|
|
|
Reviews
| Roy D. Chapin: The Man behind the Hudson Motor Car Company. By J. C. Long. Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State Univ. Press, 2004. xix+269 pp., illus., index. $19.95 pb (ISBN 0-8143-3184-X).
|
Although underappreciated today, Roy Chapin (1880–1936) led a remarkable career and became one of the most significant leaders in the automobile industry in the United States. As a co-founder of the Hudson Motor Car Company, Chapin was at the center of developments that improved automotive technology, refined automotive business practices, and shaped the automobile's preeminent position in American culture. After his death, Chapin's family commissioned the business writer and biographer J. C. Long to produce a privately printed and carefully distributed biography in 1945. Thanks to Wayne State University, that 60-year-old work is now available to a wider audience, supplemented with several previously unpublished photographs from the family collection.
|
1
|
The biography is strongest in the early chapters. Describing the tumultuous beginnings of the U.S. automotive industry in a lively style, Long explains how Chapin could drop out of the University of Michigan yet land on his feet with the R. E. Olds Motor Works. Although no one realized it at the time, the 21-year-old Chapin had become a leading man at one of the most important automobile companies in the U.S. At Olds, Chapin learned the technical side of the industry and found his niche as a specialist in sales, marketing, and finance. Chapin and three colleagues—Howard E. Coffin, James J. Brady, and Frederick E. Benzer—eventually became frustrated with Olds and formed their own firm, the E. R. Thomas-Detroit Company. Through this venture, Chapin secured important financial backing from Detroit banks, a significant development in a time when Wall Street investors were hostile to the new industry. Also important, Chapin visited several European manufacturers and gained an appreciation for the importance of comfort and quiet in automobile design.
|
2
|
The partners' next venture, Hudson Motors, began in 1909 when they found an investor in Joseph L. Hudson, owner of the largest department store in Detroit. Chapin and his partners in the "trio" (Brady soon severed his ties to the company) again were in a position to lead the industry. Hudson hired the innovative industrial architect Albert Kahn to design the manufacturing plant, built alliances with parts suppliers, and introduced several engineering innovations. Although always situated in the industry's second tier, far behind Ford and General Motors, Hudson remained a solid producer and profit maker for decades. By about 1912, Chapin and his partners had enough wealth to devote their attention to other interests.
|
3
|
At this point, Long's narrative takes a disappointing turn. Throughout its second half, the book's focus is Chapin's personal life, particularly his happy marriage with Inez Tiedeman. Although less involved with daily affairs at Hudson, Chapin remained an industry leader. He pushed for trucks and automobiles as essential for modern military operations, lobbied for good roads and international standards in roadway engineering, and fought against legislation that would tax automobiles as luxury goods rather than as normal manufactured products. In addition, Chapin also kept Hudson an important player in the industry, particularly as its subsidiary automobile, the Essex, demonstrated consumer demand for affordable closed-cab designs.
|
4
|
The book is, of course, a reflection of its sources. As Long had access to many private letters, he is able to describe the couple's courtship, children, social life, and charity work in considerable detail. On the other hand, because the author consulted few business records, there is relatively little information on the company's financial ups and downs or relationships with its suppliers, laborers, and competitors. Long's treatment of Chapin's important work for the National Automotive Chamber of Commerce, the Lincoln Highway Association, the Pan American Highway Commission, and other interest groups could have been considerably more thorough. As a consequence, a substantial portion of the Roy Chapin Papers held at the University of Michigan remains untapped. The author consulted no government sources, so Chapin's work with the Council of National Defense and other public organizations receives little attention. Perhaps most glaring, Long's treatment of Chapin's service as Secretary of Commerce—a position that he took on at the height of the Depression—amounts to little more than a summary of the family's position in the Washington social scene.
|
5
|
Chapin returned to Detroit in 1933, to a company that had been devastated by the Depression. According to Long, Hudson regained profitability "thanks to Roy's Herculean efforts" (p. 256) and despite what the author describes as unreasonable meddling from the Democratic Party and labor organizers. The details of this transformation are sketchy, however, and Long fails to provide a thorough examination of the issues that challenged the automobile industry in its second generation.
|
6
|
| In sum, this treatment of Roy Chapin's early career is thorough and engaging, and Long succeeds in demonstrating that Chapin was a vital founder and national leader of the automotive industry. Wayne State University Press deserves credit for bringing a biography of this unsung industry pioneer back into the light. |
7
|
|
|
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|