Studebaker Rockaway
The rockaway is an American style of carriage that was first built on Long Island in the early nineteenth century. The standing top, with its extension over the driver's seat, is a feature of the rockaway. The lack of a partition between the driver's seat and the inside seat, with both being on the same level, marks it as a family vehicle. It is also a rather high-end vehicle, as noted by the leather covering on the front "grab bars" that protect hands or bare skin on cold winter trips.
The carriage was purchased in 1899 or 1900 by Seymour VanSantvoord, great-grandfather of Heidi Rice Lauridsen. It was used by the VanSantvoord family in Troy, NY, and at Shadowbrook Farm and Furnace Grove in Bennington, VT. Pete and Heidi Lauridsen rode away in this carriage from their wedding, the first ever held at NLHS. The carriage is on loan from the Lauridsen family.
The 1850 Census reported a great change in the American way of life. The census noted that in earlier times "the bulk of general manufacturing done in the United States was carried on in the small shop and the household by the labor of the family or individual proprietors who apprenticed assistants." By 1850, most manufacturing was done by a "system of factory labor, compensated by wages, and assisted by power."
This Industrial revolution helped bring about a transportation revolution. South Bend factories in the mid- to late-19th century produced farm equipment and other necessities for life in rural America. Water power, steam power, and electricity were used to operate machinery. The same steam power that made factories possible also brought the steamboats and the railroads to carry products of farm and factory into the other regions of the country.
By the end of the 19th century, the Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company was the largest wagon maker in the world. Wagons, buggies, and carriages provided most of the transportation in our country. However, by 1925, the Indiana Highway Commission reported 'horse-drawn traffic has almost disappeared from our main highways. Such traffic has decreased rapidly in the past six years and now consists only of the local farm traffic."
The Studebaker Corporation was the only wagon company to successfully change production to automobiles.
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