Ransom Eli Olds

• Born: June 3, 1864
• Birthplace: Geneva, Ohio
• Died: August 26, 1950
• Place of death: Lansing, Michigan

American automobile manufacturer

By building his two steam-powered carriages and then a gasoline-powered vehicle, Olds was able to find practical solutions to the problems that stood in the way of the development of the automobile. As a manufacturer, Olds was just as innovative. By outsourcing parts and organizing an assembly line, he revolutionized the production process.

Primary fields: Automotive technology; manufacturing

Primary invention: Olds horseless carriage

Early Life

Ransom Eli Olds was the fourth son and youngest of five children born to Pliny Fisk Olds—the son of Jason Olds, a Congregational minister who had come from Massachusetts to Ohio as a missionary—and his wife Sarah Whipple Olds. At the time of Ransom’s birth, Pliny still owned the blacksmith and machine shop in Geneva, Ohio, that he had established ten years before. Even as a young child, Ransom spent much of his time in the shop, sometimes making toys with the help of his older brothers. Evidently the business was not doing well, for in 1870 Pliny traded it for a house in Cleveland, Ohio, where he became superintendent at an ironworks. Ransom started school in Cleveland. Though he was shy, he must have been appealing, for at the end of the year his teacher presented him with a book. However, the boy’s happiest memories were of his visits to the ironworks, which he found fascinating.

After four years in Cleveland, Pliny acquired a farm at nearby Parma. Ransom, now ten, went to a country school a mile from his home. At lunchtime, he avoided the boys his age, whom he found too rough, and played with the girls instead. Though he enjoyed helping his father repair tools in his small blacksmith shop, Ransom developed an aversion to farming and especially to the smell of horses, which he later said motivated him to develop a horseless carriage.

In 1878, Pliny gave up farming and went back to Cleveland to work as a pattern maker, taking Ransom with him so that the boy could go to school there. In 1880, Pliny managed to trade his farm for property in Lansing, Michigan, and the family was reunited. In 1880, Pliny and his son Wallace opened P. F. Olds and Son, where they repaired machinery and manufactured steam engines. Ransom Olds attended high school briefly, dropping out after tenth grade.

Life’s Work

From 1882 to 1883, Ransom Olds took courses at Bartlett’s Business College so that he could attend to the bookkeeping at his father’s shop. In 1885, Olds bought out his brother Wallace and became his father’s partner. One of Olds’s inventions, a steam engine powered by a gasoline burner, became their most profitable product. Pliny Olds was dubious about his son’s next project, a three-wheel horseless carriage powered by a similar device. Nevertheless, it was completed in 1887. A four-wheel horseless carriage followed five years later.

Meanwhile, Olds had begun courting Metta Ursula Woodward, a quiet, high-principled girl from Pinckney, Michigan. On June 5, 1889, they were married. Eventually they had four children, but only the first two, Gladys Marguerite and Bernice Estelle, survived infancy. Metta is credited with persuading Olds to become active in the Baptist Church and involved in community activities.

Like other early automakers, Olds experimented with battery-powered vehicles, but after seeing the internal combustion engines displayed at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, he decided to switch over to gasoline power. By 1896, Olds had developed his own internal combustion engine, patented it, and turned out a gasoline-powered horseless carriage, which in his patent application he called an automobile. He then divided the family enterprise into the Olds Gasoline Engine Works and the Olds Motor Vehicle Company. It soon became evident that he would need outside financing for his motor vehicle operation, which was seen as a risky venture. In 1899, Olds gave up financial control of his company, renamed his firm the Olds Motor Works, and moved most of the operations to a large, new plant in Detroit. Among the models of what now had the brand name of Oldsmobile was a simple, open vehicle with a curved dash, designed for use as a runabout, that could be sold for the phenomenally low price of $650.

When production on the curved-dash model began in 1901, there were buyers waiting. Then, on March 9, the new plant was destroyed by fire. Fortunately, since he was already obtaining parts from a number of suppliers, then using an assembly line to turn out the finished cars, Olds could switch his operation to the smaller plant in Lansing and continue to build cars while the Detroit facilities were being rebuilt. Despite the disaster, from 1900 to 1903 Oldsmobile produced more automobiles than any other American firm.

