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automobile industry

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
the business of producing and selling self-powered vehicles, including passenger cars, trucks, farm equipment, and other commercial vehicles. By allowing consumers to commute long distances for work, shopping, and entertainment, the auto industry has encouraged the development of an extensive road system, made possible the growth of suburbs and shopping centers around major cities, and played a key role in the growth of ancillary industries, such as the oil and travel businesses. The auto industry has become one of the largest purchasers of many key industrial products, such as steel. The large number of people the industry employs has made it a key determinant of economic growth. Although ancient Chinese writers described steam-powered vehicles, and both steam- and electric-powered cars competed with gas-powered vehicles in the late 19th cent. Frenchman Jean Joseph étienne developed the first practical internal-combustion engine (1860), and later in the decade several inventors, most…
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Although Governor Frank Murphy authorized the...
Automobile workers’ strikes occurred in essentially four eras: the lost strikes by the industry’s craft unions in the early twentieth century, the dramatic sit-down victories of the 1930s, the mixture of wildcat and authorized strikes during the postwar economic boom from the 1940s through the…
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Full text Article United Automobile Workers (UAW)

From Chambers Dictionary of World History
US labour union. Originally formed by the AFL under the aegis of the National Labor Relations Act (the ‘Wagner Act’), an attempt to impose a president on the UAW led to a revolt in the spring of 1936, when the members elected their own leader, Homer Martin, and enrolled in the CIO. The UAW had to…
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Full text Article automobile industry

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
the business of producing and selling self-powered vehicles, including passenger cars, trucks, farm equipment, and other commercial vehicles. By allowing consumers to commute long distances for work, shopping, and entertainment, the auto industry has encouraged the development of an extensive road…
| 820 words
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Full text Article Automobile Industry

From Black Firsts: 500 Years of Trailblazing Achievements and Ground-Breaking Events Full text Article BUSINESS
Alicia Boler-Davis
Frederick Douglas Patterson (1871–1932) was the first black to manufacture cars. Between 1915 and 1919 Patterson built some thirty Greenfield-Patterson cars in Greenfield, Ohio. The family was already successful when Frederick was born; the father had bought out his white partner and owned C. R. …
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Full text Article AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY

From The Handy Answer Book Series: The Handy African American History Answer Book Full text Article BUSINESS AND COMMERCE
Frederick Douglas Patterson (1871–1932) was the first black to manufacture cars, starting in 1915. Between 1915 and 1919 Patterson built some thirty Greenfield-Patterson cars in Greenfield, Ohio. He was the youngest of four children born to former slaves Charles “Rich” and Josephine Patterson. The…
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Diagram of Otto's 1876 four cycle engine, via...
Introduction 1 The development of the automobile was a transformative event in history. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, electric and gas-powered vehicles were used in American cities and towns. Gas-powered vehicles went on to become more popular due to a lag in the development of battery…
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Full text Article Sloan, Alfred (1875-1966)

From Encyclopedia of American Business History
auto executive Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Sloan studied electrical engineering at MIT and graduated in 1895 before going to work for the Hyatt Roller Bearing Co. in Newark, New Jersey. The company had great promise because of the importance of roller bearings to the young automobile industry. …
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Full text Article Automobiles

From Encyclopedia of World Trade: From Ancient Times to the Present Full text Article A-Z Entries
A machine for personal motorized transportation; arguably the most pervasive and socially transforming transportation technology of the twentieth century. Building on the antecedent industries—for bicycles and carriages—the automobile, with Henry Ford's breakthrough for the mass production of the…
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Full text Article Unsafe at Any Speed

From Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History
This 1964 Chevrolet Corvair Monza SS was an...
Published in 1965, Ralph Nader's Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile was a groundbreaking work of investigative journalism that argued the American automobile industry had knowingly ignored dangerous design flaws in motor vehicles, thereby contributing to a high…
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An automobile is commonly defined as a self-propelled, minimum three-wheeled vehicle for passenger or freight transport on ordinary roads. Today’s cars are commonly driven by an internal combustion engine using volatile fuel. Without any doubt, the motor vehicle is among the technological…
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