Technologies in tension: Horses, electric trucks, and the motorization of American cities, 1900-1925

Technology and Culture

Volumn 42, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 489-516

  Mom, Gijs P A ^a   Kirsch, David A ^b  

^a EINDHOVEN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY   (Netherlands)

^b UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 23044527333     PISSN: 0040165X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/tech.2001.0128     Document Type: Review

References (172)

1. J. Mulholland to J. F. Rice, memorandum, 6 June 1950, history folders, F3A/E3c, Commonwealth Edison Company, Chicago.
2. For most of this century, historians of the Automobile Age have focused on the passenger automobile, relegating the commercial vehicle to secondary status. The limited literature on the truck includes: Louis Rodriguez, "The Development of the Truck: A Constructivist History" (Ph.D. diss, Lehigh University, 1997);
3. Robert Alan Raburn, "Motor Freight and Urban Morphogenesis with Reference to California and the West" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1988);
4. John Montville, "Wheels for Commerce: A History of American Motor Trucks," in The American Car Since 1775, ed. L. Scott Bailey (New York, 1971);
5. Robert F. Karolevitz, This Was Trucking: A Pictorial History of the First Quarter Century of Commercial Motor Vehicles (Seattle, Wash., 1966).
6. On the presumed inferiority of the electric vehicle, James J. Elink typified a view held by many scholars when he described "the inherently superior technological feasibility of the internal-combustion engine for the motorcar at that time"; America Adopts the Automobile, 1895-1910 (Cambridge, Mass., 1970), 307.
7. Also see: James Rood Doolittle, The Romance of the Automobile Industry (New York, 1916);
8. James J. Flink, The Automobile Age (Cambridge, Mass., 1993), 10;
9. John B. Rae, The American Automobile: A Brief History (Chicago, 1965), 12-13;
10. James M. Laux, The European Automobile Industry (New York, 1992), 13.
11. Virginia Scharff has implicitly depicted the electric alternative as an inferior technology: see Taking the Wheel: Women and the Coming of the Motor Age (New York, 1991), 35-50;
12. "Gender, Electricity, and Automobility," in The Car and the City: The Automobile, the Built Environment and Daily Urban Life, ed. Martin Wachs and Margaret Crawford (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1992);
13. and "Putting Wheels on Women's Sphere," in Technology and Women's Voices: Keeping in Touch, ed. Cheris Kramarae (New York, 1988).
14. Urban historian Clay McShane has taken a similar line; see Down the Asphalt Path: The Automobile and the American City (New York, 1994), 110.
15. For a dissenting view, see Michael B. Schiffer, Taking Charge: The Electric Automobile in America (Washington, 1994).
16. The phrase "the long Indian summer of the electric truck" comes from David B. Sicilia, "Selling Power: Marketing and Monopoly at Boston Edison, 1886-1929," (Ph.D. diss., Brandeis University, 1990), 342-61.
17. In general, critics of the electric vehicle fail to explicitly identify the functional attributes upon which they base their judgment of technical inferiority. On the history of the electric passenger car and the technological competition that resulted in the triumph of internal combustion, see Gijs P. A. Mom, Geschiedenis van de Auto van Morgen: Cultuur en Techniek van de Elektrische Auto (Eindhoven, 1997)
18. ; David A. Kirsch, "The Electric Vehicle and the Burden of History: Studies in Automotive Systems Rivalry in America, 1890-1996" (Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1996)
19. , and The Electric Vehicle and The Burden of History (New Brunswick, N.J., 2000).
20. John Rae, "The Electric Vehicle Company: A Monopoly That Missed," Business History Review 29, no. 4 (1955): 298-311.
21. On the history of the early cab ventures, see David A. Kirsch and Gijs P. A. Mom, "Betting on the Wrong Horseless Carriage: The Urban Electric Vehicle Revisited" (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the History of Technology, Detroit, October 1999).
22. F. M. L. Thompson, Horses in European Economic History: A Preliminary Canter (London, 1983), 102.
23. Most observers of the commercial vehicle industry did not expect a single technology to provide motor vehicle service across all of the different transport markets that needed to be motorized. The capability of internal combustion to provide so-called universal service, and its consequent ascendance, were largely unexpected.
