Street Rivals: Jaywalking and the Invention of the Motor Age Street Author(S): Peter D

Street Rivals: Jaywalking and the Invention of the Motor Age Street Author(s): Peter D. Norton Source: Technology and Culture, Vol. 48, No. 2 (Apr., 2007), pp. 331-359 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press on behalf of the Society for the History of Technology Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40061474 . Accessed: 20/05/2013 20:37

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This content downloaded from 201.103.57.203 on Mon, 20 May 2013 20:37:12 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions StreetRivals

Jaywalkingand the Invention of the Motor Age Street

PETER D. NORTON

Theobvious solution . . . liesonly in a radicalrevision of our conception of whata citystreet is for. 1 - EngineeringNews-Record

BessieBuckley was distressed.Street accidents were maiming and killing cityresidents - especiallychildren. The Milwaukeeschoolteacher wrote a letterto theeditor of her newspaper. "Are streets for commercial and pleas- uretraffic alone?" she asked.In theAmerican cities of 1920,the question was farfrom settled. Who belongsin citystreets? Who does not belong? Whatare streets for?2 To Buckleyand manyothers, children at playbelonged in streets.Most citypeople viewedstreets as the propersetting for many others as well, frompedestrians to streetcarriders. They regarded the city street as a public space,open to anyonewho did not endangeror obstructother users. Yetin Buckley'stime, the competition for street space was intense.To win and preservea claimto it,competing users flung epithets at one another. By choosingthe term"pleasure traffic," Buckley cast doubton automo-

This articleis adapted fromthe author'sforthcoming book, FightingTraffic: The Dawn ofthe Motor Age in theAmerican City. The authorthanks MIT Pressand the Social Sci- ence ResearchCouncil of Canada fortheir help. He also thanksJohn Staudenmaier, David Lucsko,Keith Walden, Dimitry Anastakis, Steve Penfold, Jamey Wetmore, Brian Balogh,W. BernardCarlson, Edmund P. Russell,and the anonymousreaders for Tech- nologyand Culture^whose help made thisarticle possible, whose thoughtsmade it bet- ter,and whose friendshipmade its writinga pleasure.The authoralso wishesto thank FelipeFernandez- Armesto and KevinLeonpacher for demonstrating jaywalking's utility in the studyof technologyand culture. ©2007by the Societyfor the Historyof Technology.All rightsreserved. 0040-165X/07/4802-0004$8.00

1. "Motor Killingsand the Engineer,"Engineering News-Record 89 (9 November 1922), 775. 2. BessieBuckley to editor,in "WhereCan the KiddiesPlay? Send Viewsto Journal," MilwaukeeJournal 29 September1920, 15.

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biles'claim to streetspace.3 Others, staking a claimfor cars in streets,discovered,reinvented, and promotedan obscuremidwestern colloquialism, jay walker.4 By theturn of the nineteenthcentury, streets were already shared by severalsociotechnical systems.5 Private, horse-drawn vehicles and cityserv- ices (suchas streetcars,telephones, and watersupply) depended on them. APRIL Pedestrians,pushcart vendors, and childrenat playused them as well.The 2007 balancewas alwaysdelicate and sometimesunstable, and crowdsof auto- VOL. 48 mobilessoon disruptedit. During the 1910s and 1920scompetitors fought to retain,or establish,legitimate title to thestreets. Language was a weapon in thisbattle. Of themany street rivalries, the feud between pedestrians and motor- istswas the mostrelentless - and the deadliest.Blood on the pavement oftenmarked their clashing perspectives,6 as did newwords, especially epithets.Their success or failurereflected not onlythe opinions but thefor- tunesof those who used them. Pedestrians forced from the street by aggressivemotorists blamed the problem on spoiled"joy riders," and werein turn dismissedas boorish"jay walkers" by irritated drivers. To mostof thosewho even recognizedthe word, jay walkerseemed coarseand offensive.But by 1930,in thenew street equilibrium based on thesupremacy of automobiles, jaywalker (by then normally condensed into one word)was a conventionalterm routinely applied to pedestriansengag- ing in streetuses once beyondreproach. By thenmost agreed, readily or

