Here’s the most fascinating and educational clip you’ll watch today: A look inside the bustling Detroit Hudson plant at work in 1934. Auto manufacturing has changed completely since then. Just watch.
From 1911 through 1954, the grand old Hudson Motor Car Company plant at Jefferson and Conner in Detroit churned out Hudson, Essex, and Terraplane cars, and this short film records what must have been a typical day in 1934. Production that year was down significantly from the 1929 peak of 300,000 units, but the lines still look bustling in ’34 with nearly 86,000 vehicles produced.
Indeed, the word bustling does not quite capture the scene. The first thing that jumps out at us: the immense numbers of people at work. Building cars in those days was an incredibly labor-intensive process, and the big Detroit plants, Hudson included, each employed tens of thousands of workers. Before mechanization and automation arrived, the Motor City auto industry was the nation’s engine of employment, but not anymore. A contemporary auto plant looks like a ghost village in comparison. There are very few humans in view.
We can also see here that unlike some other auto plants, Hudson employed women in significant numbers. Here we find women working in the light assembly departments, building instrument panels and so on, and in the final assembly area. Hudson had a reputation as a more sociable and family-friendly environment than some other Detroit shops. But although there is nothing in our film clip here to suggest it, Hudson had its labor troubles like every other automaker. In 1934, the organizing campaigns were already under way, and after several strikes and a sit-down protest in Hudson’s nearby body plant, the company recognized Local 154 of the United Auto Workers in 1937. There are many such history lessons in this little clip. Video below.
In todays cars you don’t get wishes. You get what they sell you. They sell you packages so in order to get what you want you have to take the whole package. The particular car in the presentation was ordered with a Polyspherical head V-8 and a Automatic trans. The same car could be ordered with a six cylinder and a stick shift. Try having that same kind of flexibility today.
The first automatics were sold by GM in 1939 or 1940, the polysphere V-8 was a Plymouth engine from the mid 50s to the mid 60s. The only Hudsons with a V-8 I ever saw were ‘Hudsonbakers’ after Studebaker & Hudson merged in the 50s. Someone who has more in depth knowledge of prewar Hudsons please step in here.
Hudson and Studebaker never merged, it was proposed but never happened. What did happen was Nash and Hudson merged and came out with a V8 of 327 ci. Simultaneously Studebaker and Packerd merged, the Packard 352/371 V8 was scrapped and the smaller Studebaker V8 soldiered on.
Hudson and Nash merged. Studebaker wasn’t involved.
Looks like the assembly wasn’t fully in use yet, you can guys picking up parts and carrying them off to the cars. As with most films of the era, it’s probably speeded up a bit, but even if it were at normal speed they are working fast. So many people on the floor they were constantly getting in each other’s way!
Automation sure killed off the workers!