Mass Production and the U.S. Tire Industry

Abstract

The study of mass production has been strongly influenced in recent years by two dissimilar bodies of work—that of Alfred D. Chandler and that of Harry Braverman and others who argue that mass production helped managers “deskill” and “control” industrial workers. The history of the U.S. tire industry between 1910 and 1930 underlines the value of Chandler's analysis and the limited applicability of the deskilling and control hypotheses.