ABSTRACT
Why did southeastern Michigan become the industry’s home early in the twentieth century? The ‘great person’ view of development is especially popular among historians of automobile production, especially consistent with the approach taken by behavioral geographers. More than most other industries, the history of motor vehicle production in the United States has been explained through the biographies of inventors, written with the benefit of hindsight concerning the handful of firms which survived (Hurley 1959:416). According to this behavioral perspective, America was carried into the horseless-carriage age by visionary pioneers, some like Ford, Olds, Buick, and Dodge, whose names still grace contemporary cars, and others like Durant, Leland, and Joy less well-known today. Southeastern Michigan’s dominance was an accident which resulted from the fact that the area happened to be the home of a remarkable collection of inventive genius.