24. Elmer A. Sperry, "Automobiles as Source of Revenue for Central Stations," in Proceedings of the National Electric Light Association, Twenty-Third Annual Convention, Chicago, May 22-24, 1900 (New York, 1900), 373.
25. Initial debates about electric trucks coincided with a massive central station campaign to introduce electric batteries as load-buffering devices. Before the turn of the century, American electricity providers lagged far behind their European counterparts in this area. Whereas the total installed energy content of stationary lead-acid batteries in 1895 was only 4,000 kilowatt-hours, nine years later total capacity of the nation's storage batteries had increased a hundredfold. See L. B. Stillwell, "Electrical Power-Generating Stations and Transmission," Electrical Review, 29 October 1904, 705-6.
26. A. E. Ridley, "The Electric Automobile as an Income Producer for Central Stations," Central Station 3 (October 1903): 85;
27. H. W. Hillman, "Relative Importance of the Electric Truck as Compared with Other Classes of Central Station Business," Central Station 12 (February 1913): 248-52.
28. Also, electricity sold to charge vehicle storage batteries did not have to be stored in and later retrieved from the utility's own batteries, thereby shifting the charging and discharging losses (which amounted to 20 to 30 percent) plus a portion of battery maintenance costs to the vehicle owner; see Richard H. Schallenberg, Bottled Energy: Electrical Energy and the Evolution of Chemical Energy Storage (Philadelphia, 1982) 280.
29. "The November Meeting," Central Station 9 (December 1909): 116-19.
30. Fred Darlington, "Central Station Electric Systems and Railroad Power," in Proceedings of the National Electric Light Association, Thirty-Ninth Annual Meeting, Chicago May 22-26, 1916 (New York, 1916), 552-63.
31. Electric elevators were bundled with other electric services, thereby increasing total demand for electricity and rendering customers less likely to purchase an isolated plant. As Harold Platt observed in his analysis of early marketing efforts at Chicago Edison, "a decision for electric elevators often had the added benefit of persuading building owners to cancel plans for a self-contained lighting system in favor of central station service"; The Electric City: Energy and the Growth of the Chicago Area, 1880-1930 (Chicago, 1991), 104.
32. In his inaugural editorial for Commercial Vehicle, H. F. Donaldson noted some of the important differences between passenger and commercial vehicles. Whereas the car could "make a poor showing on the private ledger of its owner and still be considered an unqualified success," the commercial vehicle must "make good in dollars and cents. . . . It is a machine that makes money for its owner." Private vehicles were only operated during fair weather and were often garaged for months at a time, but commercial vehicles were expected to operate six days a week, year round. Commercial vehicles also had to contend with the "driver problem": while passenger vehicles were usually driven by the owner or under the owner's direct supervision, commercial vehicles were often entrusted to employees.
33. See "The Commercial Vehicle," Commercial Vehicle 1 (March 1906): 28.
34. According to the Bureau of the Census, total motor vehicle production in 1909 (including passenger cars) was 126,593 units, while the total horse population exceeded fifteen million; see Bureau of the Census, Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920 (Washington, D.C., 1921-23), vol. 10,
35. Manufactures, 874.
36. During this period, profits from the sale of current and the underlying economics of motor vehicle operation were less important than boosting the public appeal of modern electric service. The use of electric vehicles - often illuminated with electric lights and decorated with signs proclaiming the benefits of central station service - to deliver bulbs, light street lamps, pull underground cables, and erect lamp posts kept electricity front and center in the public eye. And because a central station could use its existing technical infrastructure to charge and maintain its electric vehicles, the real costs of electric vehicles compared to those of the horse-drawn carts they replaced or to those of prospective gasoline service were unknown and, for the time being, immaterial. It was sufficient that the electric vehicles answered the calls and lit the lamps. For Commonwealth Edison, see "Licensed Automobile Operators in Chicago," Western Electrician, 15 September 1900, 169;
37. for New York Edison, see "Edison Delivery Service," Central Station 8 (March 1909): 213;
38. for Boston Edison, see "The Electric Automobile in Central Station Practice," Central Station 3 (April 1904): 244.