3. In the 1920s,the use ofpleasure car to designatea passengerautomobile declined, partlythrough the effortsof automotive interestgroups. See, for example, Ernest Greenwoodto Harold Phelps Stokes,8 May 1925,"Automobiles," box 39 (Commerce Papers),Hoover Library,West Branch, Iowa; R. H. Harper,quoted in "AutoOvercomes ExpensiveToy Idea," Washington Post, 3 December 1922,4:11. 4. OxfordEnglish Dictionary, 2nd ed. (1989), citesa 1917 Bostonreference as thefirst knownuse of the term,but I have foundseven earlier uses from1909 to 1916,the earliest comingfrom the Midwest(cf. n. 56 below). 5. By"city streets," streets in denselybuilt-up areas are meant.Low-density residen- tial streets(those in streetcarsuburbs, for example) did not escape the trendsdescribed here,but theirhistory is distinctin importantways. 6. Probablywell over 210,000 Americans were killed in trafficaccidents between the years 1920 and 1929, threeor fourtimes the death toll of the previousdecade (itself much bloodier than the decade before).See Committeeon Public AccidentStatistics, "Public Accidentsin the United States,"Proceedings of theNational SafetyCouncil 13 (1924), 840ff.;Bureau of the Census, HistoricalStatistics of the UnitedStates, Colonial Timesto 1970,pt. 2 (Washington,D.C., 1975), 720. For a carefulanalysis of theproblem of estimatingaccident figures, see H. P. Stellwagen,"Automobile Accidents in theUnited States,"Safety Engineering 51(1 926) : 7 1-74. In cities,about threeout of fourtraffic fatal- itieswere pedestrians; see MittenManagement, Inc., "Accidents and theStreet Traffic Sit- uation,"Philadelphia Traffic Survey Report 4 (July1929): 10, 18-19,in PhiladelphiaRapid TransitCompany, box 1, JohnF. TuckerCollection, accession 2046, Hagley Museum and Library,Wilmington, Del.; and "AutomobileFatalities Becoming One of Our Deadliest Scourges? AmericanCity 35 (1926): 341-42.

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This content downloaded from 201.103.57.203 on Mon, 20 May 2013 20:37:12 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions NORTON I Jaywalkingand the Inventionof the Motor Age Street grudgingly,that streets were chiefly motor thoroughfares, open to others onlyunder carefully defined restrictions. The motorage markedits arrivalin theAmerican city with asphalt parkinglots and concretehighways. But beforethe citystreet could be physicallyreconstructed to accommodatemotor vehicles, it had firstto be sociallyreconstructed as a motorthoroughfare. Only then could engineers buildnew urban highways, designed for automotive speeds and thenearly exclusiveuse of motorists. To explainthe origin of the automotive city in America, most historians haveexamined the transition "from streetcar to superhighway."7This inter- estin vehicles(electric railways and automobiles)and motorhighways has tendedto obscurethe earlier clash between pedestrians and automobiles.To some historians,the city's transition to automotivetransportation was a kindof Darwinianevolution by technological selection, in whichthe fitter automobiledrove the outmoded streetcar to extinction.Instead of nature, citypeople selected(more or less rationally)the winning species in the strugglefor survival. In short,Americans rebuilt their cities because of their "loveaffair" with the automobile.8 In a studyof Los Angeles,for example, ScottBottles concluded that "the public decided" to "facilitateautomobile usageas an alternativeto masstransportation." According to thisinterpreta- tion,urban transportation evolved in responseto consumerpreferences, muchlike other consumer goods in a freemarket. Americans preferred to drive,and therefore"in a societythat celebrates individual choice and free- marketeconomics," city transportation had to be primarilyautomotive.9 Othershave seen theproblem differently. In crowded cities, mass de- mandfor automobiles could not automaticallytransform transportation; instead,such places would have to be rebuiltto accommodatecars. In this view,those promoting reconstruction were a social elite,not themass of transportationconsumers. Such advocatesof the motorcity pulled up streetrails and plannedthe deconcentration of urbanpopulations. When therewere no morestreetcars to rideand citieswere replanned around motortransportation, city people rode buses or boughtcars. Mass prefer- ences wererelatively unimportant. Clay McShane,for example, docu-

