Bibliography for 
Automobile Engineering

last updated January 31, 2000

Thomas J. Misa 
Charles Babbage Institute 
University of Minnesota 
Minneapolis MN 55455

Table of Contents

Early History (to 1945) 
Recent History (from 1945) 
The Car and the City
Ford and Fordism
See also IIT titles on technological systems, iron and steel, History of Engineering

Books in IIT's Galvin Library are linked to the Library's computer catalogue:GALVIN.

Early History (to 1945)

Barber, Herbert Lee. 1917. Story of the automobile, its history and development from 1760 to 1917, with an analysis of the standing and prospects of the automobile industry. Chicago: A. J. Munson. GALVIN[See especially the chapter on American perceptions of the automobile's future.]

Boyd, Thomas Alvin. 1957. Professional amateur: the biography of Charles Franklin Kettering. New York: Dutton. [see Leslie 1983 first] GALVIN

Bryant, L. 1966. "The Silent Otto." Technology & Culture 7: 184-200. GALVIN

Chandler, Alfred Dupont (ed.). 1964. Giant Enterprise: Ford, General Motors, and the automobile industry. New York: Harcourt Brace & World. GALVIN

Diesel, Eugen, et al. 1960. From Engines to Autos: Five Pioneers. Chicago: Regnery. [European inventors of internal-combustion engines and cars--the roots of Mercedes-Benz]

Doolittle, James Rood (ed.). 1916. The romance of the automobile industry: being the story of its development, its contribution to health and prosperity,its influence on eugenics, its effect on personal efficiency, and its service and mission to humanity as the latest and greatest phase of transportation. New York: Klebold Press. GALVIN

Flink, James J.  1970. America adopts the automobile, 1895-1910. Cambridge: MIT Press. GALVIN

Flink, James J.  1975.  The car culture.  Cambridge: MIT Press. GALVIN

Flink, James J. 1988. The Automobile Age. Cambridge: MIT Press. GALVIN

Gartman, David. 1986. Auto slavery: the labor process in the American automobile industry, 1897-1950. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press

Gartman, David. 1994. Auto-Opium: A Social History of American Automobile Design. New York and London, Routledge.

General Motors Corporation.  1941.  Research, science and the motor car.  Detroit, Mich., General Motors Corporation. [a collection of eleven booklets regularly published separately, dealing with various phases of the automobile]GALVIN

Gott, Philip G. 1991. Changing Gears: The Development of the Automotive Transmission. Warrendale, Pa.: Society of Automotive Engineers.

Hounshell, David A. 1984. From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins. GALVIN[see chapter 6 on Ford Motor Company and mass production]

Kline, Ronald and Trevor Pinch. 1996. "Users as agents of technological change: The social construction of the automobile in the rural United States." Technology and Culture 37: 763-795. GALVIN

Leslie, Stuart W. 1983. Boss Kettering. NY: Columbia. GALVIN[first-rate biography of GM's chief engineer, Charles F. Kettering]

Ling, Peter J. 1990. America and the Automobile: Technology, Reform and Social Change. New York: St. Martin's Press.

May, George S. (ed.). 1989. The Automobile Industry, 1920-1980. New York: Facts on File. Encyclopedia of American business history and biography. GALVIN

May, George S. (ed.). 1990. The Automotive Industry, 1896-1920. New York, Facts on File/Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography.

May, George S. 1974. A most unique machine; the Michigan origins of the American automobile industry. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. GALVIN

May, George S. 1977. R. E. Olds, auto industry pioneer. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. GALVIN

McShane, Clay. 1994. Down the Asphalt Path: The Automobile and the American City. New York: Columbia Univ. Press. <see Misa>

Misa, Thomas J. 1995. A Nation of Steel: The Making of Modern America, 1865-1925. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins. GALVIN[see chapter 6 'The Imperative of Automobiles' for founding of SAE, innovations of alloy-, sheet-, and electric-furnace steels]

Rae, John Bell. 1965. The American automobile: a brief history. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. GALVIN

Scharff, Virginia. 1991. Taking the Wheel: Women and the Coming of the Motor Age. New York, Free Press. GALVIN

Schiffer, Michael Brian. 1994. Taking Charge: The Electric Automobile in America. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. GALVIN

Seely, Bruce E. 1987. Building the American Highway System: Engineers as Policy Makers. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. GALVIN

Thomas, Donald E. 1987. Diesel: Technology and Society in Industrial Germany. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. GALVIN


Recent History (from 1945)

Abernathy, William J., Kim B. Clark, Alan M. Kantrow.  1983. Industrial renaissance : producing a competitive future for America.  New York: Basic Books.  GALVIN

Birsch, Douglas, and John H. Fielder.  The Ford Pinto case: a study in applied ethics,
business, and technology.  Albany, NY : State University of New York Press, 1994.  Location: IIT's CSEP Library HF5387.F671994

Cusumano, Michael A. 1985. The Japanese automobile industry: technology and management at Nissan and Toyota. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. GALVIN

Flink, James J. 1988. The Automobile Age. Cambridge: MIT Press. GALVIN

May, George S. (ed.). 1989. The Automobile Industry, 1920-1980. New York: Facts on File. Encyclopedia of American business history and biography. GALVIN

Nader, Ralph. 1965. Unsafe at any speed: the designed-in dangers of the American automobile. New York: Grossman. GALVIN

Post, Robert C. 1994. High Performance: The Culture and Technology of Drag Racing, 1950-1990. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins.   GALVIN

Seely, Bruce E. 1987. Building the American Highway System: Engineers as Policy Makers. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. GALVIN

Womack, James P. et al.  1990. The Machine That Changed the World. New York: Rawson Associates.  [Based on a five-year study on the "Future of the Automobile" at M.I.T.] GALVIN

Zeitlin, Jonathan. 1991. Between Fordism and Flexibility: The Automobile Industry and Its Workers. New York and Oxford: Berg.


