and women drivers more
prevalent, the technology was integrated into the pantheon of domestic technologies
controlled and operated by women.
The automobile has also had a profound effect on American culture. Movies and autos
grew up together and have had a long, intertwined relationship. American landscape is
dedicated to and dominated by the automobile: interstate highways, gas stations, drive-in
(and later, drive-thru) restaurants, movie theaters, party shops, even churches and drugstores. Youth culture is dominated by fast cars. The biggest sports cater to forms of
automobility (NASCAR and drag-racing) and no sports franchise could long survive these
days without automobility.
None of these changes came cheap or without expected compensation. In other words,
there were a lot of people who expected to make a lot of money by transforming America
in this way. And many of them did. The automobile industry is still the largest industry in
the US and responsible, either directly or indirectly, for as much as 15% of US jobs. GM
alone produces over twenty times the revenues that Microsoft does.
The automobile industry created mass production, new forms of labor control, and the
modern wage contract. In order to control both the massive corporations they were
creating as well as the vast labor forces they were assembling, managers invented modern
corporate management. In response to every increasing exploitation, as well as economic
hardships caused by the Great Depression, auto workers organized viable and sustainable
industrial unionism. This power struggle between capital and labor is the underlying
struggle of the automobile industry; it is a struggle that continues to this day.
History 414—Fall 2010
September 6, 2010
Goals:
Upon completion of this course, students should understand and be able to explain the
invention of the automobile, mass production, and modern management; the cultural
impact of the automobile on society, cultural ideology, and social groups; the resistance to
these changes as expressed in industrial unionism, redefined gender roles (mothers as
chauffeurs; "soccer moms"), and demands for socially-responsible autos (safe, clean, and
fuel efficient); the politics of the automobile society (interstates, oil crises, government
pollution control and fuel efficiency); and the changes in and challenges of American
society of the last twenty-five years, what is sometimes called "Post-Fordist" (the
challenge of the imports, the redefinition and relocation of the automobile industry in the
US, the changing nature of industrial work).
My Expectations:
I expect that you
1. Come to class each week having read that week's reading and being prepared to discuss
the author's work in seminar.
2. Conduct research in the history of the automobile industry, economy, society, polity,
and/or culture. Present that research in a class presentation/project (undergraduates) or
research essay (graduates).
3. Be able to discuss the major themes of the course as they relate to the major authors of
the course's reading in a final written essay.
Required Texts
Volti, Rudi. Cars & Culture: The Life Story of a Technology. Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2004. ISBN: 0-8018-8399-7
Seilor, Cotton. Republic of Drivers: A Cultural History of Automobility in America.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. ISBN: 0-226-74564-3
Hamper, Ben. Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line. With a Foreword by Michael
Moore. New York: Warner Books, 1986. ISBN: 0-44-639400-9
Thompson, Neal. Driving With the Devil: Southern Moonshine, Detroit Wheels, and the
Birth of NASCAR. New York: Crown, 2006. ISBN: 1-40-008226-9
Kerouac, Jack. On the Road.
Other readings as assigned in the schedule which are available in the EMU-Online Course
shell.
Requirements
This course will succeed because of your participation. You should come to class
prepared to discuss each evening's readings, ask questions, and contribute to our collective
Page 2
History 414—Fall 2010
September 6, 2010
Page 3
understanding of this very broad topic.
To facilitate this broad participation, I intend to teach this course in seminar style. This
places additional responsibilities on you to be informed and participate. If necessary, I
may at times provide material through lecture. We will choose topics on the first day.
Class presentation
Mid-Term Exam
Final Exam
Research Paper
Participation
Undergraduate Credit
20%
30%
30%
0%
20%
Graduate Credit
10%
25%
25%
25%
15%
Exams
I will give two take-home essay exams in this course, a midterm and a final (see schedule
for dates). Each exam will be worth 25%-30% of your final grade. I will not give a makeup exam for the mid-term. We will discuss possible exam questions as we go along.
Mid-Term exam is October 29.
The Final is December 17. This will be an in-class essay exam. It will also be a
comprehensive final.
Class Presentation-project
Each student is expected to present some portion of a week's topic. For this presentation,
each student should read the assigned readings and draw out of them the main points,
themes, and arguments for each reading. The aim is that you become the week's expert on
that topic. To facilitate the development of your expertise, you should consult the optional
readings for the week and discuss your topic with me. But likewise, if the author is
developing ideas or themes that are confusing, you should alert us to those issues as well.
