"The largest vehicle house in the world" — Studebaker's billing of itself

Proclaimed by the company by 1872 · Tested against the census of manufactures

The claim. That Studebaker was the largest wagon and vehicle maker in the world is the most repeated superlative in South Bend's history. Its claimant is documented: the Smithsonian's timeline of the company, drawn from the Studebaker National Museum's materials, records under 1872 that "the company proclaims itself to be the 'largest vehicle builders in the world.'" After the fire of 1874 destroyed two-thirds of the works, the rebuilt plant — twenty acres in solid brick — carried the house-history form of the words: "the largest vehicle house in the world." The billing passed into the reference record: the Indiana Historical Society's finding aid calls the company "the largest wagon manufacturer in the world," and the standard encyclopedia entry states that Studebaker "became the world's largest manufacturer" of wagons.

The record. What a disinterested instrument says is narrower and still very large. The federal census of manufactures, read first-hand for the Industrial Revolution file, puts South Bend in 1909 second in Indiana manufacturing overall and first in carriages and wagons, with more than a third of the state's output of them — the census's own finding, in the state's frame. The national frame supports dominance: the encyclopedia record credits Studebaker with "the dominant share of the large farm wagon market," and by 1870 the company was the United States government's largest supplier of wagons. Production at documented size: sales past two million dollars and 75,000 vehicles a year by the late 1880s, a hundred wagons and carriages every twenty-four hours by 1898. No census, American or foreign, ever enumerated the world's vehicle output in a table against which the superlative could be checked; the world's other great wagon-building centers were never counted in the same instrument.

What the record leaves. The claim is partly supported. Its mechanism is documented — the company announced it of itself, by 1872, and the announcement hardened into the reference literature — and its American substance is documented: the dominant share of the nation's farm-wagon market and first place in its own state by the federal count. The world superlative itself rests on no enumeration that exists; it is the company's billing, repeated by historians, and this section prints it as exactly that.

Sources

1. Smithsonian Institution, "From Horses to Horsepower: Studebaker Helped Move a Nation" (Kent C. Boese) — the 1872 milepost: the company "proclaims itself to be the 'largest vehicle builders in the world.'"
2. The Studebaker house-history tradition as carried in the encyclopedic record — after the 1874 fire, the rebuilt works as "the largest vehicle house in the world."
3. Indiana Historical Society, Studebaker Visual Materials Collection finding aid — "the largest wagon manufacturer in the world."
4. Encyclopedia.com, "Studebaker" — "became the world's largest manufacturer"; "the dominant share of the large farm wagon market"; by 1870 the government's largest supplier of wagons.
5. The Industrial Revolution file in this record — the Census of Manufactures of 1909, read from rendered page images: South Bend second in Indiana manufacturing, first in carriages and wagons, over a third of the state's output.
6. The Studebaker file in this record — production and sales at documented size across the wagon era.