39. Herbert H. Rice, "Opportunities for the Sale of Current for Charging Electric Automobiles," in Proceedings of the National Electric Light Association, Thirtieth Annual Meeting, Indianapolis, 4-7 June 1907 (New York, 1907), 498.
40. Herbert H. Rice, Proceedings of the National Electric Light Association, Thirtieth Annual Meeting, Indianapolis, 4-7 June 1907 Ibid., 507.
41. "Parcel Delivery Discussed by Truck Club," Commercial Vehicle 9 (1 October 1913): 13.
42. The first vehicles purchased by Gorham in 1899 were made by Andrew Riker; see Howard Greene, "An Object Lesson in Electric Delivery" Commercial Vehicle 1 (May 1906): 90,
43. and "Gorham Electric Garage Is Truck Factory," Commercial Vehicle 9(15 October 1913): 38.
44. For Abraham and Straus, see "Machines Effect Saving in Dry Goods Delivery," Commercial Vehicle 6 (June 1911): 301-4;
45. also see reports on length of service in "Electric Commercial Trucks are Increasing Throughout the Country," Commercial Vehicle 9 (15 October 1913): 5-11.
46. "Operating the Electric Vehicle; Cost Figures, Trips, Maintenance," Commercial Vehicle 7 (November 1912): 9.
47. So-called transfer service - moving goods between commercial warehouses - also employed large capacity vehicles. Chicago's Montgomery Ward Co., for instance, had been operating six 5-ton electric trucks in transfer service since 1903; "Gasoline and Electric Trucks in Chicago," Commercial Vehicle 1 (March 1906): 31.
48. "How Chicago's Coal Supply is Handled," Commercial Vehicle 7 (March 1912): 59.
49. "What Motor Trucks Are Actually Doing for American Users," Commercial Vehicle 10 (15 February 1914): 5-14.
50. Joseph Husson noted that this "custom" was "firmly rooted in all the truck drivers and was handed down from the horse-wagon days"; see "Brewery Trucks Reduce Delivery Cost and Increase Business Area," part 1, Commercial Vehicle 11 (1 November 1914): 6.
51. Joseph Husson noted that this "custom" was "firmly rooted in all the truck drivers and was handed down from the horse-wagon days"; see "Brewery Trucks Reduce Delivery Cost and Increase Business Area," part 1, Commercial Vehicle 11 1914:6 Ibid.
52. "Choosing the Type" Electric Vehicles 4 (March 1914): 96.
53. "Business Methods for Business Vehicles," Commercial Vehicle 8 (1 May 1913): 29.
54. Another article referred to charging systems as "the hay and grain of the battery," fur-ther underscoring the practical similarities between the horse and the electric truck; see C. L. Morgan, "The Proper Garaging of Electric Vehicles," Central Station 10 (December 1910): 167-70.
55. At the Liverpool commercial vehicle trials in England in 1901, steam dominated the field, but vehicles based on similar designs found only limited success in the American market. As late as 1919, two-thirds of the forty-six trucks of the British road-hauling company Pickfords were steam powered; see Henri G. Chatain, "The Liverpool Trials," Horseless Age, 10 July 1901, 327, and
56. Gerard L. Turnbull, Traffic and Transport: An Economic History of Pickfords (London, 1979), 153.
57. Albert Clough, "General Deductions from the Test," Horseless Age, 27 May 1903, 619-621.
58. Raburn (n. 2 above, p. 85) argues that support for the idea that different types of motive power should operate in different spheres of action resulted from the marketing and promotional efforts of electric vehicle industry groups such as NELA and the EVAA. In particular, he discounts the findings of the group of MIT-based transport engineers because Boston Edison funded their research. However, belief in functional specialization predated the organized activities of NELA in support of electric vehicles by several years, and the group that eventually became the Electric Vehicle Association of America was not organized until 1909.
59. "Internal vs. External Combustion," Commercial Vehicle 1 (October 1906): 266;
60. "A Substantial Industry," Commercial Vehicle 5 (April 1910): 150.