The point is to be critical of the authors. If you agree with them explain why; if you think
they've completely over-intellectualized the subject, explain how. All this will give us
material for class discussion.
You should produce a "position paper" or historical problem paper of about 4-7 pages in
length that presents that week's authors, summarizes their main themes, arguments, and
points, and presents the class with problems or interpretations for discussion. The paper
should explain how that week's authors addressed the problem and how they interpreted
the events, cultures, or changes.
You can do more than a simple paper if you wish. You can produce posters, webpages,
games, or other imaginative projects so long as it actively engages the class in thinking
about the week's authors, topics, and themes.
To facilitate in-depth problem analysis, you should think of Volti as the background reader,
the source for the facts, and a ready reference to provide you with the "what-happened" of
history. The other readings, generally, look at in-depth problems or provide new ways of
History 414—Fall 2010
September 6, 2010
Page 4
looking at problems in automobility history.
Research Paper (graduate credit)
I expect also a research paper from each student taking the course for graduate credit. This
essay should be 15-20 pages (excluding notes, bibliography, and other scholarly apparatus)
in length and cover some aspect of the automobile in American society, economy, polity,
or culture . To facilitate your timely completion of this project, you should observe these
assignments (see schedule for due dates):
Paper topic chosen: September 24
Bibliography due: October 1
Rough draft due: November 5
Final draft due: December 3
Students taking the course for graduate credit will make only one class presentation.
Note also, that if you are an undergraduate and wish to undertake a research project you
may elect to be graded as a graduate. You will not, however, receive graduate credit for the
course on your transcript, but if you wish to engage in research, there is this option.
A Note on Your Written Work
All written work that you turn in should be double-spaced, 1 inch margins, and follow
acceptable historical practice. I should not have to say this in a 400-level course, but …
you should present your work and be scrupulous about paraphrasing and quoting.
Submitting others' words without quote marks and others' ideas without citation is
plagiarism and will incur my wrath. My wrath will probably mean automatic failure in
this course and possible additional sanctions by the office of student judicial services.
Grading Scale:
A
A-
B+
B
B-
C+
C
C-
D+
D
D-
Failing
100-93
92.9-90
89.9-87
86.9-83
82.9-80
79.9-77
76.9-73
72.9-70
69.9-67
66.9-63
62.9-60
< 60 pts.
Contact
Email: RJones@emich.edu
Office: 106 Hoyt
(My Office: 487-0066; History Office: 487-1018)
Office Hours: after class, MTW 1:00pm to 2:00pm and always by appt
History 414—Fall 2010
September 6, 2010
Page 5
Other Expectations
Your continuing enrollment in this course is your agreement to the terms of this syllabus.
I reserve the right to alter this syllabus and schedule as I see fit.
You should be familiar with the rudiments of historical research and writing (HIST 300 or
HIST 505). You should be able to find articles and books on the WWW.
At times I may need to email you comments on your papers or provide you with other courserelated information. The only email address I have for you is your emich.edu address. It is
your responsibility to make sure that your email is forwarded to the mailbox you use. "I didn't
get your email" is sorry excuse for poor performance.
Cell Phones: turn them off!
And MOST IMPORTANTLY have fun!
Schedule (subject to change)
Note: Items marked with an Asterisk (*) are required readings. This list should be
used as a starting point for your presentations/research.
10-Sep
Introduction
17-Sep
The Social Construction of the Automobile
24-Sep
*Kline, Ronald, and Trevor Pinch. "Users as Agents of Technological Change: The
Social Construction of the Automobile in the Rural United States." Technology and
Culture 37 (October 1996): 763-795.
JSTOR
*Volti, Rudi. Cars & Culture: The Life Story of a Technology. Baltimore: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004.
*Flink, James J. "Three Stages of American Automobile Consciousness."
American Quarterly 24, No. 4. (Oct., 1972): 451-473.
*Rae, John B. "Why Michigan?" In The Automobile and American Culture.
Edited by David L. Lewis and Laurence Goldstein. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 2-9.
Foster, Mark S. A Nation on Wheels. Belmont, CA: Thompson-Wadsworth, 2003.
