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{{Use American English |date=December 2022}}
{{Infobox person
| image = Alfred Sloan.jpg
| caption = Alfred P. Sloan in 1937
| birth_name = Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr.
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1875|5|23}}
| birth_place = [[New Haven, Connecticut]], U.S.
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1966|2|17|1875|5|23}}
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| known_for = President & CEO of [[General Motors]]
| education = [[Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute]],<ref name=WhoWas>{{cite web |url=http://www.sloan.org/about-the-foundation/who-was-alfred-p-sloan-jr/ |title=Who was Alfred P. Sloan Jr.? |publisher=Alfred P. Sloan Foundation |access-date=2015-06-09}}</ref> [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]]
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| spouse = Irene Jackson
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}}
'''Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr.''' ({{IPAc-en|s|l|oʊ|n}} {{respell|SLOHN}}; May 23, 1875{{snd}}February 17, 1966) was an American [[executive officer|business executive]] in the [[automotive industry]]. He was a long-time [[President (corporate title)|president]], [[chairman]] and [[CEO]] of [[General Motors|General Motors Corporation]].<ref name=NYT1/> Sloan, first as a senior executive and later as the head of the organization, helped GM grow from the 1920s through the 1950s, decades when concepts such as the annual model change, [[brand architecture]], [[industrial engineering]], [[automotive design]] (styling), and [[planned obsolescence]] transformed the industry, and when the industry changed lifestyles and the [[built environment]] in America and throughout the world.
Sloan wrote his memoir, ''My Years with General Motors'',<ref name="Sloan1964">{{Harvnb|Sloan|1964}}.</ref> in the 1950s.<ref name="McDonald2003">{{Harvnb|McDonald|Seligman|2003}}.</ref> Like [[Henry Ford]], the other "head man" of an automotive colossus, Sloan is remembered
==Life and career==
[[File:Alfred P. Sloan on the cover of TIME Magazine, December 27, 1926.jpg|thumb|left|Cover of ''Time'' magazine (December 27, 1926)]]
Born in [[New Haven, Connecticut]], Sloan studied [[electrical engineering]] initially at [[
Sloan became president and owner of [[Hyatt Roller Bearing]], a company that made [[Rolling-element bearing|roller- and ball-bearings]], in 1899 when his father and another investor bought out the company from the previous owner. An account stated that Sloan persuaded his father to buy a controlling interest in the company for $5,000 and let him manage it.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Peters |first=Will |title=Leadership Lessons: Alfred Sloan |publisher=New Word City |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-936529-16-2 |language=en}}</ref> [[Oldsmobile]] was Hyatt's first automotive customer, with many other companies soon following suit.
In 1916 Hyatt merged with other companies into [[United Motors Company]],<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Farber |first=David |title=Sloan Rules: Alfred P. Sloan and the Triumph of General Motors |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2002 |isbn=0-226-23804-0 |location=Chicago |pages=22 |language=en}}</ref> which soon became part of [[General Motors Corporation]]. Sloan became vice-president of GM, then president (1923), and finally chairman of the board (1937). In 1934, he established the philanthropic, nonprofit [[Alfred P. Sloan Foundation]]. GM under Sloan became famous for managing diverse operations with financial statistics such as return on investment; these measures were introduced to GM by [[Donaldson Brown]], a protege of GM vice-president [[John J. Raskob]]. Raskob came to GM as an advisor to [[Pierre S. du Pont]] and the [[DuPont|du Pont]] corporation; the latter was a principal investor in GM whose executives largely ran GM in the 1920s.
Sloan is credited with establishing [[model year|annual styling changes]], from which came the concept of [[planned obsolescence]].<ref>{{Cite book|last=Hounshell|first=David|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9H3tHKUFcfsC|title=From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|year=1984|isbn=978-0-8018-3158-4|location=Baltimore, MD|language=en}}</ref> He also established a pricing structure in which (from lowest to highest priced) [[Chevrolet]], [[Pontiac (automobile)|Pontiac]], [[Oldsmobile]], [[Buick]] and [[Cadillac]], referred to as the ladder of success, did not compete with each other, and buyers could be kept in the GM "family" as their buying power and preferences changed as they aged. In 1919, he and his corporate deputies created the [[General Motors Acceptance Corporation]], a financing arm that practically invented the [[auto loan]] credit system, that allowed car buyers to bypass having to save for years to buy Ford's affordable car.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/americandream/b1.html |title=The American Dream and Consumer Credit |first=Stephen |last=Smith |website=American RadioWorks |access-date=December 28, 2019}}</ref> These concepts, along with Ford's resistance to the change in the 1920s, propelled GM to industry-sales leadership by the early 1930s, a position it retained for over 70 years. Under Sloan's direction, GM became the largest industrial enterprise the world had ever known. In the 1930s GM, long hostile to [[unionization]], confronted its workforce—newly organized and ready for labor rights—in an extended contest for control.<ref name=NYT1/> Sloan was averse to violence of the sort associated with [[Henry Ford]]. He preferred spying, investing in an internal undercover apparatus to gather information and monitor labor union activity.{{Citation needed|date=March 2008}} When workers organized the massive [[Flint sit-down strike]] in 1936, Sloan found that espionage had little value in the face of such open tactics, and instead the successful strike legitimized the [[United Auto Workers]] as the exclusive bargaining representative for GM workers.<ref name="Bak">{{cite journal |url=http://www.hourdetroit.com/Hour-Detroit/September-2008/Frank-Murpheys-Law/ |last1=Bak |first1=Richard |title=(Frank) Murphy's Law |journal=Hour Detroit |date=September 2008 |access-date=June 9, 2012}}</ref>
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The [[Sloan Museum|Alfred P. Sloan Museum]], showcasing the evolution of the automobile industry and traveling galleries, is located in [[Flint, Michigan]].<ref>[http://sloanmuseum.com/ Sloan Museum]</ref>
Sloan maintained an office in 30 Rockefeller Plaza in [[Rockefeller Center]], now known as the [[GE Building]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=13095 |title=Harry S. Truman: Letter to Alfred P. Sloan Jr., Concerning Cooperation by the Broadcasting Industry in the Highway Safety Program. December 3, 1948. |access-date=January 15, 2007 |archive-date=September 27, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180927005328/http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=13095 |url-status=dead }}</ref> He retired as GM chairman on April 2, 1956. His memoir and management treatise, ''My Years with General Motors'',<ref name="Sloan1964"/> was more or less finished around this time; but GM's legal staff, who feared that it would be used to support an [[competition law|antitrust]] case against GM, held up its publication for nearly a decade. It was finally published in 1964. Sloan died in 1966.<ref name=NYT1>{{cite news |title=Alfred P. Sloan Jr. Dead at 90; G.M. Leader and Philanthropist; Alfred P. Sloan Jr., Leader of General Motors, Is Dead at 90
Sloan was inducted into the [[Junior Achievement]] U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1975.