61. Early attempts to specify the respective tasks for electric, steam, and gasoline vehicles were not limited to the American market. Expectations about which mode would dominate which sphere differed by country. For instance, Sir David Salomons, president of the Self-Propelled Traffic Association in Great Britain, predicted in 1897 that the gasoline engine would only be suitable for motorcycles, whereas steam traction would be used "when real work is called for, and where a return upon capital expenditure is required. . . . Electric energy, if the necessary adjuncts exist, has a great field open in towns, as a luxury, where the question of upkeep is not a vital item"; "Motor Traffic," Automotor and Horseless Vehicle Journal, 15 May 1897, 295-305, at 305.
62. "Do Not Make Civil War," Commercial Vehicle 7 (November 1912): 36.
63. "The Motor Truck Industry As It Is: Makers, Models, Users and Sales," Commercial Vehicle 8 (January 1913): 5.
64. W. L. Day, quoted in "National Automobile Show," Electric Vehicles 4 (January 1914): 4.
65. General Motors' purchase of Lansden prompted an editorial envisioning an "ideal" market in which "all of the best firms would build both kinds in all sizes so as to have a complete line and thus compete for any order"; "The Two Kinds of Truck Power," Commercial Vehicle 7 (March 1912): 49.
66. "Features of GMC Electric Trucks," Commercial Vehicle 7 (May 1912): 42-43.
67. General Motors ceased selling electric trucks with the 1917 model year; "A Directory of Motor Truck Makers," Commercial Vehicle 15 (1 November 1916): 17-43.
68. Inexplicably, a recent article by GM engineer Kaushik Rajashekara claims that GMC Truck began producing electric trucks in 1916; see "History of Electric Vehicles in General Motors," IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications 30 (July/August 1994): 897.
69. "The Fifth Annual Convention of the Electric Vehicle Association of America," Central Station 14 (November 1914): 154.
70. The Electric Vehicle and Central Station Association had been established under the motto "To encourage the adoption and use of electric commercial and pleasure vehicles by electric light and power stations and their customers"; its successor, the EVAA, was founded in 1909 and expanded its scope in 1910 when Thomas Edison gave his personal blessing to the creation of an independent national electric vehicle association modeled on NELA. The EVAA's membership included central stations, battery manufacturers, and vehicle producers. Devoted mainly to consciousness raising, the organization hosted meetings at which papers were read purporting to show the "perfection" of the electric vehicle, recent sales were reported, and glasses were raised in toasts to the electric future. Over the course of its five-year existence, the organization spawned fourteen local chapters, helped numerous central stations evaluate regional opportunities for supporting the electric vehicle, underwrote two national advertising campaigns to increase awareness of electric vehicles, and sponsored a handful of significant studies on operating costs, charging facilities, and other aspects of electric vehicle operations. It was reabsorbed into NELA in 1915. See Kirsch, "The Electric Vehicle and The Burden of History" (n. 2 above), 151-205,
71. and Mom, Geschiedenis van de Auto van Morgen (n. 2 above), 411-96.
72. "The Central Station Opportunity in Electric Vehicles," NELA Bulletin, July 1914, 441.
73. Walter C. Reid, "Electricity as a Substitute for Horses in Local Removals," Central Station 12 (August 1912): 52.
74. "Federal Government Buys Electric Trucks," Central Station 12 (August 1912): 58.
75. Day Baker, "Electric Vehicle Fleets in the United States," Commercial Vehicle 6 (May 1911): 252. Emphasis in original.
76. Discussion of "Report of the Committee on Electric Vehicles," Proceedings of the National Electric Light Association, Thirty-Fifth Annual Convention, Seattle, 10-13 June 1912 (New York, 1912), 255.
77. Harold Pender and H. F. Thomson, "Observations on Horse and Motor Trucking," Central Station 12 (April 1913): 325-31.
78. "Efficient Work of Commercial Vehicles," Commercial Vehicles (15 May 1913): 22.
79. "What the Ton-mile Is and How to Figure It," Commercial Vehicle 12 (15 April 1915): 21.