7. MarkS. Foster,From Streetcar to Superhighway: American City Planners and Urban Transportation,1900-1940 (Philadelphia,1981). For more recentscholarship on street railways,buses, and highwaysand theirplace in the originsof the automotivecity, see ZacharyM. Schrag,"'The Bus Is Youngand Honest': TransportationPolitics, Technical Choice,and theMotorization of ManhattanSurface Transit, 1919-1936," Technology and Culture41 (2000): 51-79, and MatthewW. Roth,"Mulholland Highway and the Engi- neeringCulture of Los Angelesin the 1920s,"Technology and Culture40 (1999): 545-75. 8. JohnB. Rae, dean of historiansof the automobilein America,assigns an impor- tant role to Americans'"love affairwith the motorvehicle," which was "welcomedin Americanlife" {The AmericanAutomobile Industry [Boston, 1984], 59, 69). 9. ScottL. Bottles,Los Angelesand theAutomobile: The Makingof theModern City (Berkeley,Calif., 1987), 253-54.

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mentedan earlyaffinity of interestbetween automotive groups and city planners.Automotive interest groups wanted to rebuildcities for cars; planners regardedcars as the basis of the new and bettercity they would design.10Like Daniel Burnham, whose celebrated 1909 plan of Chicago was a blueprintfor "providing roads for automobility," leading city planners were"fantasists" who "in effectdeclared traditional cities obsolete by call- APRIL 11 ingfor rebuilding downtown around the car." 2007 A fewhistorians have begun to redirectattention to pedestrians.Mc- VOL. 48 Shanedocumented clashes in NewYork City between motorists and pedes- triansthat reveal deeper disagreements about who belongs in thestreets. In a studyof Hartford,Connecticut, Peter Baldwin found that pedestrians, pressuredby new traffic regulations and safetymeasures, relinquished the streets.12These findings suggest the possibility that the chief obstacles to theautomotive city were not streetrailways or pre-automotivecity plans, butprevailing conceptions of thecity street. Those who wanteda brighterfuture for cars in citiesrecognized this obstacleand workedto overcomeit. To uncoverthis struggle to determine whatstreets were for, we mustlook beyondgroups with recognized inter- estsin citystreets (such as streetrailways and automobilemanufacturers) and recoverthe voices of pedestrians and ordinarymotorists. Recent theo- reticalwork on therelationship between society and itstechnological sys- temswill help as well.

Jaywalking as a Tool in the Social Reconstruction of a Technology

Social-constructivistscholars have offered a framework that can helpus understandhow the motor age cameto theAmerican city.13 Today we tend not onlyto regardstreets as vehicularthoroughfares, but to projectthis constructionbackward in time.In retrospect,therefore, the use of streets forchildren's play can seem obviouslywrong, and children'sdeparture

10.Clay McShane, Down theAsphalt Path: The Automobile and theAmerican City (New York,1994). Fosteralso gavesubstantial credit for the automotive city to cityplanners. 11. McShane,203, 212. 12. Ibid., 176-77; PeterC. Baldwin,Domesticating the Street: The Reformof Public Space in Hartford,1850-1930 (Columbus, Ohio, 1999),214-25. McShaneemphasizes the clash betweenpedestrians (especially children) and motorists.Baldwin traces changing conceptionsof citystreets, finding that in the 1920s"major thoroughfares" in Hartford, Conn., became "more exclusivelythe propertyof the automobile,"and that"the con- finementof pedestriansto sidewalkswas constantlyreinforced" (p. 224). 13. This discussionis derivedfrom a school of scholarshipcalled the "social constructionof technology,"promulgated originally in TrevorJ. Pinch and Wiebe E. Bijker, "The Social Constructionof Factsand Artefacts:or How the Sociologyof Science and the Sociology of TechnologyMight BenefitEach Other,"Social Studiesof Science 14 (1984): 399-441.

