Amazon.com: American Auto Factory (Automotive History and Personalities): Barney Olsen, Joseph Cabadas: Books

Review

Daily Herald (Arlington Heights, IL), March 13, 2006 (combined circ.: 100,000)

“An exciting pictorial jaunt through the history of American automobile manufacturing … If you like cars, you’ll want to add this 192-page, large-format book to your collection.”

Product Description
Witness the evolution of the American auto factory beginning with the basic hand-built assembly of cars in the earliest part of the twentieth century, through the age of the assembly line, and up to today's robotically-operated lines. Concentrating on the 1920s to 1950s, large photographs of the assembly lines in action send readers into nostalgic old factories. See the workers, the tools, the methods and the machines that combined their efforts with the ingenuity of industry players like Henry Ford, Ransom Olds. Walter Chrysler, and others to make possible the automobile's worldwide proliferation and availability. Flash back in time to witness the factories decade by decade in never-before-published vintage photographs. Featured automakers include Ford, GM and Chrysler, along with smaller companies like Packard, Studebaker, and Auburn.

Joe Cabadas is an automotive journalist whose work has appeared in several industry trade journals, including Automotive News. He lives in Dearborn, Michigan. St. Paul, Minnesota author Byron Olsen wrote Station Wagons (0-7603- 0632-X).

Product Details

Hardcover: 192 pages
Publisher: Motorbooks; First edition (November 14, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0760310599
ISBN-13: 978-0760310595
Product Dimensions: 12.1 x 10.6 x 1 inches
Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #305,412 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
In the last decade of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth, Americans had witnessed the proliferation of electric lights, the advent of the telephone, and the Wright brothers' conquest of flight. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
truck plant, auto factories, auto factory

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
National Automotive History Collection, Henry Ford, General Motors, Ford Photomedia, Ford Motor Company, Highland Park, Big Three, United States, World War, Motor Car Company, Craft Method, Fisher Body, New York, Rouge Complex, Albert Kahn, Willow Run, Chrysler Corporation, Lean Production, Conde Collection, Walter Reuther, William Durant, Great Depression, United Auto Workers, Harry Bennett, Henry Leland

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Citations (learn more)

This book cites 35 books:

Henry Ford (Inventors) by Paul Joseph on page 45, page 52, and Back Matter
My Years with General Motors by Alfred Sloan in Front Matter, page 92, and Back Matter
Hard Times (Bantam Classics) by Charles Dickens on page 82, and Back Matter
The Big Three by Peter May on page 175, and Back Matter
Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line by Ben Hamper in Back Matter

See all 35 books this book cites

1 book cites this book:

River Rouge by Joseph Cabadas in Back Matter

Books on Related Topics (learn more)

The Machine That Changed the World by James P. Womack

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Management by Thomas S Bateman

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Global Capitalism by Jeffry A. Frieden

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River Rouge by Joseph Cabadas

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	73% buy the item featured on this page: American Auto Factory (Automotive History and Personalities) 4.8 out of 5 stars (4) $25.51
	11% buy River Rouge 4.4 out of 5 stars (7) $29.20
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	6% buy The Ford Century: Ford Motor Company and the Innovations that Shaped the World 4.6 out of 5 stars (5) $29.20

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Customer Reviews

4 Reviews

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4 star:		(1)
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Average Customer Review

4.8 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Pictorial History of the Automobile!, February 12, 2003

By	Jay Yeager (Napa, California) - See all my reviews

What an amazing collection of pictures detailing the history and evolution of the American automobile. The text in this book is basic support for this massing of pictures of factories that most probably have never heard of, like REO, Overland, Oakland, Marion, Queen, Chalmers, DeVaux-Hall, Ruxton and a great many others, all American companies. At the height of the auto industry boom, prior to the Great Depression, there were over 1,900 manufactures of American automobiles. Also, before the Great Depression, one out of every six people were employed by the auto industry. This book is for the person that knows a great deal about automobiles and would like to go back to the days of Henry Ford, Billy Durant, Walter Chrysler, John and Horace Dodge, Ransom Olds, Louis Chevrolet, Henry Leland, David Buick and all of the other greats that started a passion that would change America and the world forever.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must have for Auto Historians, April 30, 2007

By	Chris Edwards "Walkerville Publishing" (Walkerville, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a great book- meticulously researched with a fine catalogue of images. These boys did their homework and it shows. It would be worth purchasing if only for the very rare early photos of auto factories. If you love auto history you'll want this book in your library.

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Attractive concept but some missed opportunities, July 2, 2005

By	BK (Toronto, ON Canada) - See all my reviews

The American Auto Factory is a historical and sociological look at the development and changes in technology which directly impacted both workers and management told through vivid pictures and concise text. Or so I believed. What was actually there was only partial to my perception. Beyond the vivid and captivating pictures was a very dull and unexciting narrative of the history of the American auto industry. Not that the history itself is uninteresting, rather, it has been told countless times before in numerous books in more detail then provided here. The American Auto Factory should have focused its narrative on the changing conditions and relationship of the men (and eventually women) working in the factories portrayed both through pictures and text. Decade by decade, I expected a discussion on the changes in technology and how it effected workers perceptions and relationships with management, their jobs and each other. Unfortunately the authors decided to provide a simple historical narrative on the auto industries main players, GM, Ford and Chrysler with minor discussion on the independents in the corresponding chapters. Having said all of that, it still doesn't take away from the beautiful pictures included. If the authors did one thing perfectly right, it was to dig up all those archived photos and include them in this book including Diego Rivera's famous (or infamous to some) mural, Detroit Industry. The pictures are wonderful and convey an entrancing story of the auto factory from the way it was to the way it is. Buy this book if you want to be visually captivated at the workers and their machines in the process of creating the automobile. Don't buy it if you want a better understanding at how workers were and still are affected by these same machines.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars The Wonderful Auto Plant.
This was an excellent book with some great pictures of the manufacturing plants that put America on the road. Any auto history buff will enjoy this book. Read more

Published on January 10, 2007 by Robert L. Cantrell

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