80. Joseph Husson, "Excessive Loading Time Decreases Efficiency of New York Brewery Trucks," part 4, Commercial Vehicle 11 (15 December 1914): 20-22. Electrics performed especially poorly on this combined score, but it is difficult to gauge the biases of the weighting system employed. In a sense, the eventual ascendance of the ton-mile as the basis for comparison simply reflected the victory of the gasoline truck.
81. "Boston Tech. Fixes Fields of Motor Trucks," Commercial Vehicle 13 (1 November 1915): 26-27. Based on a sample of 1,181 trucks and 5,787 horses in 107 companies, Thomson and Pender established that the electric truck, depending on the type of load, was 7 percent to 24 percent cheaper than the horse, whereas the cost of operation of gasoline trucks ranged between 86 percent and 111 percent of the cost of horse traction in like service. For package delivery, compared using total cost per package delivered, the electric was cheaper overall than the internal combustion truck. Equally noteworthy was their conclusion that the horse was cheaper than the gasoline truck in parcel delivery service within a range of seven miles. This study was only one of dozens if not hundreds of analyses attempting to demonstrate the relative advantages of one or another mode of commercial transport service; we discuss it in some detail here because it was among the most comprehensive and rigorous.
82. Pender and Thomson, "Observations on Horse and Motor Trucking," 331.
83. For the MIT reports, see Harold Pender and H. F. Thomson, The Economical Transportation of Merchandise in Metropolitan Districts ([Boston], 1912),
84. Notes on the Costs of Motor Trucking ([Boston], n.d.), and
85. Observations on Horse and Motor Trucking ([Boston], 1913);
86. H. F. Thomson, Relative Fields of Horse, Electric, and Gasoline Trucks ([Boston], 1914);
87. H. F. Thomson, H.L. Manley and A. L. Pashek, The Delivery System of R. H. Macy and Co. of New York ([Boston], 1914).
88. These were reprinted in Commercial Vehicle 13 (15 December 1915).
89. "The March Meeting," Central Station 9 (April 1910): 217-18;
90. "Studebaker Activity," Central Station 10 (December 1910): 1786;
91. Central Station 9 (February 1910): 242;
92. Central Station 13 (February 1914): 340.
93. William P. Kennedy, "Operating Costs for Commercial Electric Vehicles," Electrical World 64 (3 October 1914): 664-65,
94. and "A Practical Project to Secure Authentic Cost of Operating Commercial Electric Vehicles" (paper presented at Fifth Annual Convention of the Electric Vehicle Association of America, Philadelphia, 19-21 October 1914), Automobile Reference Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia.
95. William P. Kennedy, "Operating Cost of Commercial Electric Vehicles," Electrical World 66 (21 October 1915): 1316-22,
96. and "Operating Cost of Commercial Electric Vehicles" (paper presented at Sixth Annual Convention of the Electric Vehicle Association of America, Cleveland, 18-19 October 1915), Automobile Reference Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia.
97. William P. Kennedy, "Administrative Engineering and Salesmanship in the Commercial Car Field," Central Station 11 (July 1911): 17, 24, and
98. "Problems Involved in Advancing the Use of Electric Vehicles," Central Station 10 (November 1910): 138-40 (emphasis in original).
99. Several nonutility fleet owners followed Kennedy's advice. "[O]ne of the largest department stores in New York City," for instance, reported that the reliability of its gasoline trucks varied between 70 percent and 90 percent, compared to 98 percent for its electric trucks. Similarly, a Chicago brewer reported that he employed only two men to maintain his fifty-eight electric trucks (some of which traveled as much as 50 miles per day), whereas his fifteen gasoline trucks "of the finest European make" were being repaired 30 percent of the time. See W. J. McDowell, "The Electric Truck in Brewery Service," NELA Bulletin, March 1917, 213-15, at 215;
100. "Electric Vehicle Efficiency in Department Store Work," NELA Bulletin, December 1916, 922.
101. H. Beckmann, "Das Elektromobil als Nutzwagen," Allgemeine Automobil-Zeitung (Berlin edition) no. 22 (1914), 23-26, 25-26.
102. F. F. Samson, "The Proper Application of the Commercial Vehicle," Proceedings of the National Electric Light Association, Forty-Second Annual Meeting, May 19-22, 1919 (New York, 1919), 98-127.