Ch. 1
Flink, James J. The Automobile Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988.
Ch. 1-3
Pinch, Trevor J., and Wiebe E. Bijker. "The Social Construction of Facts and
Artefacts: Or How the Sociology of Science and the Sociology of Technology Might
Benefit Each Other." Social Studies of Science 14, No. 3 (August 1984): 399-441.
http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.emich.edu/stable/285355
EMU Online
Bijker, Wiebe E., Thomas P. Hughes, and Trevor J. Pinch, eds. The Social
Construction of Technological Systems. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987.
McShane, Clay. Chapters 1-6. Down the Asphalt Path: The Automobile and the
American City. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.
Halle
JSTOR
EMU Online
Ch. 1
Halle
Fordism & Sloanism
*Volti, Rudi. Cars & Culture: The Life Story of a Technology. Baltimore: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004.
Ch. 2
History 414—Fall 2010
September 6, 2010
Page 6
*Hounshell, David A. "Introduction," and "The Ford Motor Company & The Rise
of Mass Production in America." Chapter 6 in From the American System to Mass
Production, 1800-1936: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the
United States. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984.
EMU Online
*Henry Ford, "Mass Production," Encyclopedia Britannica, v. 30 (1925), pp. 821823. http://memory.loc.gov/gc/amrlg/lg48/lg48.html
*Christopher W. Wells, "The Road to the Model T: Culture, Road Conditions, and
Innovation at the Dawn of the American Motor Age," Technology and Culture 48
(July 2007): 497-523.
Flink, James J. The Automobile Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988.
EMU Online
Frederick Winslow Taylor, Principles of Scientific Management
Project Muse
Chs. 4-7, 1112
Halle
Antonio Gramsci, "Americanism and Fordism," in Prison Writings, 1929-1935.
David Harvey, "Fordism," in The Condition of Postmodernity (Cambridge:
Blackwell, 1989).
Hounshell, David A. "Cul-de-sac: The Limits of Fordism & the Coming of Flexible
Mass Production." Chapter 7 in From the American System to Mass Production,
1800-1936: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984.
Halle
Alfred P. Sloan, My Years with General Motors. Garden City: Doubleday, 1964.
Halle
Chandler, Alfred D. "General Motors: Creating the General Office." Chapter 3 in
Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the American Industrial
Enterprise. Cambridge, MA, and London: The MIT Press, 1962, 1990.
MEL
Halle
Paper Synopsis Due
1-Oct
Consumer Culture
*Volti, Rudi. Cars & Culture: The Life Story of a Technology. Baltimore: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004.
*Norton, Peter D. "Street Rivals: Jay Walking and the Invention of the Motor Age
Street." Technology and Culture 48, no. 2 (April 2007): 331-359.
*Joseph Interrante, “You Can‟t Go to Town in a Bathtub: Automobile Movement
and the Reorganization of Rural American Space, 1900-1930,” Radical History
Review 21(1979): 151-68.
Flink, James J. The Automobile Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988.
Ch. 3
Hughes, Thomas P. "The Evolution of Large Technological Systems." In The
Social Construction of Technological Systems, eds. Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P.
Hughes, and Trevor J. Pinch, 1987.
McShane, Clay. Chapters 6-7. In Down the Asphalt Path: The Automobile and the
American City. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.
Burnham, John C. "The Gasoline Tax and the Automobile Revolution."
Mississippi Valley Historical Review 48 (December 1961): 435-459.
Winner, Langdon. "Do Artifacts Have Politics?" Daedalus 109 (1980): 121-136.
Handout
Project Muse
EMU Online
Chs. 8-9
Halle
JSTOR
Halle
Bibliography Due
8-Oct
Citizenship and the Meaning of Automobility
*Seilor, Cotton. Republic of Drivers: A Cultural History of Automobility in
America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
*Cowan, Ruth Schwarz. "Less Work for Mother?" American Heritage 38
(September/October 1987): 68-75.
Intro, Chs. 1 &
2
WWW
History 414—Fall 2010
September 6, 2010
15-Oct
Page 7
*Scharff, Virginia. "Femininity and the Electric Car." In Taking the Wheel:
Women and the Coming of the Motor Age. Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 1992.
