On the Line: Essays in the History of Auto Work ed. by Nelson Lichtenstein, Stephen Meyer

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 317 hemoths. One could argue, for example, that the big three’s commitment to massive cars originated in GM’s redefinition of auto marketing in the 1920s. “Sloanism” combined GM’s mix oflow- to high-priced models with advertising that emphasized the automobile as status symbol. Sloanist marketing climaxed each year in the spectacular striptease of the fall model unveilings, a social ritual in which Chrysler and Ford soon par­ ticipated with full vigor. From this perspective, Sloanism represents an economically rational response to the 1920s saturation of the virgin car market. To sustain mass- production profitability, manufacturers had to wean consumers from Ford’s unchanging (and unstylish) Model T and to whet their appetite for next year’s sexy arrivals. Davis also ignores a key dimension of Henry Ford’s motivation. While Ford’s Model T clearly “democratized” automobile ownership during its heyday, Ford’s other great innovation—the moving assem­ bly line—moved in a radically undemocratic direction as skilled artisans were replaced by highly regulated line workers whose adult judgment about the production process was treated with contempt. Davis rightly calls attention to Ford’s hostility toward Detroit’s elite class, but he ignores Ford paternalism, best seen in his mix of house visitations to Americanize immigrant workers and his notorious antiunion spy system. Ford’s passion for dictatorial control dwarfs, for me at least, his maverick identification with the common man. Davis gives us a fascinating close reading of the tangled and tumultuous relationships of Detroit’s changing automotive aristoc­ racy. He successfully challenges the paradigm that sees the early industry as the preserve of poorly capitalized, self-made entrepre­ neurs. For that we stand in his debt. By demonstrating the connection between the social status of auto manufacturers and the cars they produced, he enhances our awareness of the power of the automobile as an American symbol. Finally, his study provides a provocative explanation for Detroit’s peculiar and troubled fortunes after 1930. Unfortunately, Davis’s love affair with his conspicuous production model mars his reading of this endlessly fascinating and complex chapter in America’s technological history. John M. Staudenmaier, S.J. Dr. Staudenmaier is associate professor of the history of technology at the University of Detroit. On the Line: Essays in the History of Auto Work. Edited by Nelson Lichtenstein and Stephen Meyer. Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1989. Pp. 256; illustrations, notes, index. $32.50 (cloth); $12.95 (paper). This collection of nine original essays has much to recommend it to students of the history of labor, technology, business, and industrial 318 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE relations. It should also interest readers concerned with the future of the American economy and its industrial work force. Although the focus of each essay varies, the volume attains unity through a continuing attention to the issue of fordism, the integrated, contin­ uous flow system of mass production that relied on single-purpose machines, minute division of labor, and specialization of task and was historically associated with the employment of large numbers of unskilled immigrant workers. These essays are devoted to a multifac­ eted analysis of the relationship between Fordism, the development of technology, and the particular history and culture of auto workers, managers, and inventors. The result is an analysis of the nature of automobile work that sees it as “the product not only of market forces and technological change but also of the social consciousness and political choices auto workers and auto managers bring to the production process” (p. 14). Nelson Lichtenstein and Stephen Meyer are to be particularly commended for highlighting the value of a comparative approach to labor history. Their collection opens with an essay by Wayne Lewchuk which concludes that, starting with the same technology but employ­ ing very different workers, America developed Fordism, and Britain a system of worker self-management. In the final essay, Jonathan Zeitlin and Steven Tolliday reexamine the prevailing view that British auto workers exercised shop-floor power and Americans did not. Arguing that American historians have greatly exaggerated the extent of British workers’ shop-floor power, Zeitlin and Tolliday also argue that American workers developed power over the shop...