103. "Report of the Garage and Rates Committee" (paper presented at Sixth Annual Convention of the Electric Vehicle Association of America, Cleveland, 18-19 October 1915), Automobile Reference Collection, Free Library of Philadelphia.
104. "The Trend of the Times in Truck Work, Part II: A Consideration of the Electric Vehicle," Commercial Vehicle 7 (March 1912): 27.
105. Stephen G. Thompson, "Is Central Station Activity in the Electric Vehicle Field Justified?" Central Station 11 (January 1912): 198;
106. "The Electric Commercial Vehicle," Central Station 12 (July 1912): 30;
107. C. L. Morgan, "The Proper Garaging of Electric Vehicles," Central Station 10 (December 1910): 167-70, at 167.
108. "A Notable Electric Vehicle Campaign," NELA Bulletin, November 1915, 706-7;
109. Charles A. Ward, "The Small Electric Vehicle and Its Application," Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Convention of the Electric Vehicle Association of America, Cleveland, October 18-19, 1915 (New York, 1915), 9-11;
110. "The Ward Special at the New York Electrical Show," Central Station 14 (October 1914): 111-12;
111. "The Ward 'Special'," Central Station 14 (February 1915): 251-52.
112. Willis M. Thayer, "The Hartford Electric Light Company's Experience with the Battery Exchange System for Commercial Vehicles," Central Station 15 (December 1915): 141-44;
113. P. D. Wagoner, "Battery Service," Central Station 16 (August 1916): 40-42.
114. This is an example of what may be called "the Pluto effect": Think of Disney's cartoon dog pulling the cart of technological change because a man on the cart is holding a sausage in front of his nose. Pluto - the alternative technology - never reaches his goal, whereas the man on the cart - the leading technology - will. See Gijs P. A. Mom, "Gasturbine als alternatieve voertuigaandrijving," Polytechnisch tijdschrift, editie Werktuigbouw (November 1991): 44-47.
115. For an example from the competition between electric power and gas lighting, see Hans-Joachim Braun, "Gas oder Elektrizität? Zur Konkurrenz zweier Beleuchtungssysteme, 1880-1914," Technikgeschichte 47, no. 1 (1980): 1-19.
116. A partially discharged battery could be 30 percent recharged in the space of one hour. An EVAA commission calculated that two boosts per day, one of an hour and another half an hour long, could double the original radius, making range unproblematic. Bruce Ford, "Recent Developments in the Lead Battery for Electric Vehicles," in Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Electric Vehicle Association of America, Chicago, October 27-28, 1913,
117. reprinted in Central Station 13 (November 1913): 69-71, at 70.
118. Several ESB customers reported that the Ironclad Exide with tubular positive plates performed satisfactorily for as long as three years, with some battery sets covering more than 20,000 miles; see "Veterans," Central Station 14 (September 1914): 75;
119. "'Iron-clad-Exide' Storage Batteries," Central Station 14 (April 1915): 322.
120. "Looking Backward and Abroad," Central Station 17 (December 1917): 196-98, at 197 (emphasis in original);
121. George J. Kirchgasser, "The Electric-Vehicle Situation in Milwaukee," Electrical Review, 27 May 1911, 1033-35. Of the six public garages in Milwaukee, half obtained power from an isolated plant.
122. An offshoot of Amsterdamsche Rijtuigmaatschappij (ARM), the major Amsterdam horse taxicab company, ATAX operated a fleet of approximately eighty electric taxicabs in the Dutch capital from 1909 to 1926. Using identical French Kriéger cabs built under license in the German city of Bremen, the venture was so successful that it helped ARM weather the crisis of the Great War and the early twenties. Thanks to the managerial talents of technical director J. F. Friderichs and efficient maintenance contracts with the German battery producer AFA and some tire manufacturers, the cab fleet was a model of reliability and profitability. Founded in 1887, AFA used a decentralized network of regional engineering departments to enforce proper battery maintenance procedures and soon emerged as the leading German manufacturer of stationary batteries. After initially delaying entry into the automobile battery market, by 1908 AFA had introduced a highly reliable vehicle battery and established a leading position in that market as well. The new battery, in which thin sheets of wood were inserted between the lead battery plates, borrowed from techniques originally developed by AFA's American cartel partner, the Electric Storage Battery Company. It took AFA more than two years to fully develop this battery, drawing upon its close connections with major taxicab companies in Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen. See Gijs P. A. Mom, "Das Holzbrettchen in der schwarzen Kiste: Die Entwicklung des Elektromobilakkumulators bei und aus der Sicht der Accumulatoren-Fabrik AG (AFA) von 1902-1910," Technikgeschichte 63, no. 2 (1996): 119-51, and
