The Fisher Body GuildAn Unusual Find With a Lot of History
The Fisher Body Guild
One Twelfth Scale Napoleonic Coach
In 1920, Henry Ford OWNED the US automobile market, because he could make the Model T much cheaper than anyone else could make cars. This was achieved by standardization, ruthless labor practices, and efficiencies in his plant. General Motors was formed out of Ford’s competition and planned to offer autos with “Styling”, tapping the upscale market. The only problem was that there were no “auto stylists.” Thus, GM bought Fisher Body, a firm that manufactured pricey carriages. However, Fisher found that it needed LOTS of employees with artistic skills. By the 1930s, GM introduced the Fisher Body Guild as a mechanism for finding talented workers. This was a model-building competition open to youth aged 14 to 19. The prize was a full college scholarship and a guaranteed job with GM. At the height of the depression, this was a magnificent prize.
So what does this have to do with Swing Dancing? (Those of you who came here from a search engine should know that this is primarily a dance website...) Actually, the question should be "Why was a Fisher Body Guild competition entry sitting in the bulk trash in Chevy Chase?"
My acquaintance with the Fisher Body Guild began (as do many of the stories here) on Bulk Trash Day, September 2005. This day was particularly fruitful, since one of the older houses had turned over and the new yuppie owners were anxious to turn it into a McMansion, granite counters, stainless steel refrigerator, Great Room and the like. Generally these Phillistines are in such a hurry that they throw out all kinds of valuable items. Of note was a filthy old box that looked like it had been in an attic for a long, long time. Of note, it was carefully closed with recessed screws. Believing that nothing worthless ever gets this much packaging, I placed the box in the back of the PT Cruiser and took it home for further examination. It was not only dirty, but quite heavy.
After moving the item into the workshop, I began a forensic examination of the box. A paintbrush removed enough dirt from the label to determine that this was a Model Napoleonic Coach, or at least the box for one.
The Box
Mailing Labels
Inside the Box
The Model Had to Survive the Trip to Detroit...
Prior to opening this treasure, I did a little search to find out what might be in the box. Lo and behold, there is actually a Museum devoted to the Fisher Body Guild! This is the authoritative source, so check it out. The rest of this page is devoted to my own dabbling in the history of the Fisher Body Guild.
With some anticipation, I carefully removed the screws to expose the contents. Indeed, they were marvelous!
Front and Rear Views
The competition required the entrants to build a 1/12 scale model of Napoleon’s coronation coach (which also was Fisher Body’s trademark.) The contestant received 19 pages of plans and nothing else. After spending about 2000 hours, the kids came up with something like the coach in the pictures. All of this - metal, wood, fabric and glass parts were all made by hand. The entrant had to be skilled in all of these fields, and would need these abilities to work at Fisher Body. There were two prizes for every state and a grand national winner. This coach won second prize in Wyoming, so you can get an idea of how intense the competition was. The shipping box was itself a wonder of craftsmanship; no matter how good the coach was, it had to arrive intact in Detroit before it could be judged.
During my research, I acquired an copy of the plans and scanned them. If you would like to match wits with the 14-year olds of 1931, contact me and I will be glad to send you a ".pdf"of the original plans. (it is about 5.1 MB, so it would help if you had a fast connection and a big mailbox!)
Here are some of the details. Everything had to be made from scratch to win.
The Interior
The upholstery was tufted and the windows had to work!
The Driver's Stage
All the braids had to be woven, mixing thread and gold wire
Corner Eagles
All metal work had to be cast from molds made by the contestant!
The Chassis
The chassis and leaf springs had to be fabricated from stock!
Better yet, the coach that I found apparently won some medals. Here is a photo as they were found:
The Medals
Since I found the Coach, I have been doing some collecting of other artifacts related to the Guild
Fisher Body Institutional Ad
The Napoleonic Coach was the Trademark of the Fisher Body Division of GM
Recruiting Ad for the Fisher Body Guild
In 1931, girls [apparently] went nuts for Napoleonic Coaches...
Signing Up for the Fisher Body Guild
The sign reads: "...an opportunity to earn your college education as well as 980 other awards..."