Scharff, Virginia. "Corporate Masculinity and the „Feminine' Market." In Taking
the Wheel: Women and the Coming of the Motor Age. Albuquerque: University of
New Mexico Press, 1992.
Cowan, Ruth Schwarz. "Twentieth-Century Changes in Household Technology."
Chapter 4 in More Work For Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from
the Open Hearth to the Microwave, 69-101. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1983.
*McShane, Clay. "Gender Wars." Chapter 8 in Down the Asphalt Path: The
Automobile and the American City. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.
Scharff, Virginia. Taking the Wheel: Women and the Coming of the Motor Age.
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992.
Rosenbloom, Sandra. "The Automobile, Families, and Daily Life: Why Working
Families Need a Car." In The Car and the City: The Automobile, the Built
Environment, and Daily Urban Life. Edited by Martin Wachs and Margaret
Crawford. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992.
UMD site
Berger, Michael L. "The Car's Impact on the American Family." In The Car and
the City: The Automobile, the Built Environment, and Daily Urban Life. Edited by
Martin Wachs and Margaret Crawford. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
1992.
Halle
Scharff, Virginia. "Gender, Electricity, and Automobility." In The Car and the
City: The Automobile, the Built Environment, and Daily Urban Life. Edited by
Martin Wachs and Margaret Crawford. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
1992.
Wachs, Martin. "Men, Women, and Urban Travel: The Persistence of Separate
Spheres." In The Car and the City: The Automobile, the Built Environment, and
Daily Urban Life. Edited by Martin Wachs and Margaret Crawford. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 1992.
Halle
WWW
EMU Online
EMU Online
Halle
Halle
Halle
Forging the United Auto Workers & The Great Depression
*Volti, Rudi. Cars & Culture: The Life Story of a Technology. Baltimore: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004.
*The Flint Sit-Down Strike: Audio Gallery. http://www.historicalvoices.org/flint/#
Ch. 4
*Baulch, Vivian M., and Patricia Zacharias. "The Historic 1936-37 Flint Auto
Plant Strikes." Detroit News.
http://info.detnews.com/history/story/index.cfm?id=115&category=business
*Nolan, Jenny. "The Battle of the Overpass." Detroit News.
http://info.detnews.com/history/story/index.cfm?id=172&category=events
*Meyer, Stephen. "The Degradation of Work Revisited: Workers and Technology
in the American Auto Industry, 1900-2000." Automobile in American Life and
Society. University of Michigan-Dearborn, 2010.
http://www.autolife.umd.umich.edu/Labor/L_Overview/L_Overview.htm
WWW
Gartman, David. "Origins of the Assembly Line and Capitalist Control of Work at
Ford." In Case Studies on the Labor Process, edited by Andrew Zimbalist, 193205. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1979.
Halpern, Martin. "The Auto Workers: From the Industry's Beginnings Through
World War II." Chapter 2 in UAW Politics in the Cold War Era. SUNY Series in
American Labor History. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988.
Peterson, Joyce Shaw. "Black Automobile Workers in Detroit, 1910-1930." The
Journal of Negro History 64, No. 3 (Summer, 1979): 177-190.
EMU Online
WWW
WWW
WWW
MEL
JSTOR
History 414—Fall 2010
September 6, 2010
22-Oct
Page 8
Flink, James J. The Automobile Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988.
Chs. 10-13
Fine, Sidney. The Automobile Under the Blue Eagle: Labor, Management, and the
Automobile Manufacturing Code. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1963.
Halle
Technologies of Control: Race & Highways
*Seilor, Cotton. Republic of Drivers: A Cultural History of Automobility in
America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
*Blaine Brownell, "A Symbol of Modernity: Attitudes Toward the Automobile in
Southern Cities in the 1920s," American Quarterly (March, 1972): 20-44.
Sugrue, Thomas J. "Driving While Black: The Car and Race Relations in Modern
America." Automobile in American Life and Society. Dearborn: University of
Michigan-Dearborn, 2010.
http://www.autolife.umd.umich.edu/Race/R_Casestudy/R_Casestudy.htm
Chs. 3-5,
epilogue
JSTOR
Interstate highway program
An Unreasonable Man
29-Oct
MID-TERM EXAM
Movie:
5-Nov
WW2 & Post-War Car Culture
*Keroac, Jack. On the Road.
