In 1926, the Carriage Builders' National Association met for the last time, signaling the automobile's final triumph over the horse-drawn carriage. Only a decade earlier, carriages and wagons were still a common sight on every Main Street in America. In the previous century, carriage-building had been one of the largest and most dynamic industries in the country. In this sweeping study of a forgotten trade, Thomas A. Kinney extends our understanding of nineteenth-century American industrialization far beyond the steel mill and railroad. The legendary Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company in 1880 produced a hundred wagons a dayone every six minutes. Across the country, smaller factories fashioned vast quantities of buggies, farm wagons, and luxury carriages. Today, if we think of carriage and wagon at all, we assume it merely foreshadowed the automobile industry. Yet., the carriage industry epitomized a batch-work approach to production that flourished for decades. Contradicting the model of industrial development in which hand tools, small firms, and individual craftsmanship simply gave way to mechanized factories, the carriage industry successfully employed small-scale business and manufacturing practices throughout its history.The Carriage Trade traces the rise and fall of this heterogeneous industry, from the pre-industrial shop system to the coming of the automobile, using as case studies Studebaker, the New Yorkbased luxury carriage-maker Brewsters, and dozens of smallerfirms from around the country. Kinney also explores the experiences of the carriage and wagon worker over the life of the industry. Deeply researched and strikingly original, this study contributes a vivid chapter to the story of America's industrial revolution.Reviews''It is an important book, of size, depth and scope well beyond what else has been written about the American nineteenth-century carriage and wagon industry.''--Carolyn C. Cooper, Yale University. 12 line drawings, 15 halftones
AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Remembering a Forgotten Industry1. Rich Men's Vehicles at Poor Men's Prices: The Development of a Trade and Its Products2. Knights of the Draw Knife: The Craft Origins of Horse-Drawn Vehicle Manufacture3. From Shop to Factory: The Industrialization of a Trade4. The Coming of Parts: Specialty Manufacturing in the Wagon and Carriage Industry5. An Empire of Taste: The Brewster Carriage Dynasty6. A Wagon Every Six Minutes: The Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company7. From Craftsman to Assembler? Industrialization and the Wagon and Carriage Worker8. That Damned Horseless Carriage: American Carriage Makers Respond to the AutomobileEpilogue: Hail and FarewellNotesGlossaryEssay on SourcesIndex
""Kinney reconstructs this once vibrant yet largely forgotten industry.""
