Auto is "Progress in the Animal World" ( 1899 )

[Guest]

I was listening to my daughter Nora reherse her lines as Hernry Ford in a 2nd grade play, when she said "My name is Henry Ford, and I invented the automobile." I informed her that Henry Ford did not invent the automobile. She, of course, asked me who did. Well, I didn't exactly know, but I thought it was Benz or someone else in the 1880's. <P>Fortuneately, I had recently purchased a book on eBay from 1899 entitled "Triumphs and Wonders of the 19th Century". I decided to look it up there, because it had chapters on "Wonders of Electricity", "Evolution of the Railway", Progress in Mines and Mining", "Progress in Civil Engineering" and other chapters like that. But amazingly, I could not find anywhere in the index that seemed to talk about the automible. <P>I finally decided to just flip through the 726 page book because I was sure it had to be somewhere. And yes it was, in the chapter entitled "Progress in the Animal World" It was at the end of the chapter, and had a picture entitled "Automobile or Horseless Carriage". It didn't cover much detail, but mentioned "the tendency to displace horses and adopt mechanical motors"<P>- Scott Forbes<BR>Edina, MN

[Guest]

Unfortunately, the teacher probably didn't know Henry Ford did not invent the automobile. <P>And so a whole 2nd grade class of future American adults will grow up misinformed. And I'll bet they would not allow the lines in the play to be changed. ~ hvs

[Guest]

You are right that the teacher thought Henry Ford invented the automobile. But fortunately the teacher was open to letting my daughter modify the lines as she saw fit. We left it at "Henry Ford was the first one to mass produce the automobile," which I believe is accurate.