Why Amesbury Never Became Another Detroit
Advertisement for the Bailey Electric Victoria Phaeton, 1913. The S.R. Bailey Co. was probably the most successful Amesbury maker of complete automobiles. They produced a line of electric cars from 1908 to 1915. (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)
As one of the five major carriage-making centers of the U.S. near the turn of the 20th Century, Amesbury seemed poised to make a transition to automobile-making. After all, wasn’t the automobile simply a “horseless carriage?” While it’s true that Amesbury made a respectable mark in the manufacture of automobile bodies, it never gained a reputation for making complete and ready-to-drive automobiles.
So why didn’t an industrial town so successful at making an important automobile component ever evolve into a center for making whole autos? Mike Harrold of the ACM Industrial History Survey Group asked himself that question, and his well honed research and analytical skills provide us with an answer. Mike’s recent report, Complete Automobiles Made in Amesbury, comes with plenty of data and logic to support its conclusion: “Core automotive technology departed from Amesbury’s woodworking past in its design requirements and production methods.”
The transition from making horse-drawn carriages to automotive bodies seemed natural enough. But carriage-making was mainly a woodworker’s trade, and the durability and strength needed for the frames and suspensions of heavier and faster automobiles was beyond what skilled Amesbury woodworkers could design and build in any great numbers. What’s more, explains Complete Automobiles, little Amesbury lacked the deep-pocket investors and the experience in making necessary mechanical components such as engines, transmissions and suspension systems.
This doesn’t mean the idea of making complete automobiles never occurred to the auto body manufacturers in town. Complete Automobiles Made in Amesbury names about ten companies and individuals who proposed or produced complete autos between 1899 and 1915. These included cars powered by electricity, gasoline and steam. Sadly, few of the names on the list are familiar today.