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FIG.1 Who belongs in the street? When this photograph of Detroit was taken in 1917, differentstreet users would have answered this question differently. Some would have called these pedestrians "jay walkers," but most stillwould not. (Source: Detroit News photo archive.) fromstreets with the arrival of automobilesseems natural. Only when we can viewthe prevailing social construction of thestreet from the perspec- tiveof itsown time can we also see thecar as theintruder. Whatis a streetfor? In 1910,the answers would have varied with the affectedsocial group, including parents, pedestrians, streetcar riders, and motorists.But most - includingmany motorists - wouldhave agreed that streetswere not for fast driving, and thatmotorists who drovefaster than pre-automotivevehicles were alone responsiblefor any harmfulconse- quences.But what made cars worth buying? Precisely their advantages over pre-automotivealternatives. To thosewho bought and soldthem, cars were vehiclescapable of highersustained speeds than horses and moreversatile thancrowded and track-boundstreetcars. Thus the automobile's essential attributesput it at oddswith prevailing perceptions of legitimate street use. Usedas intended,the car was a misuserof streets(fig. 1). Whateverthe legitimacyof theirclaim to streetspace, the motoring minorityhad thepower to drivepedestrians from the pavements. Fearful fortheir safety, nonmotorists learned to limittheir own accessto streets and to cautiontheir children to lookboth ways before crossing. But regard- ingthe car as intruder,they also soughtlong-term solutions in thestrict regulationof automobiletraffic. When such rulesstarted appearing, and

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withmore oppressive proposals on thehorizon, automotive interests (or "motordom,"as theycalled themselves) discovered that their greatest dan- gerlay in the prevailing social construction of the street. To securean urban futurefor the car, they would have to win a legitimateplace forit in the streetand castdoubt on thelegitimacy of those who stoodin theway. Jaywalkerwas a toolin this reconstruction effort. It implieda newanswer APRIL tothe question, What is a streetfor? - an answerthat carried a sting.The his- 2007 toryof this word before 1930 has something to add to ourunderstanding of VOL. 48 how perceptionsof sociotechnicalsystems develop. Social constructivists haveshown that users are "agents of technological change."14 The evolution ofjaywalking confirms findings already implicit in earlierstudies of tech- nologiesand users:like usey misuse shapes artifacts, and strugglesto fixthe meaningof an artifactoften take the form of struggles to definethese terms. Pedestriansdeprecated fast motorists with epithets such as joyrider.To turn thetables, motorists appropriated the term jaywalker, using it in a larger struggleto redrawthe boundary between street use and misuse.15

The Epithetin the Strugglefor the Street

Whois entitledto shout,"You don't belong in thestreet!"? In 1910,pulp publisherEdward Stratemeyer introduced his best-selling Tom Swift series ofstories for boys with Tom Swift and His Motor-Cycle.As thebook opens, youngSwift is ridinga bicyclealong a countryroad. His archrival,spoiled bad-boyAndy Foger, comes speeding along in an automobile.A quarrel overroad rights ensues. Fogermakes the firstmove. By maintainingspeed and soundinghis horn,he makesa claimby right of conquest. But Swift cannot evade him, so thebluff is exposed.Foger swerves, landing the car in a ditch.The exchange continuesin words.Foger blames the accidenton Swift.Swift replies by paintingmotorists as usurpersand tyrants."You automobiliststake too muchfor granted!" he declares."I guessI've gotsome rights on theroad!" Fogerthen questions the relevanceof old waysin a new age: "Aw,go on!" he says."Bicycles are a backnumber, anyhow."16 Realvariations of this fictional battle were fought again and againover

14. Ronald Kline and TrevorPinch, "Users as Agentsof TechnologicalChange: The Social Constructionof the Automobilein the Rural United States,"Technology and Culture37 (1996): 763-95. 15. Effortsto controldefinitions of use and misuse as a "closuremechanism" (or meansof controllingthe construction of a system)are implicitin muchsocial construe- tivistresearch; see, for example, the reference to misusein JohnLaw and Wiebe E. Bijker, "Technology,Stability, and Social Theory,"in Shaping Technology,Building Society (Cambridge,1992), 295. 16.Victor Appleton, Tom Swift and His Motor-Cycle(New York,1910), 3-4.

