 Chicago immigrant Adolph Schoeninger with his Western Wheel Works became the "Ford of the Bicycle" (ten years before Henry Ford) by copying Pope's mass production methods and by introducing stamping to the production process in place of machining, significantly reducing production costs, and thus prices.His "Crescent" bicycles thus became affordable for working people, and massive exports from the United States lowered prices in Europe.The Panic of 1893 wiped out many American manufacturers who had not followed the lead of Pope and Schoeninger, in the same way that the Great Depression would ruin car makers who did not follow Ford.