123. Geschiedenis van de Auto van Morgen (n. 2 above), 251-341.
124. J. B. N. Cardoza, "The Electric Vehicle from the Salesman's Standpoint," in Proceedings of the National Electric Light Association, Forty-Second Annual Meeting, New York, May 19-22, 1919 (New York, 1919), 69-74, at 73.
125. "Conclusions from French Trials," Commercial Vehicle 5 (January 1910): 34-35;
126. "Russian Army Buying More Trucks," Commercial Vehicle 9 (1 January 1914): 47.
127. In addition to European demand for trucks, the Allies also purchased thousands of American horses for export. Some 289,340 horses and 65,788 mules were exported from the United States in fiscal year 1915; "$76,671,667," Commercial Vehicle 13 (15 August 1915): 17.
128. Horses were still essential to the war effort; as one war correspondent reported, "The wastage of vehicles in the war "is great; the wastage of horses is enormous;" "War Trucks Prove Value, Presage Progress," Commercial Vehicle 11 (15 November 1914): 17.
129. For exceptions, see Raburn (n. 2 above, pp. 164-78), who describes two turning points in the evolution of the American military truck, the military expedition into Mexico in pursuit of Pancho Villa and the siege of Verdun; James M. Lux, "Trucks in the West during the First World War," Journal of Transport History 6 (September 1985): 64-70;
130. and Rodriguez (n. 2 above), 95-132.
131. Also see Norman Miller Cary Jr., "The Use of the Motor Vehicle in the United States Army, 1899-1939" (Ph.D. diss., University of Georgia, 1980).
132. K. Helfferich, Der Weltkrieg, vol. 2 (Berlin, 1919),
133. quoted in Joachim Radkau, Technik in Deutschland: Vom 18. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart (Frankfurt am Main, 1989), 240.
134. "Baker Electrics Invade England," Commercial Vehicle 11 (1 December 1914): 11.
135. This intrafacility transport spurred the development of electric industrial trucks, a market that would later become the mainstay of electric traction during the interwar years. "Electric Vehicles Not Barred on Sundays," NELA Bulletin, September 1918, 499;
136. "Electric Transportation for Explosives," NELA Bulletin, April 1917, 308;
137. "Government Use of Electric Trucks," NELA Bulletin, June 1918, 390.
138. Stanley M. Hills, Battery-Electric Vehicles (London, 1940), 9-14.
139. Describing the situation in early 1916, another editorial noted, "We are not lacking in mileage of good roads. The difficulty is that such as we have are not correlated into any sort of logical or strategic system"; "Motor Preparedness," Commercial Vehicle 14 (1 February 1916): 13.
140. Raburn, 183. Rodriguez argues convincingly that the gasoline truck was more important than the passenger car in shaping early highway construction efforts.
141. Also see Bruce Seely, "The Scientific Mystique: Highway Research at the Bureau of Public Roads, 1918-1940," Technology and Culture 25 (1984): 798-831.
142. "Back to Business," Commercial Vehicle 19 (15 November 1918): 26.
143. William P. Kennedy, "Central Station Promotion of Electric Vehicle Use," Central Station 15 (June 1916): 322.
144. By midsummer 1919, 27,983 trucks had been transferred to state ownership; George Romney, "The Motor Vehicle and the Highway: Some Historical Implications," in Highways in Our National Life, ed. Jean Labatut and Wheaton J. Lane (Princeton, N.J., 1950), 224.
145. Raburn (n. 2 above, 178) has argued that the surplus trucks were less important than the enormously expanded production capacity.