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This content downloaded from 201.103.57.203 on Mon, 20 May 2013 20:37:12 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions NORTON I Jaywalkingand the Inventionof the Motor Age Street thenext two decades.17 Pedestrians (and bicyclists)cited custom to claim priorrights, but custom could rarely withstand motorists* superior power and speed. Like AndyFoger, drivers replied with their own rhetorical weaponsand claimedthat old waysno longersuited the new motor age. Languageis a componentin sociotechnicalsystems, and like other componentsit playsa role in the successor failureof thelarger system. Wordsassume particular importance when the system's future is uncertain or contested.Near the end of theVietnam War, for example, an air force colonelfacing tough questions from reporters snapped back: "You always writeit's bombing, bombing, bombing. It's not bombing. It's air support."18 Wordssuch as airsupport or jaywalker are easily coined, but to supportthe coiners'cause they must enter circulation as acceptedcurrency. Jaywalkers successfulentry into the English language did notcome easily.

PreservingPedestrians' Rightsby RestrictingAutomobiles

Mostjudges defended pedestrians' rights to thepavement. New York Citytraffic-court magistrate Bruce Cobb calledfor "the rights of thefoot passengers,on accountof their numbers" to be "reassertedand preserved," and formotorists to be "forcedinto a decentrecognition of the pedestrians' rights."19Although crosswalks were customary safe zones for pedestrians, effortsto forbidcrossing elsewhere nearly always failed. In 1913a munici- pal judge ruledthat "the streets of Chicagobelong to thecity, not to the automobilists."20Eight years later, despite the revolution in streettraffic, an Illinoisjudge struck down a city'srequirement that pedestrians cross streets at rightangles or on crosswalksand thatpedestrians follow other traffic rules.21Juries also tendedto favorpedestrians. "Juries in accidentcases involvinga motorist and a pedestrianalmost invariably give the pedestrian thebenefit of thedoubt," a safetyexpert explained in 1923;"the policy of theaverage juryman is to makethe automobile owner pay, irrespective of responsibilityfor the particular accident."22

17. For a remarkablysimilar example, see thedispatch from the CincinnatiEnquirer printedin the WashingtonPost, 1 1 December 1915,6. 18. Air forcecolonel David Opfer,quoted in "Inoperative,"Washington Post, 29 November1974, B7. 19. W. BruceCobb, in "Nation Roused againstMotor Killings,"New YorkTimes, 23 November1924, 5. " 20. "SpeederWants All Street ChicagoTribune, 6 May 1913,5. 21. Benison v. Dembinsky(1926), 241 Illinois Court of Appeals 530 (accessible throughLexis-Nexis); see also Myron M. Stearns,"Your Rightto Cross the Street," Outlookand Independent155 (14 May 1930): 50-53, 80. 22. C. W. Price,"Automotive Industry Should Lead in SafetyMovement," Automotive Industries49 (13 December 1923): 1189.

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Whencars first threatened children's use ofthe streets, many sided with thechildren against the motorists. The ChicagoTribune lamented that chil- drenhad regardedthe street "as partof their premises," but could no longer do so in safety.23Some policeand judicialauthorities defended children's rightto theroadway. Instead of urging parents to keeptheir children out of the streets,a Philadelphiajudge lectureddrivers in his courtroom,com- APRIL plaining,"It won't be longbefore children won't have any rights at all in the 2007 streets."As the usurper,the motorist,not the child,should be restricted: VOL. 48 "Somethingdrastic must be doneto end thismenace to pedestriansand to childrenin particular."24When police did tryto limitstreet play, many par- entsobjected. For a time,New York City police arrested "small boys who have recklesslydefied the perils of crowded thoroughfares," butthey soon desisted because"it frightenedand shamedthe child and angeredhis parentsand guardians."25"Children must play," a St.Louis resident wrote in 1918,"and evenin themore exclusive residence sections it is difficultto alwayskeep a childout ofthe street. In otherand morecrowded sections, it is practically impossible."26 To mostparents, pedestrians, and police,the way to makestreets safe was to restrictthe newcomers. Most such measures were intended to limit automobilesto pre-motorage speeds,in effectnegating the advantages of theautomobile. Police-imposed speed limits were always low, sometimes extremelyso. In 1906 the medianstate-designated limit in citieswas ten milesper hour, and local authoritiesoften set limits still lower. States were slowto raisethem; Indiana, which limited city speeds to eightmiles per hourin 1906,had raisedthe limit to onlyten by 1919.27 But because such low speedlimits were almost unenforceable, some citypeople demanded thatmore be done. Manycalled for a technologicalsolution: mandatory governors to limit maximumspeed. One letterwriter to theSt. Louis Star suggested this: "Gear themdown to fifteenor twentymiles per hour and quitjoking about speed limitlaws"; another proposed "equipping" cars "with some sort of governor" to limitthem to "fifteenmiles per hour."28 Police departments were sympa-

