In 1895, visionary Rochester, New York, attorney George B. Selden
was granted a patent for a "road-carriage" that he had designed but
not built. In anticipation of a burgeoning American auto industry,
Selden had filed a series of amendments to his application,
delaying the process for sixteen years in order to stretch his
claim out as long as possible. As a result, the Selden patent
covered all gasoline-powered vehicles designed since 1879 and
manufactured, sold, or used in the United States during a
seventeen-year period ending in 1912. Selden's ally, the
Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers, granted licenses
and collected royalties on cars made by other manufacturers until
1903, when the patent was challenged by a coalition of automakers
led by Henry Ford. In this classic study of the Selden patent case,
author William Greenleaf argues that Ford's defiance of the patent
was considered heroic and that his victory in court after a
contentious eight-year trade war was historic. Based on Greenleaf's
extensive research in the Ford corporate archives, Monopoly on
Wheels shows that the real issue at stake in the Selden patent case
was the democratisation of the automobile as a mass-produced,
low-priced commodity as opposed to its former status as the
exclusive property of the wealthy elite. Greenleaf shows that the
suit was a foundation stone, along with the Model T, mass
production methods, and the five-dollar day, upon which Ford's
reputation as a rugged individualist was built. Greenleaf also
investigates implications that the legal battle had beyond the auto
industry for inventions, patents, and technological progress in
general. Monopoly on Wheels vividly illustrates how the Selden
patent battle became a landmark in the social and technological
revolution of the early twentieth century. On the one-hundredth
anniversary of the Selden patent case and fifty years after it was
first published, this volume will be a welcome addition to any auto
historian's library. This reprinted edition also includes a new
introduction by David L. Lewis.
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