Editing Alfred P. Sloan (section)

==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 [[Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute]], then transferred to and graduated from the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] in 1895. While attending MIT he joined the [[Delta Upsilon]] fraternity.<ref name=WhoWas/> In 1898, Sloan married Irene Jackson of Roxbury, Massachusetts. The couple had no children, but Sloan was very close to his younger half-brother, Raymond.<ref>{{cite web |title=Sloan, Alfred Pritchard, Jr. |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/social-sciences-and-law/business-leaders/alfred-pritchard-sloan-jr |website=Encyclopedia.com |access-date=2021-01-22}}</ref>

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. [[Henry Leland]] was among his clients. By 1903, he was said to have summoned the young Sloan and castigated him for delivering inconsistent quality of his bearings' tolerances. According to Sloan, this conversation allowed him to gain "a genuine conception of what mass production should really mean."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wood |first=John Cunningham |title=Alfred P. Sloan: Critical Evaluations in Business and Management, Vol. 2 |last2=Wood |first2=Michael C. |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2003 |isbn=0-415-24830-2 |location=London |pages=141 |language=en}}</ref> Ford Motor Company's [[Ford Model T|Model T]] also used Hyatt bearings and for a time, over half of the company's bearings went to Ford.<ref name=":0" />

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>

The [[Sloan Museum|Alfred P. Sloan Museum]], showcasing the evolution of the automobile industry and traveling galleries, is 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 [[Comcast 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|newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=1966-02-18}}</ref>

Sloan was inducted into the [[Junior Achievement]] U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1975.