12-Nov
*Volti, Rudi. Cars & Culture: The Life Story of a Technology. Baltimore: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004.
Jackson, Kenneth T. "The Drive-In Culture of Contemporary American."
Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States, 246-271. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
Flink, James J. The Automobile Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988.
Hess, Alan. "Styling the Strip: Car and Roadside Design in the 1950s." In The Car
and the City: The Automobile, the Built Environment, and Daily Urban Life, edited
by Martin Wachs and Margaret Crawford, 167-179. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 1992.
Insolent Chariots
Ch. 5
Longstreth, Richard. "The Perils of a Parkless Town." In The Car and the City:
The Automobile, the Built Environment, and Daily Urban Life, edited by Martin
Wachs and Margaret Crawford, 141-153. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1992.
Halle
Cultural History: Community and Cars: Lowriders
Sandoval, Denise, et al. Lowrider: An American Cultural Tradition. Smithsonian
Institution, 2003. http://latino.si.edu/virtualgallery/Lowrider/Lowrider.htm
Bright, Brenda. "'Heart like a Car': Hispano/Chicano Culture in Northern New
Mexico." American Ethnologist 25, No. 4 (Nov., 1998): 583-609.
Chavoya, C. Ondine. "Customized Hybrids: The Art of Rubén Ortiz Torres and
Lowriding in Southern California." CR: The New Centennial Review 4.2 (2004)
141-184.
*King, Wayne. "Lowriders are Becoming Legion among Chicanos." New York
Times, May 9, 1981, p. A8.
*Neil, Dan. "Victory to the Low and Slow." New York Times, May 21, 2000,
section 12, p. 1.
Chs. 10-15
Halle
History 414—Fall 2010
September 6, 2010
Page 9
Rough Draft Due
19-Nov
Post War Labor-Management Relations
*Hamper, Ben. Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line. New York: Warner
Books, 1986.
*Volti, Rudi. Cars & Culture: The Life Story of a Technology. Baltimore: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004.
*Thompson, Heather Ann. "Auto Workers, Dissent, and the UAW: Detroit and
Lordstown." In Autowork, edited by Robert Asher and Ronald Edsforth. Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1995.
*Meyer, Stephen. "The Degradation of Work Revisited: Workers and Technology
in the American Auto Industry, 1900-2000." Automobile in American Life and
Society. University of Michigan-Dearborn, 2010.
http://www.autolife.umd.umich.edu/Labor/L_Overview/L_Overview.htm
Flink, James J. The Automobile Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988.
Zabala, Craig A. "Sabotage in an Automobile Assembly Plant: Worker Voice on
the Shopfloor." In Autowork, edited by Robert Asher and Ronald Edsforth (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1995).
Babson, Steve. "Restructuring the Workplace: Post-Fordism or Return of the
Foreman?" In Autowork, edited by Robert Asher and Ronald Edsforth (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1995).
26-Nov
3-Dec
Last
Day
WWW
Chs. 16-18
MEL: Ch. 8
(209-226)
MEL: Ch. 9
(227-256)
Cultural History: Communities and Cars: Racing
Book
EMU-Online
WWW
The Demise of Detroit: The Re-Configuration of the North American
Automobile Industry
Research is required: since this is a new topic, one of the tasks for us
this semester is determining what we should be studying here.
Provide two articles by Sept. 24
*Volti, Rudi. Cars & Culture: The Life Story of a Technology. Baltimore: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004.
Foster, Mark S. A Nation on Wheels. Belmont, CA: Thompson-Wadsworth, 2003.
Ch. 7
Flink, James J. The Automobile Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988.
Chs. 19-20
Other readings on oil crises, environmental controls, wars for oil, NAFTA, safety
RESEARCH PAPER DUE
17-Dec
MEL: Ch. 7
(181-209)
No Class--Thanksgiving Recess
*Thompson, Neal. Driving With the Devil: Southern Moonshine, Detroit Wheels,
and the Birth of NASCAR. New York: Crown, 2006.
*Post, Robert C. High Performance: The Culture and Technology of Drag Racing,
1950-1990. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.
*Anderson, Cindy. "Red Flag at Loudon." Yankee Yankee v. 66 {i.e. 65} no. 5 (June
2001): 55-9, 112-18.
10-Dec
Ch. 6
FINAL EXAM
Ch. 6-7, 9