From Abbott-Detroit to Zip, this unique reference book documents American gasoline-powered automobiles manufactured for the model years 1906 through 1915, the Brass Era. In these explosive early years of automotive history, a vast number of manufacturers--most of which failed within two years--produced a range of cars whose sheer diversity is unmatched in later times. The short corporate lifespans and constant change throughout the industry left a fragmented historical record, with data about specific models scarce and scattered in later sources. Here the basic facts of 4,000+ cars, painstakingly researched in all available period sources, are collected and trends of the era are analyzed.

We've all been there. Seduced by the sleek designs and smart capabilities of the newest gadgets, we end up stumped by their complicated set-up instructions and exasperating error messages. In this fascinating history, Joseph J. Corn maps two centuries of consumer frustration and struggle with personal technologies. Aggravation with the new machines people adopt and live with is as old as the industrial revolution. Clocks, sewing machines, cameras, lawn mowers, bicycles, electric lights, cars, and computers: all can empower and exhilarate, but they can also exact a form of servitude. Adopters puzzle over which type and model to buy and then how to operate the device, diagnose its troubles, and meet its insatiable appetite for accessories, replacement parts, or upgrades. It intrigues Corn that we put up with the frustrations our technology thrusts upon us, battling with the unfamiliar and climbing the steep learning curves. It is this ongoing struggle, more than the uses to which we ultimately put our machines, that animates this quizzical study. Having extensively researched owner's manuals, computer user-group newsletters, and how-to literature, Corn brings a fresh, consumer-oriented approach to the history of technology. User Unfriendly will be valuable to historians of technology, students of American culture, and anyone interested in our modern dependency on machines and gadgets.