146. In contrast to the Europeans, the American military establishment had failed to incorporate trucks into war planning. The federal government owned several hundred trucks for use by various departments and for transportation at naval shipyards, but on the whole the American public sector was a distant observer of the motor vehicle market. As of 1916, the industry, by virtue of a year and a half of war exports, knew more about military trucks than the Quartermaster Corps. Discussions aimed at creating a standard war truck were initiated through the Society of Automobile Engineers, and by the time the United States entered the war, in 1917, several standard designs were already on the drawing board."Opportunities for Demonstration," Commercial Vehicle 1 (July 1906): 176;
147. "No Trucks for Army Work," Commercial Vehicle 1 (August 1906): 213;
148. "Motor Preparedness," Commercial Vehicle 14 (1 February 1916): 13;
149. "101 Makers Out of a Possible 200-Odd Bid on Five Classes of Army Trucks," Commercial Vehicle 16 (15 June 1917): 14-15.
150. Raburn, 188;
151. also see S. V. Norton, The Motor Truck as an Aid to Business Profits (Chicago, 1918), 473.
152. F. Van Z. Lane, Motor Truck Transportation: The Principles Governing Its Success (New York, 1921), iii.
153. John Lieb, "Electric Vehicles," report prepared for Union Internationale des Producteurs et Distributeurs d'Energie Electrique, Paris, July 5-10, 1928, ConEd (formerly New York Edison) library, New York;
154. H. C. Cushing Jr., The Electric Vehicle Handbook (New York, 1923), 182.
155. A. Jackson Marshall, "Report of the Electric Vehicle Section," NELA Proceedings of the War Convention, May 9-10, 1917, New York (New York, 1917), 7-14, at 9;
156. E. S. Mansfield, "Address of Chairman Mansfield," Proceedings of the National Electric Light Association, Forty-Second Annual Meeting (n. 59 above), 2-8, at 6;
157. William Blood, presidential address to the first annual meeting of the EVAA, New York, 18 October 1910,
158. reprinted in Central Station 10 (November 1910): 3;
159. "June Meeting of the Electric Vehicle Association of America," Central Station 14 (July 1914): 13-21, at 17;
160. "Steinmetz Predicts Electric as Eventual Vehicle," Commercial Vehicle 10 (15 June 1914): 15-17.
161. Walter H. Johnson, "Electric Vehicle Section, N.E.L.A.," NELA Bulletin, 1916, 199-200, at 199.
162. "Electric Vehicle Association of America," Central Station 14 (June 1915) 381-96, at 395.
163. Joseph J. Corn has identified similar religious tendencies among prewar American aviation enthusiasts; see The Winged Gospel: America's Romance with Aviation, 1900-1950 (New York, 1983).
164. More recently, David F. Noble has explored these themes at a more general level in The Religion of Technology: The Divinity of Man and the Spirit of Invention (New York, 1997).
165. "Electric Vehicle Section Session," in Proceedings of the National Electric Light Association, Forty-Third Annual Meeting, Pasadena, May 18-22, 1920 (New York, 1920), 451-56, at 455.
166. Edward E. La Schum, The Electric Motor Truck: Selection of Motor Vehicle Equipment, Its Operation and Maintenance (New York, 1924), 12, 285.
167. La Schum recognized that gasoline and electric trucks were not strictly comparable. Because gasoline trucks could travel farther and faster, La Schum presented data from the Westcott Express Company of New York City on its fleet of fifty-one electric and twenty-nine gasoline trucks. In 1922, Westcott paid 14.9¢ per package delivered by gasoline and 12.7¢ per package delivered by electricity. La Schum, 218-21, 286.
168. Ibid., 299.
169. The show was originally organized to coincide with the NELA annual meeting in Chicago in 1921, but it was so successful that the exhibit continued for several years as an annual promotional event. See Automobile Continuation School, folder F3a/E4, Commonwealth Edison Company, Chicago;
170. also see Edison Round Table, 15 October 1922, 3.
171. John Gilchrist, speech before the Women's Club of Chicago, 26 February 1925, history folders, Commonwealth Edison Company, Chicago.
172. Edison Round Table, October 1947, 11.