The Corporation and the Twentieth Century

(1990) has argued that the redesign of factories was essential to the productivity improvements implied by the development of small electric motors. In David’s story, the delay in adapting factories accounts in large part for the slow pace at which industry, and the economy as a whole, benefited from the nineteenth-century innovation of electric power.

151. Williams et al. (1993).

152. A widely repeated, if perhaps apocryphal, anecdote illustrates the point. Ford engineer Charles Sorenson “recalled that when Charles Morgana sent out specifications for a

Notes to Chapter 4 585

Ford-designed machine tool to machine tool manufacturers, the latter often came back to Mor- gana saying that there must have been an error because the machine could not do what it was supposed to do. Morgana would then show the tool builders that no mistake had been made because the Ford-designed and Ford-built prototype could indeed turn out the specified num- ber of units within the specified limits of precision. ‘So it went with the thousand pieces of machinery that we bought,’ concluded Sorensen” (Hounshell 1984, p. 231).

153. Nevins and Hill (1954, pp. 458–61). Ford turned the now-empty Keim facility in Buffalo into an assembly plant.

154. “Ford Must Distribute $19,000,000, but May Build Smelting Plant,” Automotive Indus- tries, February 13, 1919, p. 391.

155. Nevins and Hill (1954, pp. 568–69).

156. Spence (1981).

157. Nevins and Hill (1954, p. 282, emphasis original).

158. Goddard (2000); Maxim (1937).

159. EVC did in fact make some gasoline-powered vehicles, a legacy of Pope’s sideline.

160. In 1916 “Automobile” was changed to “Automotive” to bring on board engineers working

with other self-propelled vehicles like airplanes and boats.

161. Barnes (1921); Thompson (1954).

162. Thompson (1954, p. 9).

163. Nevins and Hill (1954, pp. 211–13). Leland had been brought in before Ford left, and the

rivalry this created was one motivation for Ford’s departure. 164. Leland and Millbrook (1966).

165. Arnold and Faurote (1915).

166. Hounshell (1984, p. 260).

167. “Exposition Auto Show the World’s Greatest,” Los Angeles Times, May 2, 1915, p. VII6. More than 4,000 Model Ts were made at the Exposition; all sold rapidly.

168. A term generally traced to the 1930s Prison Notebooks of the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci (Hoare and Nowell Smith 1971).

169. Tugwell (1927, p. 364). Of course, Ford certainly did worry about markets, and for him costs not just output were at center stage.

170. Baruch (1921, p. 69).

171. Hutchins (1948, p. 53).

172. Williams (1996, pp. 28–33).

173. Hutchins (1948, p. 54).

174. Dos Passos (1962, pp. 149–51).

175. Nevins and Hill (1957, p. 63).

176. Ford with Crowther (1922, p. 246).

177. Beasley (1947, pp. 81–89); Williams (1996, p. 33).

178. They were also used in World War II. The last American vessel sunk by a German tor-

pedo was an Eagle boat. Neil Vigdor, “U.S. Ship Sunk in World War II by German Sub Is Found Off Maine Coast,” New York Times, July 19, 2019.

179. Ford with Crowther (1922, p. 247).

180. DeWeerd (1968, p. 236).

181. Chandler and Salsbury (1971, p. 402–27); DeWeerd (1968, pp. 237–38).

586 Notes to Chapter 4

182. Crouch (2000).

183. Katznelson and Howells (2014).

184. Bittlingmayer (1988, pp. 230–32).

185. Johnson (2004, p. 28).

186. Trimble (1990).

187. Katznelson and Howells (2014, p. 22). NACA had been formed under the Naval Appro-

priation Bill of March 2015 as a research and development organization for aeronautics.

188. Katznelson and Howells (2014, p. 45). By comparison, in 1915 approximately 100 car- makers had voluntarily created an agreement, through the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce, to cross-license “non-revolutionary” patents without royalty (Epstein 1928, pp. 236–39). By then, of course, the Selden patent, analogous to but legally much weaker than

the Wright and Curtiss patents, had expired. 189. Johnson (2004, p. 31).

190. Bilstein (1983, p. 29).

191. Morris (2017, p. 37).

192. Holley (1953, p. 29).

193. Nelson and Langlois (1983).

194. Crowell (1919, p. 235). Crowell was Assistant Secretary of War and Director of

Munitions.

195. Holley (1953, p. 36).

196. DeWeerd (1968, p. 236–37); Holley (1953, pp. 41–45).

197. Dickey (1968); Marcosson (1947).

198. Along with Thomas J. Watson Sr., the future founder of IBM, and others at National

Cash Register, Deeds also narrowly avoided a one-year jail term for a conviction under one of William Howard Taft’s late-term Sherman antitrust suits. The verdict was overturned on appeal in 1913, and the Wilson administration declined to push the matter further.

199. Crowell (1919, p. 267).

200. Dickey (1968, p. 97).

201. Beasley (1947, pp. 83–84).

202. Nevins and Hill (1957, pp. 66–68). 203. Dickey (1968, p. 66).

204. Dickey (1968, p. 95). As a result, the engines made by Packard were some of the lowest-quality produced. This harmed Packard’s reputation, which in turn harmed postwar sales because the company’s business model was to sell a high-price but high-quality vehicle.