However, Olds found that he could no longer control the company he had founded. He was willing to let his backers handle financial matters and sales, but by 1904, when it became clear that Frederic Smith, the son of one of his original investors, intended to supervise production as well, Olds sold his stock, left the firm, and founded the R. E. Olds Company. When the Detroit Olds Motor Works threatened legal action because he had used “Olds” in the name of his new firm, he decided to use his initials instead. The first car built by the Reo Motor Car Company was markedly different from those Olds had previously designed. Instead of the curved dash, the Reo had a bonnet, or hood, which held batteries, the gas tank, and the radiator. It also had a running board and a steering wheel. Moreover, it was larger, heavier, and more powerful than the runabout, and it could carry five passengers. Although the company offered several other models, including its own runabout and an even larger touring car, the Reo was its best-selling vehicle. In 1905 and 1906, the new firm sold more cars than Olds Motor Works did, and in 1908 Smith’s company was taken over by General Motors.

After 1915, however, Olds became increasingly less involved with automobiles. Instead, he devoted his time to other projects, manufacturing a lawn mower he had invented, for example, and trying his hand at investments and real estate. In 1916, he began building a large community on Tampa Bay in Florida, which he called Oldsmar, but it was not a success.

During the last four decades of his life, Olds enjoyed yachting both on the Great Lakes and in Florida and entertaining friends either at the family home in Lansing or at one of his summer places on the Great Lakes. Olds remained active until July 28, 1950, when he complained of feeling ill and was hospitalized. On August 26, he died of cancer. Metta Olds, who had been in ill health for some time, died of pneumonia on September 2, 1950.

Impact

Although he was actively involved in the development and manufacture of automobiles for only two decades, Olds is ranked as one of the most important figures in automotive history. Other inventors had experimented with horseless carriages, but they did not progress from prototype to plant as rapidly as Olds did. There are several reasons for his success. Olds’s experience as a machinist enabled him to work his way through mechanical problems with relative ease. Moreover, he had a rare character trait: the gift of learning from his mistakes. He viewed each new vehicle he built as something that could be improved upon. Finally, he was true to his vision: the elimination of horse-drawn transport, which could only be accomplished if automobiles were inexpensive enough so that everyone could afford them. Olds’s inventiveness is indicated by the fact that the thirty-four patents he obtained included such important automotive mechanisms as carburetors, clutches, engines, and tires.

Certainly, Olds’s success inspired other talented young men to enter the automotive field. They were influenced by him in many ways, such as his commitment to the internal combustion engine, his body designs, and even the substitution of a steering wheel for a tiller. They utilized his inventions and imitated and refined his production methods; some of them, Henry Ford, for example, built their fortunes upon Olds’s vision of an America where everyone could own a car.

Automobile production soon became one of America’s largest industries, and Detroit, where Olds had built his large factory, became the center of production. Automobile ownership gave Americans more freedom than ever before, freedom to live where they liked and to travel whenever they pleased, and the development of the trucking industry gave them access to goods from all over the world. Thus, what began as a simple horseless carriage transformed American society.

Bibliography

May, George S. A Most Unique Machine: The Michigan Origins of the American Automobile Industry. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdsmans, 1975. A study that investigates why the Detroit area became a major automotive center and why certain Michigan mechanics succeeded while others failed. Illustrations, bibliography, notes, and index.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. R. E. Olds: Auto Industry Pioneer. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1977. A scholarly biography that shows the subject not only as a brilliant inventor but also as a person determined to find fulfillment in his life. Includes list of Olds’s patents, bibliographical essay, notes, and index. Illustrated.

Niemeyer, Glenn A. The Automotive Career of Ransom E. Olds. East Lansing: Bureau of Business and Economic Research, Graduate School of Business Administration, Michigan State University, 1963. The first scholarly biography of Olds. Though later research has corrected some factual errors, this remains an important study. Illustrations, notes, chronology, bibliography, and index.

Olsen, Byron, and Joseph Cabadas. The American Auto Factory. St. Paul, Minn.: MBI Publishing, 2002. The first chapter of this lavishly illustrated volume, “From the Craft Method to the Birth of Giants,” explains how Olds developed the production line. Bibliography and index.

Rae, John B. The American Automobile Industry. The Evolution of American Business: Industries, Institutions, and Entrepreneurs. Boston, Mass.: Twayne, 1984. A concise history of the industry, including its development worldwide. Charts and tables, chronology, bibliography, and index.

Rubenstein, James M. Making and Selling Cars: Innovation and Change in the U.S. Automotive Industry. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. Traces development of the industry over the last century and points out how the motor vehicle has revolutionized both production and consumption. Illustrations, tables and graphs, notes, bibliography, index.