September 23 – Patterson-Greenfield's First Automobile

nPostednon September 23, 2016

This photo’s caption is wrong and wrong!

nInwas pretty excited to see the headline “C.R. Patterson, Born Slave, Built Automobiles Before Henry Ford.”

nInthought to myself, “Wow, I sure didn’t know about THIS!” And Ineagerly read to discover how, when, and where Charles Rich Patterson, formerlynenslaved person, built motorized cars even before Henry Ford.

nButnthat very article – the hundreds of words after the headlinen– contradicted the headline in two ways:

nIt turns out that it wasn’t C.R. (Charles Rich) Patterson who built autos,n but his son Fred, who was never enslaved.

n

nThen first Patterson-Greenfield auto rolled off the assembly line on thisn date in 1915, and Henry Ford’s Model T made its debut in 1908.

n

nYounknow what? I think the actual story is super rad. Why-oh-why wasnthere an inaccurate headline that makes the whole article suspect?

nHere’snthe super rad truth:

nShortlynbefore the Civil War, C.R. Patterson escaped from slavery on his ownntwo feet, found his way to Ohio, and got a job working at a carriagencompany. He used his blacksmithing skills to get the job, but he mustnhave had some leadership skills, too, because he rose up from workernto foreman.

nByn1873, Patterson started his own carriage building business along withnJ.P. Lowe, a white carriage maker.

nWhennLowe died (a decade later), Patterson found himself sole owner of ancarriage company – one of the few black-owned businesses inntransportation. He built 28 different horse-drawn vehicles –neverything from surreys and phaetons to doctor’s buggies.

nPatterson’sntwo sons could at that point help out with the work, so the companynbecame C.R. Patterson and Son Carriage Company. Sam ended up beingnthe “Son” in the title; Fred became the first black person to graduatenfrom Greenfield’s high school and then the first black footballnplayer at Ohio State and then a history teacher in Kentucky.

nButnSam died in 1889, and C.R. became sick the following decade. So Frednrejoined his father’s company and began to take more and morenleadership. n

nOnenthing he noticed at the turn of the century (the early 1900s) wasnthat horse-drawn carriages and buggies were a dying industry as morenand more people began to use automobiles and other self-powerednvehicles. It was Fred that began tinkering with motor-drivennvehicles. C.R. died in 1910, and not too long after that Fred begannto test his first designs, a Greenfield touring car and a roadster.

nIt was Fred Patterson who became the first African American to own annauto company.

Fred Patterson, son of a former slave, who began
manufacturing cars a bit after Ford started doing so.

Itnwas difficult for Patterson’s designs to compete with Henry Ford’snModel T – whether because Ford had a head start, because he wasnwhite and could more easily getting funding, or a combination of thentwo. Fred Patterson decided not to go head-to-head with Ford, and henbegan building bodies for trucks and buses set upon a chassis made bynFord or GM. By 1920 he had changed the name of the company tonGreenfield Bus Body Company. He nurtured the relationships with manyndifferent school districts and, until the Crash and the GreatnDepression, he had a steady income from returning customers whonwanted more and more buses.

nInchecked these details with multiple sources, and this account seemsnto be true (although some of the dates and details are a sort ofnbest-guess history). Like I said at the beginning, this doesn’t matchnup with Ex-Slave Beat Ford in Building Early Autos – but the truenstory is really wonderful!