The Car and the City

Barrett, Paul. 1983. The automobile and urban transit: the formation of public policy in Chicago, 1900-1930. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. GALVIN

Bottles, Scott L. 1987. Los Angeles and the automobile: the making of the modern city. Berkeley: University of California Press. GALVIN

Foster, Mark S. 1981. From streetcar to superhighway: American city planners and urban transportation, 1900-1940. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. GALVIN

Preston, Howard L. 1979. Automobile age Atlanta: the making of a southern metropolis, 1900-1935. Athens: University of Georgia Press. GALVIN

Wachs, Martin (ed.). 1994. The Car and the City: The Automobile, the Built Environment, and Daily Urban Life. Ann Arbor: Univ. Michigan Press. GALVIN

[Contents: Wachs, Martin / . Crawford, Margaret / Introduction: The Car and the City. Warner, Sam Bass, Jr. / Learning from the Past: Services to Families. Jackson, John B. / Truck City. Corn, Joseph J. / Work and Vehicles: A Comment and Note. Rosenbloom, Sandra / Why Working Families Need a Car. Berger, Michael L. / The Car's Impact on the American Family. Scharff, Virginia / Gender, Electricity, and Automobility. Wachs, Martin / Men, Women, and Urban Travel: The Persistence of Separate Spheres. Gebhard, David / The Suburban House and the Automobile. Buckley, Drummond / A Garage in the House. Longstreth, Richard / The Perils of a Parkless Town. Flink, James J. / The Ultimate Status Symbol: The Custom Coachbuilt Car in the Interwar Period. Hess, Alan / Styling the Strip: Car and Roadside Design in the 1950s. Foster, Mark S. / The Role of the Automobile in Shaping a Unique City: Another Look. Bottles, Scott L. / Mass Politics and the Adoption of the Automobile in Los Angeles. Morales, Rebecca / Place and Auto Manufacture in the Post-Fordist Era. Crawford, Margaret / The Fifth Ecology: Fantasy, the Automobile, and Los Angeles. Novaco, Raymond W. / Automobile Driving and Aggressive Behavior. Myers, Barton / . Dale, John / Designing in Car-Oriented Cities: An Argument for Episodic Urban Congestion. Webber, Melvin M. / The Joys of Automobility. Adelson, Marvin / The Car, the City, and What We Want.]

Ford and Fordism

Birsch, Douglas, and John H. Fielder.  The Ford Pinto case: a study in applied ethics,
business, and technology.  Albany, NY : State University of New York Press, 1994.   GALVIN Location--IIT's CSEP Library HF5387.F671994

Bucci, Federico.  Albert Kahn: Architect of Ford.  New York, N.Y. : Princeton Architectural Press, c1993.   GALVIN Location: ARCHITECTURE NA737.K28B83131993

Chinoy, Ely.  1955.  Automobile workers and the American dream.  Garden City: Doubleday.  GALVIN

Edsforth, Ronald.  1987.  Class conflict and cultural consensus: the making of a mass consumer society in Flint, Michigan.  New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Jardim, Anne.  The first Henry Ford: a study in personality and business leadership.  Cambridge: MIT Press, 1970.  GALVIN

Lacey, Robert.  Ford, the men and the machine.  Boston: Little, Brown, 1986.  GALVIN

Lewis, David Lanier.  The public image of Henry Ford: an American folk hero
and his company.  Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1976.  GALVIN

Linhart, Robert.  1981.  The assembly line; translated by Margaret Crosland.  Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press. [Automobile industry workers--France--Case studies.] GALVIN

Meyer, Stephen.  The five dollar day: Labor, management, and socialcontrol in the Ford Motor Company, 1908-1921.  Albany, N.Y. : State University of New York Press, 1981.  [Ford's snooping-squad in the Sociological Department that vetted workers for the $5 wage.] GALVIN

Nevins, Allan and Frank Ernest Hill (et al.)  Ford. New York: Scribner, 1954-63.  3 volumes.  [The standard biography of Ford]  GALVIN

1. The times, the man, the company.
2. Expansion and challenge, 1915-1933
3. Decline and rebirth, 1933-1962
Walker, Charles Rumford.  1952.  The man on the assembly line.  Cambridge: Harvard University Press.  GALVIN

Widick, B. J.  1976.  Auto work and its discontents.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.  GALVIN

Zeitlin, Jonathan. 1991. Between Fordism and Flexibility: The Automobile Industry and Its Workers. New York and Oxford: Berg.