23. "AutomobileEthics" (editorial), Chicago Tribune, 7 September1905, 8. 24. MagistrateCostello, Philadelphia, 8 November1924, quoted in "City-WideWar Is Declaredon Death Drivers,"Philadelphia Public Ledger, 9 November1924, 4. 25. "StreetAccidents," New YorkTimes, 2 December 1915, 10. 26. C. C. Whiteto editor,"Safety First Rules," St. Louis Star,23 September1918, 10. 27. Median speed limitbased on statecodes reproducedin XenophonP. Huddy,The Law of Automobiles(Albany, N.Y., 1906), 116-325. South Bend Police Department, "AutomobileDrivers Attention," South Bend Tribune,23 October 1919, 11; facsimilein PeterKline, "Newspaper Publicity for Traffic Rules," American City 22 (1920): 127. 28. H. J.Schneider to editor,"Gear Down the Autos,"St. Louis Star,24 November 1923,6; R. F. to editor,"Governors on Autos,"St. Louis Star,19 November1923, 16. For an earlierexample, see "WhatShall Be theCure forAutomobile Speed Mania?"Illustrated World34 (1920): 85-86.

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FIG.2 The Cincinnatispeed governor referendumfrightened motordom into organizing to reshape the trafficsafety problem. This advertisementappeared the day before the vote. (Source: CincinnatiPost, 5 November 1923. Courtesy of the CincinnatiPost.) thetic.In a survey,two of everythree police chiefs agreed that their cities shouldrequire governors on automobiles.29Such a planwon masssupport in Cincinnati,where 42,000 people - morethan 10 percentof thepopula- tion- signedpetitions in 1923 fora local ordinancerequiring governors thatwould shut off automobile engines at twenty-fivemiles per hour. Ter- rifiedcity automotive interests organized a massiveand well-funded "vote no" campaign,and on electionday, voters crushed the plan (fig.2).30 This experience,more than any other, taught motordom that it wouldhave to fightfor the car's rightful place in thecity. Long-term success would require streetsthat were redefined as placeswhere motorists belonged and where pedestrianswere responsible for their own safety.

The Elusiveness of Pedestrian Control

Throughlocal safetycouncils (local affiliatesof the NationalSafety Council),defenders of pedestrians' rights influenced the terms of the safety

29. "Causes of TrafficAccidents - as Seen by Chiefsof Police,"American City 34 (1926): 542. The surveywas conductedby American City; 318 chiefsfavored governors (speed limitwas not designated),161 opposed. The chiefssuggested limits from 20 to 55 milesper hour,35 beingthe approximateaverage. 30. "IfYou Do Not Help RegulateTraffic, Mr. Dealer, Some Day TrafficWill Regulate YourBank Account," Motor Age, 1 November1923, 58; "OrdinanceDefeated 7 to 1,"Cin- cinnatiEnquirer , 7 November1923, 8.

