1923 | Transportation
Transportation
The United State Lines ship S.S. Leviathan leaves New York for Southampton on her maiden voyage July 4 (see 1922). She has a top speed of 27 knots and a service speed of 23 knots, can carry 3,909 passengers but will often sail with as few as 800 because passengers favor British and other European liners that are not subject to the U.S. Prohibition law and reputedly provide better service; her owners call the Leviathan the largest ship afloat (the White Star Line's R.M.S. Majestic is actually larger), and she will be reduced in size from 54,282 gross tons to 48,932 in 1931 in order to save on harbor dues (which are based on size) (see 1938).
Aeroflot has its beginnings July 15 when a six-passenger ANT-2 flight takes off from Moscow for Nizhny Novgorod. The plane takes 3½ hours to cover the 200-mile distance (see 1932).
KLM inaugurates air service between Amsterdam and Brussels (see 1920; 1946).
Sabena (Société Anonyme Belge d'Exploitation de la Navigation Aérienne), founded at Brussels, will be the Belgian national airline.
Pan American World Airways has its beginnings in a New York City service started by local bond salesman Juan (Terry) Trippe, 24, who quits his job and joins his friend John Hambleton in buying nine flying boats the U.S. Navy was about to scrap (see 1925).
German aircraft designer Wilhelm Messerschmitt, 27, establishes a manufacturing firm under his own name while continuing to work as an engineer for Bayerische Flugzeugwerke. Messerschmitt designed his first plane during the war at age 18.
The autogyro invented by Spanish aeronaut Juan de la Cierva, 27, has a large horizontal free-running rotor plus a conventional propeller for forward power but no conventional wings (see Sikorsky helicopter, 1913; 1939).
Canadian National Railways is created October 24 by a takeover of bankrupt roads and a merger of the roads with the government-owned Grand Trunk and Intercolonial roads to form a government-owned rail network larger than any other in the Western Hemisphere. Canadian National has 20,573 miles of track—7,000 miles more than Canadian Pacific, whose Milwaukee-born chairman Thomas G. (George) Shaughnessy, 1st Baron Shaughnessy, dies at Montreal December 10 at age 70.
Elmer Sperry invents a device for detecting and measuring defects in railroad rails (see gyroscope, 1910; 1913). He will perfect the device in 1928, and the first Sperry detector cars will go into service in November of that year.
The BMW R32 motorcycle is introduced by the 6-year-old German airplane engine maker, which will gain a reputation with its high-speed motorcycles before turning to sportscar production under the name Bavarian Motor Works.
The Triumph motorcar is introduced by the British firm that started making motorcycles in 1903. The company will continue making sportscars until 1984 (see Leyland, 1961).
Major U.S. automakers include front-wheel brakes, foot-controlled headlamp dimmer switches, and power-operated windshield wipers in their cars; they also inaugurate annual style changes that make older models stylistically obsolete in a move that will force smaller companies out of the market and prevent new ones from entering. Alfred P. Sloan supports the idea that has been pushed by Hollywood, Calif.-born GM stylist Harley Earl, 30, a six-foot-four 235-pound giant who will have great influence on the design of GM cars. Although 43 U.S. companies will be making automobiles by 1926, only 10 will still be at it by 1935, and no new domestic manufacturer will crack the market successfully after this year (see Kaiser, 1946). Planned obsolescence will be a major part of U.S. automotive marketing as Americans buy new cars to "keep up with the Joneses" even though their old cars still perform perfectly well; foreign makers will retain successful models much longer before replacing or even modifying them.
Walter P. Chrysler becomes president of a reorganized Maxwell Motor Co. and begins to develop a line of innovative new motorcars (see Buick, 1912). Now 48, he quit his position as president of Buick division 3 years ago in a dispute with General Motors president W. C. Durant and has helped reorganize Willys-Overland (see 1924).
U.S. auto production reaches 3,780,358, up from 543,679 in 1914; 51.85 percent are Fords, and production of Model T Fords peaks at 1.8 million units. More than 13 million cars are on U.S. roads and 108 companies are engaged in adding to the total, but 10 automakers account for 90 percent of sales.
The Hertz Drive-Ur-Self System is founded at Chicago by Yellow Cab Co. president John D. Hertz, now 45, who buys a company that started in 1918 with 12 used cars operating out of a lot in South Michigan Avenue. Hertz will be the world's largest auto rental concern.
The automatic traffic light patented November 20 by Kentucky-born Cleveland inventor-industrialist Garrett A. (Augustus) Morgan, 46, will soon replace manually-operated lights at city street crossings (see 1914). The son of onetime slaves, Morgan has educated himself and earlier invented the prototype of the gas mask credited with saving many lives during the Great War; the sight of a collision between an automobile and a horse-drawn carriage has shocked him into trying to find a way to prevent such accidents, and he will sell his traffic-signal technology to General Electric for $40,000. The earliest known electrically interlocked traffic-signal system was installed last year at Houston, but many will regard Morgan as the father of traffic safety technology.