Automotive History
The Social Impact of The Automobile
Once the world climbed into the driver's seat and stepped on the gas,
it hardly ever looked back. Art Buchwald wrote, "Americans are broad- minded
people. They'll accept the fact that a person can be an alcoholic, a dope
fiend, a wife beater, and even a newspaperman, but if a man doesn't drive
there's something wrong with him." Automobiles became more than just toys
for the rich, they became a part of day-to-day living in, from, and to
the work place. And it is in America that the long ride has been the zippiest,
the zestiest, and the zaniest, because it is in America that automobiles
started a social revolution almost as revolutionary as that of the motorized
industry itself.
One of the first social changes cars brought about was in mating habits.
It didn't take young people in America long to realize that there was a
lot more they could accomplish in a backseat than on the front porch. Besides,
it would be more private and a good deal more comfortable. Motorized courtship
had been established even before the Model T offered a love nest within
everyone's price range. Gus Edwards' popular "In My Merry Oldsmobile" contained
two very provocative lines: "You can go as far as you like with me, In
our merry Oldsmobile." Ford's Model T just gave the merry Oldsmobile an
enormous amount of company at prices the common person could afford. In
1944, John Steinbeck noted in "Cannery Row": "Most of the babies of the
era were conceived in the Model T Ford, and not a few were born in them."
And it wasn't just in America.
A survey of 6,000 British girls by the London "Woman" revealed that
half of them regularly make love in parked cars. In Los Angeles, a business
called "Tail Dating" became popular. The motorist paid a fee to receive
a bumper sticker in popular day-glo colors. If one driver spots another
car on the road with a driver that sparks his or her interest, and also
sports the bumper sticker, the license number can be phoned in to "Tail
Dating" to set up a meeting. The automobile manufacturers had no qualms
about using sex appeal to sell their product. In 1924, a Jordan firm named
one of its models the "Playboy." Its ad campaign showed a handsome cowboy
and a beautiful girl driving "somewhere West of Laramie." A Brewster used
the same tactics when they produced a heart-shaped radiator grille. Some
car companies turned out models with seats that folded down to become a
double bed. Things haven't really changed much, except the fold-down seat
has become a more comfortable van with all the luxuries of a motel.
Automobiles opened up the possibility of farm children going to town
schools, where they were provided with better facilities and greater educational
choices. It also gave farm communities the ability to shop at will, rather
than once or twice a year. Town was within shopping range and there were
also clubs, theaters, and numerous other activities that the average farm
family had previously been denied. If one got tired of it, he could always
get back to the quiet of the country.
The feminists' movement, which had been dragging its feet ever since
the 1820s, had a rapid growth from the automobile. In 1898, Genevra Delphine
Mudge drove a Waverly Electric in New York to become the nation's first
known female motorist. The following year she became the country's first
female racing driver by competing in a Locomobile in a New York race meet.
She skidded into five people standing on the sidelines, knocking them down,
but not seriously hurting them. She's now only a footnote in automotive
history as the first American woman to have an automobile accident. It
was also in 1898 that Chicago began requiring licenses in order to drive,
and one of the first to be licensed was a woman. The Women's Motoring Club
of New York was chartered before Henry Ford had even begun to produce the
Model T. In 1909, the president, Alice Ramsey, and three members left New
York in an open-bodied Maxwell-Briscoe and drove to San Francisco in 59
days. Women were not a real part of the automotive scene, however, until
Henry Leland produced a self-starter in a 1912 Cadillac. Eliminating
the physical strain of hand-cranking, he removed a large physical bar from
women drivers and, perhaps, men as well, since he was prompted to this
creation because his friend died of injuries he had received from the kickback
of a hand crank.
The automobile gave America a new look and something new to look at
as well. Escaping railroad schedules and the fixed routes of public transportation,
Americans could go wherever and whenever they wanted and stay or leave
at will. They took advantage of this opportunity by the thousands. Overcrowded
hotels and stage stops developed into road-side cabins and then courts
and finally, into motels for the convenience of the motorist who was on
his way to someplace else and only needed a stopover to rest for the night.
Businesses looked around and saw the multitude on cars on the roads
and followed after them. First there were a smattering of service stations;
then they spread across the country like insects as more and more people
owned wheels. Every junction of the road had a gas station, and eventually
they were on each corner of the junction. The speed of the vehicles picked
up sharply and station owners were soon watching them fly by to the next
stop, so they started building eye-catching structures, and because man
does not live on gasoline alone, they erected diners and cabins and assorted
other roadside businesses, which now provide everything from swimming pools
and paper, disposable swim suits to breath sprays.
Some salute the car for improving the American breed by providing such
extended mating territories. This may be argued, but the car surely did
alter the pattern of movement. People began to leave the beaten path, which
had previously been unknown. The car introduced a country to itself, enabling
travelers to discover and to understand regional differences and common
values.
The placid beauty of the open road and the changing scenery began to
be spoiled by old tires, food wrappings, pop and beer bottles (and then
cans), by bodies of animals who could not outrun the charging vehicle,
by deserted service buildings and finally, by road signs designed to catch
the motorist`s eye several miles ahead of his arrival, so that he had time
to consider stopping before he had already sped past.
One advertising man instituted the now famous Burma Shave jingles, which
were spaced out to match the speed of the traffic. Tourist cabins were
upgraded into more lavish courts, and then into motels. Diners began to
improve and highway food chains made an appearance with some control over
menu and sanitary conditions.
Unfortunately, the lure of money brings all kinds of money makers, some
of them not so desirable: beer joints, hot dog stands, "wild animal" shows,
fortune tellers, souvenir shops, and now automobile scrap heaps lining
the edges of every town and city. Signs became bigger and some were lighted
in flashing neon.
People trying to get out of the congestion of the city fled in droves
to the suburbs. Somehow they envied the farmer who could come in and shop
and return to the solitude of the country. They breathed the fresh air
and cooked on open grills, and talked about the country life, encouraging
more people to move into the suburbs, all bringing their outdoor grills,
lawn mowers, automobiles, boats, trailers, and other paraphrenalia, until
there was eventually as many people in the suburbs as there were in the
city. Then the "suburbanites" demanded some of the advantages of the city.
They needed churches, schools, fire departments, markets, drugstores, hardware
stores and gasoline stations, until there was soon as much congestion and
stress as they had left behind. Shopping malls sprang up everywhere, serving
everything from french fries to wedding gowns, and electric rails swept
the population into the city in the morning and back to the suburbs in
the evening. They finally began to realize that they had not escaped the
city at all; they had merely moved to the "residential area."
