LEADER 04301nam 2200757 a 450 001 9910822613003321 005 20240418024057.0 010 $a1-283-89084-4 010 $a0-8122-0193-0 024 7 $a10.9783/9780812201932 035 $a(CKB)3240000000064675 035 $a(OCoLC)607689426 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebrary10641599 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000606736 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11390933 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000606736 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10581700 035 $a(PQKB)10067190 035 $a(MdBmJHUP)muse8309 035 $a(DE-B1597)449048 035 $a(OCoLC)1013948757 035 $a(OCoLC)1037983032 035 $a(OCoLC)1041924343 035 $a(OCoLC)1046616357 035 $a(OCoLC)1046996421 035 $a(OCoLC)1049619378 035 $a(OCoLC)1054880394 035 $a(OCoLC)979740594 035 $a(DE-B1597)9780812201932 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL3441764 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10641599 035 $a(CaONFJC)MIL420334 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC3441764 035 $a(EXLCZ)993240000000064675 100 $a20041222d2005 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurcn||||||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aTinkering$b[electronic resource] $econsumers reinvent the early automobile /$fKathleen Franz 205 $a1st ed. 210 $aPhiladelphia $cUniversity of Pennsylvania Press$dc2005 215 $a1 online resource (233 p.) 300 $aBibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph 311 $a0-8122-2158-3 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. [167]-217) and index. 327 $tFront matter --$tContents --$tIntroduction. Automobiles in the Machine Age --$t1. What Consumers Wanted --$t2. Women's Ingenuity --$t3. Consumers Become Inventors --$t4. A Tinkerer's Story --$t5. The Automotive Industry Takes the Stage --$tEpilogue: Tinkering from Customizing to Car Talk --$tNotes --$tIndex --$tAcknowledgments 330 $aIn the first decades after mass production, between 1913 and 1939, middle-class Americans not only bought cars but also enthusiastically redesigned them. By examining the ways Americans creatively adapted their automobiles, Tinkering takes a fresh look at automotive design from the bottom up, as a process that included manufacturers, engineers, advice experts, and consumers in various guises. Franz argues that automobile ownership opened new possibilities for ingenuity among consumers even as large corporations came to control innovation. Franz weaves together a variety of sources, from serial fiction to corporate documents, to explore tinkering as a form of authority in a culture that valued ingenuity. Women drivers represented one group of consumers who used tinkering to advance their claim to social autonomy. Some canny drivers moved beyond modifying their individual cars to become independent inventors, patenting and selling automotive accessories for the burgeoning national demand for aftermarket products. Earl S. Tupper was one such tinkerer who went on to invent Tupperware. These savvy tinkerers worked in a changing landscape of invention shaped increasingly by automotive giants. By the 1930's, Ford and General Motors worked to change the popular discourse of ingenuity and used the world's fairs of the Depression as a stage to promote a hierarchy of innovation. Franz not only demonstrates the entrepreneurial spirit of American consumers but she engages larger historical questions about gender, consumption and ingenuity while charting the impact corporate expansion on tinkering during the first half of the twentieth century. 606 $aAutomobiles$zUnited States$xHistory 606 $aAutomobile industry and trade$zUnited States$xHistory 606 $aTransportation, Automotive$zUnited States$xHistory 610 $aAmerican History. 610 $aAmerican Studies. 615 0$aAutomobiles$xHistory. 615 0$aAutomobile industry and trade$xHistory. 615 0$aTransportation, Automotive$xHistory. 676 $a629.222/0973 700 $aFranz$b Kathleen$01660950 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910822613003321 996 $aTinkering$94016536 997 $aUNINA