Taken in the Fisher Building, Detroit
Fisher Body Guild Membership Card
Daniel Carter Beard, head of the Boy Scouts was the FBG Honorary President
Here is an article about the Fisher Body Guild that I found in the TIME Magazine for August 31, 1931
Oldtimers insist that there are still carriages on the streets of Norwalk, Ohio, built by Andrew Fisher. Andrew begat Lawrence, also a wheelwright, and Lawrence begat seven sons. They were named William Andrew, Frederic John, Alfred Joseph, Charles Thomas, Edward Francis, Lawrence Peter, Howard. William Andrew was the lazy one. He would cock his hat over his eye, pretend not to see his father beckoning him into the blacksmith shop. But ultimately he and all the rest except Howard industriously followed their father's and grandfather's trade. After the turn of the century the six Brothers Fisher started Fisher Body Corp. William Andrew became president. General Motors took them in and today they are the most numerous, most affluent guild-family in the world. Partly to advertise Fisher Bodies, and partly because they relish good craftsmanship, last week they had a party.
To the Fisher party, held in the auditorium of the GM building in Detroit, went 104 boys from 48 States and the District of Columbia. They were all either junior (12 to 16) or senior (16 to 19) members of the Fisher Body Craftsman's Guild. Each had constructed a model of the Napoleonic coach which is the Fisher Body trademark. Some 1,350 other U.S. boys had built models too, but these 104 were the best. In the pocket of his Sunday suit, each boy had some part of $50 which General Motors had given him for spending money during his visit to Detroit. While Graham McNamee gushed a description of the setting over a national hookup on the General Motors Family Party radio hour, each boy wondered if he was going to be one of the four to receive a $5,000 four-year scholarship at college.
Formed last August, the Guild had sent its members specifications for the coach. Technicians had examined hundreds of models, alike to the lay observer as two peas in a pod. The judges included President Thomas Stockham Baker of Carnegie Institute of Technology; Board Chairman Robert Andrews Millikan of California Institute of Technology; Board Chairman Samuel Wesley Stratton of Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Dean Dexter Simpson Kimball of Cornell's College of Engineering and eight other engineering deans and professors. Also there was Daniel Carter Beard, national Boy Scout commissioner, who served as honorary president of the Guild, of which William Andrew Fisher is president.
President Fisher, who wanted to see what the nation's boys could do with plane, chisel, glue and mould, had sounded the Guild's keynote last year: "It is our endeavor to foster . . . that spirit of fine workmanship which permeated the craft guilds of bygone centuries. . . . There was a pride in workmanship which kept alive a competitive spirit among Guild workers, and there was a healthy rivalry between Guilds in the same industry. . . . Regardless of the advancement in machinery, there is today and will continue to be a need for real artisans and craftsmen."
Hushed was the hall when the ice cream plates were cleared away. Impressively the winners were announced. One of the senior Guildsmen had won on his home ground-Raymond S. Doerr of Battle Creek, Mich. Graduated from high school in February, he was encouraged by his father-a pattern maker for a plumbing manufacturer-to build a coach instead of looking for work. He set up a workshop in the family's basement. The other senior winner was a boy named Albert Fischer from Waukegan Ill. He was let out of his draftsman's job, spent 1,200 hours on his coach.
Howard Jennings, one of the junior scholarship winners, came from Denver, Colo., used the machinery at the printing shop where his father is a steel engraver. Donald Burnham of West Lafayette, Ind., worked at home in a little basement. An old hand at modelling, he once got a trip to Europe for making a miniature airplane.
When they have finished their college courses all the winners will be offered General Motors jobs.
In 1937, the competition allowed entrants to choose between making a coach OR making a model car. Here is a link to the Manual that would teach you how to make and submit your model car.
I mention the Car Contest mainly because I found this 1947 article from Mechanix Illustrated that shows winners from both the Coach and the Car Divisions:
The principal reason that I have reproduced this article is that it features a very young Virgil Exner, wearing his Guild Beret. Mr. Exner later rose to head the Chrysler Design Division and gave us the "Forward Look" --- all those giant cars with big tailfins. Some of the most extreme are:
The 1957 De Soto
De Soto sponsored Groucho Marx's TV program, but soon faded from the scene.
The 1956 Chrysler Imperial
I love those tail lights sitting up there - America's answer to Sputnik.
The 1960 Crown Imperial Convertible
I think that this got 4 MPG, but it could sure haul butt....
The 1960 Dodge Royal Lancer
This was a real monster for a "working class"car.
I'll leave it to you: Did the Fisher Body Contest actually locate "stylists"?
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