September 23, 2008
It’s 1968 women…know your role.
an infuriating tv ad from 1968 for Maxwell House coffee. Meredith and Peg, this is what you had to deal with…
September 2, 2008
History of Ford Motor Company in St. Louis
Even though the nation was engaged in another world war, it had become obvious that the Forest Park facility was badly outdated and would be inadequate for the demands of the postwar automotive market. On Tuesday, November 20, 1945 the St. Louis Post Dispatch ran a press release from Ford in the Everyday Magazine. This press release announced that the Ford Motor Company was ready to start construction of a new assembly plant located on Highway 66 near Robertson, Missouri (now known as Hazelwood). Construction of the plant got underway on February 16, 1946. The plant was originally designed as a Ford assembly plant, but Henry Ford II, then president of the company, announced on November 1, 1946 that in order to provide productive capacity for the expansion program of the Lincoln-Mercury Division, the new plant was being turned over to this division. In March of 1948, the new St. Louis Assembly Plant was ready to start production. This new facility was 935,000 square feet under roof. It not only served as an assembly plant, but it also housed the Sales and Service offices in the administration building as well as 52,000 square feet assigned to the service stock department. The service stock department handled 9,000 Ford, Lincoln and Mercury parts for dealers in the St. Louis and Kansas City districts. Formal dedication of the plant was held on September 21, 1948. Benson Ford, Henry Ford’s grandson, headlined the ceremony before 3,500 employees and their families. He explained what he called the “three convictions” that underlie the Company’s actions: “First, we are convinced that the best and quickest way to increase our high standard of living is through lower cost,” he said. “Secondly, we intend to develop sound and better labor-management relations. Thirdly, we intend to have unquestioned leadership in the style and quality fields.”
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The speech made an impression on employees, whose experience and enthusiasm were helping to smooth out Plant operations into an orderly and constant schedule. By October 1949, one year later, the 100,000th car assembled at the new facility rolled off the end of the line. The 200,000th made the same journey in October of 1950 and on September 15, 1951, a Mercury Monterey became the 300,000th car assembled at St. Louis Assembly. In September of 1953, the 500,000th car was assembled almost five and a half years to the day when production began. As St. Louis Assembly’s reputation for building a quality product grew, so did the plant itself. In March of 1956, ground breaking ceremonies were held for the first of many additions to the plant. This first addition added 258,000 square feet to the plant. Over the last 50 years there have been numerous additions bringing the current building to over 3,000,000 square feet under roof. |
Read more here – http://www.bluesarthouse.com/ford/plant.htm
August 28, 2008
St. Louis Highway City Plan – Great info from Jess
Four Basic Types Proposed 840,000 people in St. Louis owned 165,000 automobiles and trucks in 1946. By 1970 it is estimated that there will be about 230,000 automobiles and trucks. This figure does not include streetcars and busses or the many thousands of new cars and trucks in suburban areas, all of which are potential users of city streets. The annual traffic in St. Louis will be increased from 1,531,000,000 to 2,403,000,000 vehicle miles by 1960 (Estimate by Missouri State Highway Department, Highway Planning Survey.).… Since 1916 St. Louis has expended over $40,000,000 in opening, widening, connecting, and extending the system of major streets. Much has been accomplished in converting a horse and buggy street system to automobile needs. As the total volume of traffic increases, however, certain new needs arise…there is a need for complete separation of grade where traffic volume is sufficiently heavy to justify the cost involved. The Federal Government, which has helped finance our splendid system of national highways, has recently revised its policies and Congress has appropriated substantial funds to aid the cities in the construction of express highways and for facilitation of traffic flows from certain selected state highways through metropolitan areas to the central business districts of large cities. Past and present experience reveals the need for four types of major streets and trafficways as follows:
Plate Number 18 shows the widths of roadways, sidewalks, planting strips and the placement of street lights and street trees for each of the above basic types of major streets and traffic ways. The new Major Street Plan, Plate Number 19, has a total mileage of 301.7 which is 28 percent of the total 1100 miles of streets in St. Louis. The mileage in each of the five major classification is shown by Table Number IX.
St. Louis has never established building lines on major streets to require new building construction to set back to future street lines. Numerous American cities established such building lines many years ago for purposes of economy and to assure sufficient street capacity to meet future traffic needs. Building lines should now be established on all major streets of inadequate future width. Because of the extremely heavy traffic between the business district and the western part of the city a new express highway is recommended which would follow approximately the line of Pine, Chestnut and Laclede to Grand Avenue, thence along Forest Park Boulevard to Kingshighway, thence along the west side of the Wabash Railroad through Forest Park to DeBaliviere Avenue and thence along the old Rock Island right-of-way to Skinker Boulevard. This would be a distinctly local expressway. The Interstate Express Highways on the Federal system are U. S. 40 both east and west from St. Louis, and U. S. 66 both southwest and northeast from St. Louis, and U. S. 50 eastward from St.Louis. Recommended locations for these Interstate Highways have been the subject of much careful study and discussion with State and Federal officials, as well as with local groups. The proposed routes are shown on the Major Street Plan.
Read the rest here: http://stlouis.missouri.org/government/docs/1947plan/streetstra.html
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