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debate.Seeing traffic casualties as a threat,local promoters of the automobile usuallybacked city public safety campaigns through the early 1920s. Butthese "safety weeks," shaped by prevailing conceptions of what a street is for,also featureddisplays that directed blame at automobiles.Parade floatscarried cars depicted as death-dealingdemons. Posters showed moth- ersholding limp children who were accident victims, and bereavedparents APRIL dedicatedpublic monumentsto childrenkilled in the streets.Left un- 2007 challenged,such blame would threaten the automobile's future in thecity.31 VOL. 48 Beforeothers in motordom,Charles M. Hayesrecognized that industry leadershad to reshapethe traffic safety debate. As presidentof the Chicago MotorClub, Hayes warned his colleaguesthat bad publicityover traffic casualtiescould soon lead to "legislationthat will hedge the operation of automobileswith almost unbearable restrictions." The solutionwas to per- suade citypeople that"the streets are made forvehicles to run upon."32 Pedestrianswould have to assumemore responsibility for their own safety. But how?Where they had been tried,legal regulations alone proved ineffective.From 1915 on (and especiallyafter 1920), cities tried marking crosswalkswith painted lines, but mostpedestrians ignored them.33 A KansasCity safety expert reported that when police tried to keepthem out of theroadway, "pedestrians, many of themwomen" would "demand that policestand aside." In one case,he reported,"women used their parasols on thepolicemen." Police relaxed enforcement.34 Becausepedestrians had longdefined the street as a placewhere they belonged,their critics placed little hope in outlawingtheir habits (fig. 3). Theirproblem was morea matterof custom than of law. Most judges were againstpedestrian control, and citydwellers resented fines or arrestsfor whatwas a near-universalpractice. Any successful plan would therefore re- quirepedestrians' cooperation. Change, said one safetyreformer, would

31. PeterD. Norton,Fighting Traffic: The Dawn ofthe Motor Age in theAmerican City (Cambridge,Mass., forthcoming2008). 32. CharlesHayes, "Auto Accidents Are Not AlwaysDue to Drivers,"Chicago Tribune* 11 January1920, Fll. 33. "Regulationof StreetTraffic" (editorial), American City 13 (1915), 174; JohnP. Fox,"Traffic Regulation in Detroitand Toronto," American City 13 (1915), 176; Thomas Adams and Harland Bartholomew,"City Planning as Relatedto Public Safety,"Proceed- ingsof theNational Safety Council 1 (1918): 363; PeterKline, "Newspaper Publicity for TrafficRules," American City 22 (1920): 126-27; "MarkingTraffic Zones," American City 25 (1921): 531, 533; R. D. Ballew,"Solving the ParkingProblem in a Small City"Amer- ican City27 (1922): 31; A. R. Hirst,"You Can Say 'Danger' Once Too Often"American City27 (1922): 122;William M. Myers,"Traffic Lights and Zone Markersin Richmond," AmericanCity 2% (1923): 454; MillerMcClintock, Street Traffic Control (New York,1925), 212-13; "AutoistsMust Drive Chalk Line in Loop District,"Chicago Tribune* 28 April 1923, 4; George Earl Wallis, "Teaching Father KnickerbockerTo Watch His Step," NationalSafety News 8 (October 1923): 11. 34. L. J.Smyth, The JayWalker Problem, National Safety News 2(11 October1920): 11.

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FIG.3 New York City,1923. Pedestrians did not readily relinquishtheir customary rightsto the street; regulation alone would not suffice.(Source: George Earl Wallis, "Teaching Father Knickerbockerto Watch His Step/' National Safety News 8 [October 1923]: 11. Courtesyof the National Safety Council.) require"education instead of prosecutionor persecution."35"We wantto educatethe people rather than arrest them," said a deputypolice chief.36

The Discovery and Reinvention of Jaywalking

The industrialsafety movement offered motordom a model forsuc- cessfulpublic education. Through safety publicity, industries gave workers responsibilityfor their own safety by directing ridicule at carelessworkers. "OttoNobetter," a fictional factory worker and boob who maimedhimself weeklyin industrialsafety posters, made recklessfactory hands look like fools.37New state workmen's compensation laws directed responsibility for

35. A. J.Driscoll (SafetyFirst Association of Washington,D.C.), quoted in '"Jay- Walking'Banned," Washington Post, 21 October 1917,8. 36. J.A. McRell,quoted in Finesfor Jay Walkers Help Safetyin Newark, New York Times,12 August1923. 37. See postersin NationalSafety News and figuresin Dianne Bennettand William Graebner,"Safety First: Slogan and Symbolof the IndustrialSafety Movement," Journal ofthe Illinois State Historical Society 68 (1975): 252-53.

