May 28
CHRYSLER DAY
Walter P. Chrysler was a poor boy growing up in Kansas; but on this day in 1928 he worked out a deal that made automotive history and took him from rags to riches. He merged his Chrysler Corporation with Dodge Brothers, Inc.
The Dodge Motor Car Company had been purchased several years earlier from the widows of John and Horace Dodge, the two founders, by Clarence Dillon’s banking firm for $148 million.
The merger of Chrysler and Dodge, the largest automobile industry merger in history at the time, placed the newly consolidated firm third in production and sales, just behind General Motors and Ford Motor Company.
Twenty years later to the day, Chrysler Corporation granted its employees a 13 cents an hour wage increase, ending a 17-day strike. The increase was two-cents higher than the raise given to General Motors’ employees three days earlier. GM workers’ base pay was increased to $1.61 per hour and was tied to a cost-of-living formula. Chrysler workers received a flat $1.63 per hour with no ties. $1.61 or $1.63 per hour with or without cost-of-living ties was a lot of money in 1948.
Walter Chrysler had died eight years earlier. We’re pretty sure he would have been amazed at what it cost to make a car then ... and what Chryslers and other cars are selling for today. We are.
Those Were the Days, the Today in History service from 440 International
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