History of General Motors

Until the rise of Microsoft in the 1990s, General Mot0rs was the largest corporation in the world, a product of the Industrial Revolution and William Crapo Durant was its founder. He was the man who designed and built General Motors.

About 1908, Durant had started his career as a Ford dealer and the owner of Duran-Dort Carriage Company in Flint and he began to buy small, successful automobile companies – Buick, Oldsmobile, Cadillac, and Chevrolet – and merged them into his new General Motors Corporation.

After Durant, a major shareholder in Buick Motor Car Company, failed to convince Henry Ford and Ransom E. Olds to join him in such an organization, Durant decided to form his own holding company, General Motors in the fall 1908. Within a year, GM has sold more than cars and trucks on sales of $29 million. But Durant’s management was poor, and he lost control of his company in 1910, He regained control in 1918 after having created Chevrolet in the interim.

On October 13, 1916, General Motors was incorporated under the leadership and management of Durant and Pierre S. DuPont.

In 1916, he set up a separate subsidiary called United Motors to buy small, successful parts companies. His first acquisitions included Delco, which held Charles Kettering’s patents to the automotive self starter.

After the incorporation of General Motors, Durant brought two key managers into his organizations, Walter Chrysler became president of Buick, and Alfred Sloan became president of United Motors, which Durant brought into General Motors in 1918.

Durant ultimately bought about 20 supplier companies; his last acquisitions – in 1919, the year before he was ousted as GM’s CEO – was Fisher Body.

During the depression of 1920-1921, Durant overextended General Motors, manufacturing far too many cars and undermining company profits, DuPont then took over General Motors.

General Motors ushered in the age of mass consumerism with its installment buying and credit programs for car buyers in the 1920s. Coupled with its expansive lineup of cars – from humble Chevrolet to the mighty Cadillac – and yearly style changes, GM’s approach to selling cars was adapted throughout the industry as the standard for mass marketing durable goods to the U.S consumer.

Although GM suffered a downturn during the Great depression, it nevertheless enlarged its market share and after 1930 was ranked as the nation’s largest car maker, ahead of rival Ford Motor Company and the Chrysler Corporation.
History of General Motors