ABSTRACT
After World War II ended a wave of consumerism swept the nation. Of all the items that Americans planned to purchase, the automobile topped the list as one war time survey by Fortune magazine discovered: "people want an auto before everything else." Consequently, American automobile manufacturers had high expectations for the post-war period. In 1944 American manufacturers produced slightly over one thousand automobiles. The American Automobile Association noted that the Keystone State had seven of the nation's top ninety-five city/county auto markets—Philadelphia, Allegheny/Pittsburgh, Erie, Luzerne/Wilkes-Barre, Delaware/Chester, Montgomery/Norristown, and Lackawanna/Scranton. In Multiple-line Insurance, G. E. Michelbacher explained how the "factory" worked: Agents produce "a flood of risks that pour into the underwriting department. The rapid post-war expansion of the ERIE meant tremendously increased demand for the underwriting functions of assessing risks and processing insurance policy applications. In information- and people-intensive industry, the success of Erie Insurance, would rest on the people it employed.
