Over its 143-year history, R.L. Polk & Co. served the United States and its citizens in times of peace and war. The first Ralph Lane Polk served in the Union Army in 1865 as a drummer boy during the last year of the Civil War. After mustering out in 1870, he moved to Detroit and started his company, which would go on to chance the way that Americans do business.
Monthly Archives: June 2017
In the early 1920s, both Ford Motor Company and General Motors were steadily growing as cars begin to fill American cities. The two companies set the stage for a burgeoning auto culture with millions of cars sold in the 1920s. However, GM’s Alfred Sloan did not trust the annual sales numbers that other auto manufacturers […]