Detroit Public Library Opens Documents Of Auto Industry's War Production to Researchers

DETROIT--June 25, 2012: A massive document collection recording the American automobile industry's role in World War II is now open to historians and researchers, the Detroit Public Library has announced.

Files of the Automotive Council for War Production chronicle the industry's rapid wartime conversion that made Detroit famous as "the Arsenal of Democracy," said Mark Bowden, the library's curator of special collections.

Housed in the library's National Automotive History Collection (NAHC), the manuscript collection covers the council's activity from 1942 to 1946. It filled 77 boxes and included nearly 4,000 photographs when it was donated to the NAHC by the Automobile Manufacturers Association in the 1950s. It is now processed and available to researchers at the NAHC in the library's Skillman Branch in downtown Detroit.

The wartime collection includes papers, records, documents and invoices of the council, which was led by Lieutenant General William Knudsen.  An expert on mass production, Knudsen was the president of General Motors when President Roosevelt asked him to take the job.  Some 654 manufacturing companies joined the council and produced nearly $29 billion worth of vehicles, tanks, engines, and other war products for the allied military forces.

The NAHC is regarded as the nation's premier public automotive archive.  Established in 1953, it contains over 600,000 processed documents and photographs relating to automobile history, design, marketing, engineering and the automobile's impact on society.  It is a treasure trove for historians, journalists, car collectors and restorers, and simply anyone interested in cars.      

The NAHC is open to the public at 121 Gratiot in downtown Detroit.