The "Maxwell Motor Company and A Call For Women In The Automobile World" Story

 It was an ordinary day.  Came across an article about the Maxwell Motor Company.  At one time it was an American motor company that first began manufacturing in 1904 and ceased in 1925.  They began under the name of ‘Maxwell-Briscoe company’ of North Tarrytown, New York and was named after founder Jonathan Dixon Maxwell and his business partner, Benjamin Briscoe.  J. D. Maxwell had previously worked for the Oldsmobile marque, and Briscoe was part owner of the Briscoe Brothers Metalworks.  Following a disastrous fire that destroyed the New York factory in 1907, Maxwell-Briscoe opened a new factory in Indiana.  Both Maxwell and Briscoe shared a similar approach as well known Henry Ford, trying to own the entire process of vehicle manufacturing.  The newspapers reported that the factory “will operate as a whole, like an integral machine, the raw material going in one end of the plant and the finished cars out the other end.”  For a time, Maxwell was considered one of the three top automobile firms in America, along with General Motors and Ford.  In 1913, Maxwell assets were overseen by Walter Flanders, who reorganized the company as the Maxwell Motor Company, Inc.  The Company moved to Highland Park, Michigan.  By 1914, Maxwell had sold over 60,000 cars!  Maxwell eventually ver-extended and wound up deeply in debt, with over half of its production unsold in the post-World War I recession in 1920.  The following year, Walter P. Chrysler arranged to take a controlling interest in Maxwell Motors, subsequently re-incorporating it in West Virginia with himself as the chairman.  Maxwell was one of the first car companies to market specifically to women.  In 1909, it generated a great deal of publicity when it sponsored Alice Huyler Ramsey, an early advocate of women drivers, as the first woman to drive coast-to-coast across the United States.  By 1914, the company had strongly aligned itself with the woman’s rights movement.  That year, it announced its plan to hire as many female sales personnel as male.  At that time, it offered a promotional reception at its Manhattan dealership which featured several prominent suffragettes such as Crystal Eastman, while in a showroom window a woman assembled and disassembled a Maxwell engine in front of onlookers.  During the early years of Maxwell Motors, women were an essential part of the company and helped to move it forward.  During World War I, the Maxwell Motor Car Company offered many new positions for women in the work place.  From factory workers to clerical assistants, and sales women to handling machinery, when were beginning to make their mark on automotive history.  Approximately 1,600,000 women joined the workforce between 1914-1918 making this an historical mark in woman’s history.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.