Table Of ContentAuto Mechanics
Studies in Industry and Society
Philip B. Scranton, Series Editor
Published with the assistance of the Hagley Museum and Library
Related titles in the series:
Mark Aldrich, Safety First: Technology, Labor, and Business
in the Building of American Work Safety, 1870–1939
John K. Brown, The Baldwin Locomotive Works, 1831–1915:
A Study in American Industrial Practice
Thomas R. Heinrich, Ships for the Seven Seas:
Philadelphia Shipbuilding in the Age of Industrial Capitalism
David Hounshell, From the American System to Mass Production, 1800–1932
The Development of Manufacturing
Technology in the United States
Thomas A. Kinney, The Carriage Trade:
Making Horse-Drawn Vehicles in America
Auto Mechanics
Technology and Expertise in Twentieth-Century America
kevin l. borg
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore
© 2007 The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2007
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1
The Johns Hopkins University Press
2715 North Charles Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363
www.press.jhu.edu
Borg, Kevin L.
Auto mechanics: technology and expertise in twentieth-century America /
Kevin L. Borg.
p. cm. — (Studies in industry and society)
Developed from author’s dissertation for the Hagley Program in the History of
Industrialization, University of Delaware.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8018-8606-5 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-8018-8606-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Automobile repair shops—United States. 2. Automobile industry and trade—
Social aspects—United States. 3. Automobile mechanics—United States.
4. Automobiles—United States—Maintenance and repair. I. Title.
TL153.B667 2007
338.4ʹ762928720973—dc22 2006030071
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction Technology’s Middle Ground 1
1 The Problem with Chauffeur-Mechanics 13
2 Ad Hoc Mechanics 31
3 Creating New Mechanics 53
4 The Automobile in Public Education 76
5 Tinkering with Sociotechnical Hierarchies 99
6 Suburban Paradox: Maintaining Automobility in the Postwar Decades 115
7 “Check Engine”: Technology of Distrust 138
Conclusion Servants or Savants? Revaluing the Middle Ground 170
Notes 179
Essay on Sources 235
Index 243
Illustrations follow page 98
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acknowledgments
I must break with the usual academic acknowledgments format and recognize up
front the significant contributions of my spouse and partner, Jere Borg. Through-
out this book’s decade-long gestation she has been a patient listener and my most
reliable editor. She has read and commented on draft upon draft of every section
of every chapter—sacrificing time, emotional energy, and sleep beyond what ei-
ther of us had anticipated when we began our life journey together. To her I owe
a personal and professional debt that I can never repay, though I vow to make the
effort for the remainder of my days.
Over the course of many years the research presented here has profited from
the help of far too many individuals to recount in detail. Some of them stand out,
however, and must be thanked publicly. Ron Tobey’s remarkable undergraduate
teaching ignited my interest in the history of science and technology and set me
on this exciting, if uncertain, path. This book grew out of my graduate studies
in the Hagley Program in the History of Industrialization at the University of
Delaware. The financial support and intellectual climate of the Hagley Program
and the Department of History provided a fertile bed for inquiry and growth.
There Arwen Mohun directed my doctoral work and supported my unorthodox
research topic from its inception in one of her graduate writing seminars un-
til long after her official responsibilities had been fulfilled. She always allowed
me enough freedom to pursue my own ideas and sources with just enough “di-
recting” to maintain a viable research project. In addition, George Basalla, Reed
Gieger, Roger Horowitz, Bill Leslie, John Staudenmaier, and Susan Strasser each
read my early research, in whole or in part, and offered valuable suggestions,
sources, and literature that enriched my thinking, my research, and my writing.
Historian Steve McIntyre contributed doubly to this project. First, by plowing a
research path into the auto repair industry through his earlier dissertation on the
viii Acknowledgments
topic and, second, by sharing his research photocopies, his friendship, and many
conversations about auto repair research topics. Phil Scranton has been the most
helpful and patient editor I could have hoped for. His initial critique of my earliest
work on this topic while I was a young graduate student was transformative, and
his fertile mind has been a constant inspiration. His sharp editor’s pen has urged
me toward better writing, and his unfailing support has been crucial to bringing
this book to completion. My colleagues at James Madison University—David Eh-
renpreis, Fletcher Linder, Mark Thomas, and Steve Reich—have also read parts
of my research and helped me sharpen my thinking and presentation.
Financial and institutional support for this project has come from the Uni-
versity of Delaware and the Hagley Museum and Library in the form of a Hagley
Fellowship in the History of Industrialization as well as supplemental fellowship
and travel funding. A Smithsonian Institution Predoctoral Fellowship supported
four months of research in the National Museum of American History’s Trans-
portation Collection, Trade Catalog Collection and Archives Center. A Clark Re-
search Grant from the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village allowed me
to travel to and use that fine collection. The History Department at University of
California, Riverside (UCR), my undergraduate alma mater, granted me Visiting
Researcher status while I was researching and writing in California. The Interli-
brary Loan staffs of UCR’s Rivera Library and James Madison University’s Car-
rier Library have graciously and politely fulfilled my requests for old, hard-bound
trade journals, obscure auto repair books, and other diverse resources. My home
institution, James Madison University, has supported the dissertation-to-book
research through an Edna T. Schaeffer Humanist Award. The Society for the
History of Technology (SHOT) contributed a much-needed boost to this book
project through the SHOT Writing and Publication Workshop at Woods Hole,
Massachusetts, in the summer of 2004. There I gained valuable insights into
advanced writing for a general audience from professional writers and editors
as well as specific critiques and advice on a portion of this book from Tom Jehn,
Larry Cohen, Rosalind Williams and fellow participants Gwen Bingle, Vera Can-
diani, Maja Fjaestad, Maril Hazlett, Per Hogselius, Anders Houltz, Helen Wat-
kins, Matt Wisnioski, Timothy Wolters, and Shana Worthen. This book, while
far from perfect, is immensely better due to revisions I made in response to my
many critics and supporters. Despite all of this expert guidance and help, flaws
remain and are mine alone.
Auto Mechanics
