Figure 1.-- Here we see kids in Texas during the 1930s. They The dealer dated it to 1939. More thsn half the motor vehicles in the world and the factories needed to manufacture them. This was because Henry Ford developed a low cost vehicle (the Model-T Tin Lizzie) and efficuient manufacturing processes. So while automobile companies sigificantly reduced manufactutin output, million s of Americans had cars in the 1930s. A situation unlike any other countries.

After two decades of rapid growth, the market for automobiles collapsed with the Wall Street crash. The automotive industry was industry was among the sectors most adversely affected by the Depression. It was not so much the Wall Street Crash. It was Government policies. The Federal Reserve and the Government turned a normal market decline into the Great Depression. By 1932, automobile sales had plummeted by an incredible 75 percent. The industry reported an astonishing loss of over $190 million --an astonishing sum in 1932. By that time, unemployment was at record levels and banks and other business had begin to fail. Interestingly GM and Chrysler did a good job of weathering the storm. GM actually reported a profit in every year of the Great Depression. Chrysler did nearly as well, only reporting loss in one year and increasing their market share. Workers and suppliers did less well, but GM and Chrysler remained profitable. Part of their success was shifting to smaller less expensive models. The luxury end of the market collapsed, but did not disappear. Ford’s market share was permanently eroded and most smaller competitors had to close down. Ford did less well and many smaller companies closed down. 【Rhodes and Stelter】 Americam companies were playing an imprtant role in the automotive industries in Europe, not only in Britain, but also the Axis countries and Soviet Union which unexpcted would become allies and launch World War II (August 1939). The 1930s saw a renewed focus on engineering--the mechanical characteristics. Many important innovations appeared in the 1930s and had become standard equipment by the end of the decade. We see synchromesh transmissions, low-pressure balloon tires, automatic chokes, built-in trunks, hydraulic brakes, and gear shifts on the steering columns known as 'stick-on-a-tree'. Heaters and radios appeared. There was a decided shift in styling, but it was a utilitarian change. Cars by mid-decade had made the transition became smoother aerodynamic as opposed to the boxy shapes of the 1920s. Chrysler even came up with the Airflow (1934). President Roosevelt's New Deal stabilized the economy, but there was no significant recovery until the end of the decade. The New Deal had little to do with the recovery,. In fact, the Roosevelt Recession undid some of the progress that had been made. What did stimulate the economy was orders from Europe as Hitler began his aggressive moves. Curiously, quite a number of the unemployed owned cars. This was especially the case on the Southern Plains where the Dust Bowl drove many farm families from their farms. People from Oklahoma and west Texas became known as the 'Oakies' as they attempted to reach California searching for jobs. Humorous/ social commentator Will Rogers quipped, "America was the first country to go to the poor house in the bookmobile." The mass production of cars was still largely an American phenomenon, but Europe had made progress (mostly Britain and France). Germany had notably made little progress. The German commitment to high-quality manufacturing was an impediment to the development of mass production. American companies would be contracted to build giant factories in the Soviet Union. The American manufacturing industry had perfected mass production. And the automobile industry was having its first good year since the onset of the Depression, churning out sleek new cars using huge quantities of aluminum, chrome, copper, steel, and other critical metals. Still Detroit was only producing a fraction of its pre-Depression output, but the plants and equipment still existed meaning production could be rapidly expanded for what would become the great American Arsenal of Democracy, the term coined by President Roosevelt in one of his most important Fire Side Chats (1940). The Ameicam automotive industry would be at the heart of the greatest mobilization of industrial power in history.

Sources

Rhodes, David and Daniel Stelter. "How automakers accelerated out of the Great Depression," ECG (February 16, 2010).

Created: 12:25 AM 5/5/2023
Last updated: 12:25 AM 5/5/2023