(INDUSTRIAL) Album entitled Vues Photographiques des Usine A

Sale 1931 - Lot 219

Unsold

Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500

(INDUSTRIAL)<>
Album entitled "Vues Photographiques des Usine André Citroën de Mars A Octobre, 1915" containing 59 photographs of the workings of Citroën's munitions factory during Wo W. W. I, comprising exterior views of the property, the vast machine rooms, stockpiles of shell casings, female employees assembling shells, men working the furnaces, stockpiles of lead, coal, steel, and more. Silver prints, 8½x10¾ inches, with a printed caption and date on mount recto, mounted one per page recto. Oblong folio, gilt-lettered calf, rubbed; all edges gilt. 1915

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With the onset of World War I in 1914, André Citroën joined an artillery regiment and was sent to the front, where he observed that a lack of artillery was putting France at a disadvantage. With the application of mass production methods poularized by Henry Ford, and later used by Citroën in his car manufacturing, he believed that it would be possible to produce 10,000 shells a day. In 1915, he persuaded French authorities to back him in setting up a munitions factory on the Quai de Javel. Built in just four months, the plant produced a phenominal 50,000 shells a day. After the war, Citroën set to work converting his munitions plant into an automobile plant.<