#automotive history
Ford Galaxie 500 sedan advertisement, 1965
(from the Mickey McGuire and Jim Northmore Boulevard Photographic Collection at the Detroit Public Library)
Post link
First day of production of General Motors’ Hydramatic at the Willow Run Transmission plant with Harlow Curtice (President of General Motors) on the left congratulating Edward Kagy (Willow Run Plant Manager), Ypsilanti, Michigan, 1953
Post link
Mrs. D. F. Alstand and man in airplane during a Chalmers Motor Company factory tour, Detroit, Michigan, June 1911
Lazarnick Collection, Detroit Public Library, Detroit, Michigan
Post link
Every Automotive Emblem, Explained
Very interesting on the backstory behind the logos of some of your favorite car brands.
On This Day in History June 6, 1933: Richard Hollingshead was granted United States Patent number 1,909,537 on May 16, 1933. What was this patent for? Hollingshead’s patent was for the Drive-In Theater.
Hollingshead would build the first drive-in theater in Pennsauken Township, Camden New Jersey. It would be open for business on June 6, 1933. The first movie shown was the 1932 British Fox Studios comedy “Wives Beware” (entitled “Two White Arms" in the United Kingdom. )
#DriveInTheater #FirstDriveInTheater #RichardHollingshead #CinematicHistory #MovieHistory #AutomotiveHistory #NewJerseyHistory #AmericanHistory #USHistory #History #Historia #Histoire #Geschichte #HistorySisco
https://www.instagram.com/p/CeeZ9Cdumf5/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
Post link
I love it when old signs that are painted on a building reappear when a building gets torn down/renovated. This sign for a Studebaker auto dealership still has its bright blue color. On Fordham Road between Cambreleng and Belmont Avenues.
#OldSigns #Studebaker #Bronx #BronxHistory #NewYorkHistory #NYHistory #NYCHistory #AutomotiveHistory #AmericanHistory #USHistory #History #Historia #Histoire #Geschichte #HistorySisco (at Fordham Road NYC)
https://www.instagram.com/p/CeZaBkROu8u/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
Post link
This #MotorMonday finds a new kind of car at the end of the rainbow; the Nash 600. This model was the first mass-produced American car featuring unibody construction. Pioneered by European manufacturers like Lambda in the early 1920s, unibody construction consisted of a manufacturing design in which the body of the vehicle, its floor plan, and its chassis all form a single structure. This allowed for a lighter vehicle with better fuel economy, as well as a vehicle that was able to absorb crash impacts more safely for passengers.
This approach to automobile construction would later become common among American automobile manufacturers, as would seat-belts, which Nash begin including in 1949, making them an early adopter of this technology as well. Nash’s innovative 1936 ‘Bed-in-Car’ system, however, yet remains to achieve the widespread acclaim of its other achievements.
The ca. 1941 catalog is part of Hagley Library’s Z. Taylor Vinson collection of transportation ephemera (Accession 20100108.ZTV). For over sixty years, Zachary Taylor Vinson (1933-2009), a senior lawyer with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1993-1995 president of the Society of Automotive Historians, and 1995-2009 editor of Automotive History Review amassed a large and comprehensive collection of printed material documenting on the history transportation, particularly automobiles.
Our Digital Archive offers a small selection of materials from the Vinson collection documenting the history of the automobile and transportation. Click here to view them online.
Post link
Today is Read Across America Day, an event promoted by the National Educational Association since 1998 as a way to promote and encourage children’s reading. Which is as good a reason as any to share this illustrated cover from the 1917 Maxwell Book for Kiddies, a small collection of nursery rhymes compiled by Detroit, Michigan’s Maxwell Motor Company.
This booklet is part of Hagley Library’s Z. Taylor Vinson collection of transportation ephemera (Accession 20100108.ZTV). For over sixty years, Zachary Taylor Vinson (1933-2009), a senior lawyer with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1993-1995 president of the Society of Automotive Historians, and 1995-2009 editor of Automotive History Review amassed a large and comprehensive collection of printed material documenting on the history transportation, particularly automobiles.
Our Digital Archive offers a small selection of materials from the Vinson collection documenting the history of the automobile and transportation. Click here to view them online.
Post link
The National Society of Professional Engineers has been sponsoring Engineers Week every February since 1951 as a means of calling attention to engineers’ contributions to society and advocating for the importance of education in math, science, and technical skills.
Today’s Engineers Week theme is Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day, so we’re sharing this December 1949 photograph of Florence Naum (1922-2006) testing a generator regular quality control machine at the Ford Motor Company’s plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The device tested regulators for 1950 Fords under simulated road conditions.
Naum was a resident of Farmington, Michigan. She began her career at Ford as a stock handler in 1939 after graduating high school and, by 1949, was the only woman electrical technician at the company and one of only two women enrolled at the University of Detroit in pursuit of an engineering degree. She eventually earned an electrical engineering degree from the University of Michigan and later became the first female electrical engineer employed at the company.
This photograph is part of Hagley Library’s collection of Chamber of Commerce of the United States photographs and audiovisual materials, Series II. Nation’s Business photographs (Accession 1993.230.II). To view more items from this collection online, visit its page in our Digital Archive by clicking here.
Post link
Here’s a #MotorMonday pitch I can get behind right now. This image graced the cover of a ca. 1950 promotional pamphlet touting the new ‘Venti-Heater’ feature on automobiles from the General Motors Corporation’s Buick Motor Division.
The pamphlet is part of Hagley Library’s Z. Taylor Vinson collection of transportation ephemera (Accession 20100108.ZTV). For over sixty years, Zachary Taylor Vinson (1933-2009), a senior lawyer with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1993-1995 president of the Society of Automotive Historians, and 1995-2009 editor of Automotive History Review amassed a large and comprehensive collection of printed material documenting on the history transportation, particularly automobiles.
Our Digital Archive offers a small selection of materials from the Vinson collection documenting the history of the automobile and transportation. Click here to view them online.
Post link
