From Iron Ore to The Finished Automobile

Prewar visualization of automobile construction, from raw material to finished product.

This cleverly designed flow chart reflects the character of American industrialization in the years immediately before the Second World War. The catalyst for the 20th-century transportation revolution starts innocuously as raw materials (iron, limestone, coal) extracted from mines across the globe (upper left). Regulated chemical processes, most of which are illustrated as devoid of any human contact, allow for the transformation of ore and fuel into usable components manufactured from steel and iron. These are further molded and refined with mechanical assistance before final, expert assembly in the lower right. The impending war would see this same process re-imagined for the construction of tanks, planes, and ships.

The chart was designed by the Technical Data Department of the General Motors Corp. Research Laboratories Division, and was published in Detroit in 1939.