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{{main|History of General Motors#Nazi collaboration}}
In August 1938, a senior executive for General Motors, [[James D. Mooney]], received the [[Grand Cross of the German Eagle]] for his distinguished service to the [[Nazi Germany|Reich]]. "Nazi armaments chief [[Albert Speer]] told a congressional investigator that Germany could not have attempted its September 1939 [[blitzkrieg]] of Poland without the performance-boosting additive technology provided by Alfred P. Sloan and General Motors".<ref name="wpost-30nov98">{{Cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/nov98/nazicars30.htm |last=Dobbs |first=Michael |title=Ford and GM Scrutinized for Alleged Nazi Collaboration |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |date=1998-11-30 |access-date=2009-06-01}}</ref><ref name=carmaker>{{cite news |last=Black, Edwin |url=http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/31057/hitler-s-carmaker/ |title=Hitler's Carmaker: How General Motors helped mobilize the Third Reich |newspaper=J Weekly |date=2006-12-01 |access-date=2015-05-05}}</ref><ref>Higham, Charles ''Trading with the Enemy''. New York: Doubleday, 1982</ref> During the war, GM's Opel Brandenburg facilities produced [[Junkers Ju 88|Ju 88]] bombers, [[truck]]s, [[land mine]]s and [[torpedo]] [[detonator]]s for Nazi Germany.<ref name=carmaker /> Charles Levinson, formerly deputy director of the European office of the [[Congress of Industrial Organizations|CIO]], alleged that Sloan remained on the board of [[Opel]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://libcom.org/library/allied-multinationals-supply-nazi-germany-world-war-2 |title=How the Allied multinationals supplied Nazi Germany throughout World War II |publisher=libcom.org |access-date=2009-06-18 |year=2006 |last=Marriott, Red}} Excerpted from Higham, Charles. ''Trading with the Enemy - The Nazi-American Money Plot 1933-1949'' New York: Doubleday, 1982.</ref>
Sloan's memoir presents a different picture of Opel's wartime role.<ref name="Sloan1964pp328-337">{{Harvnb|Sloan|1964|pp=328–337}}.</ref> According to Sloan, Opel was [[nationalization|nationalized]], along with most other industrial activity owned or co-owned by foreign interests, by the German state soon after the outbreak of war.<ref name="Sloan1964pp330-331">{{Harvnb|Sloan|1964|pp=330–331}}.</ref> But Opel was never factually nationalized and the GM-appointed directors and management remained unchanged throughout the Nazi period including the war, dealing with other GM companies in Axis and Allied countries including the United States.<ref name="woodwood">{{cite book |editor1-last=Wood |editor1-first=John C. |editor2-last=Wood |editor2-first=Michael C. |date= December 9, 2003 |title=Alfred P. Sloan: Critical Evaluations in Business and Management |publisher= [[Routledge]] |page= 382 |isbn= 978-0415248327}}</ref> Sloan presents Opel at the end of the war as a black box to GM's American management, an organization with which the Americans had had no contact for five years. According to Sloan, GM in Detroit debated whether to even try to run Opel in the postwar era, or to leave to the interim West German government the question of who would pick up the pieces.<ref name="Sloan1964pp328-337"/>
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===Bibliography===
* {{Cite journal |last=Drucker |first=Peter F. |year=1946 |author-link=Peter Drucker |title=Concept of the Corporation |publisher=John Day |location=New York, New York, US |lccn=46003477}}
* {{Cite book |last1=McDonald |first1=John |last2=Seligman |first2=Dan |year=2003 |title=A ghost's memoir: the making of Alfred P. Sloan's My Years with General Motors |publisher=[[MIT Press]] |location=Boston, Massachusetts, US |isbn=978-0-262-63285-0
* {{Cite book |last=O'Toole |first=James |year=1995 |title=Leading change: overcoming the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom |publisher=Jossey-Bass |location=San Francisco, California, US |url=https://archive.org/details/leadingchangeove00otoo |isbn=978-1-55542-608-8 }}
* {{Sloan1964}}
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[[Category:1966 deaths]]
[[Category:Alfred P. Sloan Foundation people]]
[[Category:American collaborators with Nazi Germany]]
[[Category:American chief executives in the automobile industry]]
[[Category:American automotive pioneers]]
[[Category:General Motors
[[Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni]]
[[Category:Businesspeople from New Haven, Connecticut]]
[[Category:American philanthropists]]
[[Category:Polytechnic Institute of New York University alumni]]
[[Category:Automotive businesspeople]]
[[Category:General Motors people]]
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