3
4
5
6
7
8
1860. France -- Jean Joseph Etienne Lenior develops an internal-combustion engine.
1865. United States -- Sylvester H. Roper's steam carriage is one of the country's first automobiles.
1885. Germany -- Gottleib Daimler and Karl Benz develop gasoline engines which modern automobile engines are derived from.
c.1890. Des Moines, Iowa -- William Morrison builds an electrically powered car.
1893-1894. United States -- Charles E. Duryea and J. Frank Duryea build an American gasoline-fueled automobile.
1896. United States -- gasoline-powered autos are introduced by Ford, Charles Brady King, Ransom Eli Olds, and Alexander Winton.
c.1900. United States -- The Riker electric car is one of the first enclosed-cockpit cars.
1901. United States -- Olds builds 425 automobiles and sparks the mass-production craze.
1908. United States -- Ford's Model T is introduced, General Motors is organized, and Henry M. Leland introdudes interchangable parts.
1911. United States -- Henry Ford develops the assembly-line process.2
1912. United States -- General Motors develops the electric starter.
1914. United States -- The first sensible V-8 engine is introduced by Cadillac.
1922. United States -- Balloon tires are introduced.
1939. United States -- Automatic transmissions and air conditioning begin to appear.
|
3 |
1896 -- The first automobile built by Henry Ford. This car's maximum speed was between twenty-five and thirty miles per hour. |
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4 |
1897 -- One of the earliest gasoline-powered automobiles. |
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5 |
1914 -- Ford Model T Tourer. Fifteen million of these were made between 1913 and 1927. |
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6 |
1927 -- Ford Model T "Fordor" ("four-door") sedan. |
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7 |
1935 -- The Chevrolet Master sedan. One of the first cars whose form dominated function -- the curved exterior and the stylish front grill are for consumer appeal. |
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8 |
1937 -- An experimental General Motors model informally called the 'Y' Job. Like today, prototypes existed to test public reaction and measure the effects of including certain options in their production models. |
The average household income in Greenbelt was in the vicinity of $1,200 to
$1,800; the salary cap for eligibility to reside in the federal project was
somewhere around $1,800.9
Automobiles had become quite common by the 1920's, but the stock market crash of October 1929 devastated new car sales nationwide. By 1932, auto production was about one-fourth of its volume from 1929. 10
Picture credits: (1) Volkswagen ad, 1938. 11 Hitler commissioned Ferdinand Porche to create the German counterpart to the Ford, a "people's car". It was subsequently popular in America as an alternative to the motor products of Detriot. 12,13 (2) Lincoln-Zephyr ad, 1939. 14
New and used cars were available to Greenbelt residents either through
dealers or private sales.
15
As the case is still today, prices for used cars of more prestigious models
rivaled prices for less 'flashy' new models.
In general, "car sizes were medium", 20 and there were "very few sports cars, foreign cars or large cars". It may be safe to say that it wasn't until the privatization of the Greenbelt community, well after World War II, that a resident would have been able to afford a luxury car.21
With the availability of goods and services right in town via its many
cooperatives, lots of Greenbelters didn't have cars, or feel they needed
them.26 For those that did,
many used public transportation anyway, since it was a convenient existing
way to travel into downtown Washington.
27
(This is discussed at length elsewhere in the exhibit.)
Others arrived in Greenbelt with some form of transportation already -- one,
in particular, drove Army surplus vehicles
28 -- and others were able to
afford more standard forms of automobiles.
29
Apparently one of these was
Tom
Poston
30,31
later of television's "Newhart". Mr. Poston is also mentioned in another
oral account:
"[W]e kids ran a little sort of jitney service out to the high school which was about two miles outof town. There was no school bus in the early years, so kids had to either hitchhike or ride the little bus which ran to Branchville. So we ran our Buick with Tom Poston (he was in my class) as the driver. But he lived up on Northway and we lived way down in the other end of town. Tom had a tendency to oversleep, and my little brother, Bobby, who was two years younger than I, and certainly not old enough to have a driver's license, would be dispatched to pick up Tom. Bobby just loved to drive -- he had taught himself. But he was short (he's not terribly tall today), but he was so short then, and those '28 Buicks were so huge that he could barely see over the steering wheel, even with the two phone books he sat on. He'd drive up and bring Tom back, and the police never stopped him, although a neighbor lady was always threatening to turn him in. We charged something like a nickel a day, or maybe a quarter a week, I don't know, but it was very little, because nobody had much money. Tom worked in the grocery store and was eventually able to get his own car -- a model T Ford." 32
We can assume this is fairly accurate information -- Richard G. Benson speaks of buying a Model T from Tom Poston. 33
