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Now revised and updated, this book tells the story of how the automobile transformed American life and how automotive design and technology have changed over time. It details cars' inception as a mechanical curiosity and later a plaything for the wealthy; racing and the promotion of the industry; Henry Ford and the advent of mass production; market competition during the 1920s; the development of roads and accompanying highway culture; the effects of the Great Depression and World War II; the automotive Golden Age of the 1950s; oil crises and the turbulent 1970s; the decline and then resurgence of the Big Three; and how American car culture has been represented in film, music and literature. Updated notes and a select bibliography serve as valuable resources to those interested in automotive history.
List of contents
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Preface to the Second Edition
Introduction: The Automobile, Its History and Influence, and Some Contradictions
1-Beginnings: From a Mechanical Curiosity to a Plaything for the Well-to-Do
European by Birth, American by Adoption
Technological Antecedents-The Bicycle
Compact Power: The Internal Combustion Engine (ICE)
Choices Made: Competition from Steam Engines and Electric Motors
American Pioneers
Organization as Power
The Automobile for Better or Worse?
Music Galore
The Mechanical Arts and the Coming of the Machine Age
The Quest for Speed
2-The Inscrutable Henry Ford and the Rise of the Machine Age
From a Dearborn Farm to the World Stage
Frederick Winslow Taylor and "One Best Way"
The Genesis of Mass Production at Highland Park
The Flivver King
The Model T: What a Car!
World War I: War Without End
Later Years: Hero or Anti-Hero?
Early Economy Runs and the Gilmore Years, 1906-1941
Industrial America: The "Carnival of Speed" and the Indianapolis 500
3-The Rise of the Competition and the Consumer During the 1920s
"Billy" Durant and "Silent" Sloan
Kettering, Earl and "Keeping the Customer Dissatisfied"
The City of the Future and Dynamic Dayton of the 1930s
The Last of the Big Three: The Chrysler Corporation
The Independents
Innovation at the Periphery: The Cracker Jacker, Rickenbacker
The Jordan and Advertising the Dream
4-From Mud to the Open Road
Which Came First: Good Roads or the Automobile?
The Good Roads Movement
A Transcontinental Link: The Lincoln Highway
Federal Legislation and the Gas Tax
Two Lane Black Top, or Concrete If There Is Money
Auto Camping and "Gypsying" Across America
Fill'er Up
Road Food
Divided Highways, Parkways, and Expressways
5-Religion, Courtship, Sex, and Women Drivers
An Answer to Prayer or Something to Pray About?
Sex in the Back Seat
Those Women Drivers!
Cars as Homes
6-The Interwar Years: The Great Depression, Aerodynamics, and Cars of the Olympian Age
Olympian Automobiles of the 1930s
Streamlining and the Chrysler "Airflop"
Sitdown, the Coming of the United Auto Workers, and the Battle of the Overpass
The Poetic Response to the Automobile
Singing the Blues About Automobiles and Life
Filming on the Race Track and Soundstage
7-World War II and the Reconversion Economy: No Time for Sergeants or Aspiring Automobile Manufacturers
"Little Bo Peep Has Lost Her Jeep..."
Wartime Labor: Sacrifices and Selfishness
The Black Market: "Chiseled Gas"
The Reconversion Economy and a Man's Dream
¿8-The Golden Age of the Automobile: The 1950s in America
The Automobile and Civil Rights
Hot Rod
Sports Cars on American Tracks, and The Red Car
Some Critics Surface: Safety and the Environment
Dealers, Good and Bad
The UAW, the Big Three, and Pattern Bargaining
The Cars of the Golden Era
The 1958 Recession and European Competition
The Volkswagen Bug
Cars and Rock and Roll
Film: The Rebels
A Night at the Drive-In
On the Road
The Coming of the Interstates
Summing Up the Glorious 1950s
¿9-The Go-Go Years, 1959-1970
The Microbus, Cars, and the Hippies
The Cadillac and the Establishment
An Age of Ambivalence
Ralph Nader and Unsafe at Any Speed
Government Regulation: Safety and the Environment
From a Brief Affair with Economy Vehicles to the Emergence of the Muscle Car
California Dreaming
James Bond, Steve McQueen, and the Action Thriller
Summing Up the Sixties
10-America and the Automobile During the 1970s
Introduction: A Decade Often Forgotten, Rarely Celebrated, Yet Certainly Pivotal
"We Can't Fail": The Gremlin, Vega, and Pinto
A Fresh Wind from Foreign Shores
The Early 1970s: Structural Shortcomings
Harry Crews and the "White Trash" in His Novel Car
On the Eve of Oil Shock: Auto Culture During the Summer and Fall of 1973
Oil Shock I
Japanese Cars Come in a Big Way to America
The New Automotive Technologies of the 1970s
Fasten Your Seat Belt; Watch Your Speed!
Mobile Lovemaking
Wither the Automobile?
11-The Automobile World Upside Down, 1980-2015
Oil Shock II, the Big Three, and Japan
Oil Shock Shockwaves: Chrysler and American Motors Corporation
The Automobile and Contemporary Art
The UAW in Retreat
Rivethead and the Quality Cat
Trucks, Sport Utility Vehicles, and Crossovers
The Car Hobby: Car Crazy
The Fast and Furious: Thank God for Fast Cars
Cars and Crime: The Drive-By
NASCAR Nation
Saturn, NUMMI, Chrysler, and Germans in the New South
New Technologies
Automobiles, Women, Eros, and Film
Poetry, Women, and Passion
The Great Recession, the GM and Chrysler Bankruptcies of 2007-2009, and Recovery
A New Global Order: China, the Largest Market for Automobiles in the World
Where Does the Automobile in American Life Go from Here?
Epilogue: The Automobile and One American Life
Chapter Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
About the author
John Heitmann is a professor at the University of Dayton, where he teaches courses in the history of science and technology.
Summary
"This book tells how the automobile transformed American life and how design and technology have changed. Subjects include Henry Ford and the advent of mass production; the development of roads and highway; effects of the Great Depression and World War II; and how American car culture has been represented in film, music and literature"--