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industrialaccidents at businessowners. Nobetter's job wasto redirectsome of theresponsibility back to workers.Motordom needed an OttoNobetter fortraffic safety. They found it in epithetsthat evoked his simple-minded carelessness. Joyrider and speedmaniac - termsconnoting irresponsibility and reck- lessdisregard for others - wereamong the early insults pedestrians hurled APRIL at aggressivemotorists.38 In 1909,for example, "joy riders" were motorists 2007 who abusedtheir "power of lifeand death"over "pedestrians . . . theaged VOL 48 and infirm. . . childrenplaying in thestreets"; in 1912,they were "automobilists"whose "aggressions" intruded upon the rights of pedestrians "to the verygreat danger of childrenand agedpeople."39 Both views reflected the unspokenassumptions of theirtime: that people on foot,including childrenat play,had a rightfulclaim to streetspace. Motoristscounterattacked with jaywalker. "Chauffeurs assert with somebitterness," noted the Chicago Tribune in 1909,"that their 'joy riding' wouldharm nobody if there were not so muchjay walking."40 A jay was a countryhayseed out of place in the city.By extension,a jaywalkerwas someonewho did notknow how to walkin thecity.41 Pedestrians had as- sailedmotorists as a privilegedclass; jaywalker was similarlya broad-brush condemnationof willful pedestrians as boors.Originally, even pedestrians appliedthe term to fellowstrollers - thosewho obstructedthe walkway by failingto keepto theright, for example (fig. 4).42 By 1913jaywalkers were moreoften pedestrians oblivious to thedangers of motor traffic: "men who are so accustomedto cuttingacross fields and villagelots that they zigzag acrosscity streets, scorning to keep to the crossings,ignoring their own safety"and "impedingtraffic."43

38. Ira C. Judson,"Inthe Wake of theAutomobile Joy Rider," Wilmington (Del.) Sun- day MorningStar, 2 May 1909, 13; "Publicityand Penalty"(editorial), Providence (R.I.) Journal2 July1921, 12 ("speed maniacs"). "Road hogs" was oftenfavored; in 1925,a BritishM.P. definedthem as those who "run down pedestriansand attemptto escape detectionby driving on." See J.M. Kenworthy,Daily Mail, quoted in "The DangerousArt of Crossingthe Road,"Public Opinion 128 (1925): 152. 39. Judson,13; Allan Hoben, "The CityStreet," in The Child in theCity, ed. Soph- onisba P. Breckinridge(New York,1970 [1912]), 453. The termjoy ridergained sudden prominencein 1908;by 1909,it was featuredin a Chicago stagecomedy, "The JoyRider" ("In the Theaters,"Chicago Tribune, 23 September1909, 12). See also "JoyRiding" (editorial),Chicago Tribune, 5 April1909, 8, whichclassifies the termas "Gothamese." 40. Untitledone-sentence item in the ChicagoTribune, 1 April1909, 12. 41. On class"overtones" in conflictsbetween pedestrians and motorists,see Baldwin (n. 12 above), 219-20, and McShane (n. 10 above), 177. 42. "In Simple,Child-Like New York,"Kansas CityStar, 30 April 1911, ID (4:1). A 1921 definitionretained this early sense: a jaywalkerwas "one who 'shortcuts'from the regulartraffic routes, pedestrian or motor"(B. H. Lehman,"A Word-Listfrom Califor- nia,"Dialect Notes 5 [ 1921]: 109). See also "CityCraft and JayWalkers," Chicago Tribune, 9 October 1921,8. 43. "'Jay'Walkers," Washington Post, 18 May 1913, 7:4. See also "JoyRider and Jay

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FIG.4 The firstknown illustrationof "jay walkers." This 1911 cartoon precedes the earliest Oxford English Dictionarycitation for the word by six years. In its early definition,jaywalkers obstructed other pedestrians by their irregular paths and their susceptibilityto distractionby sidewalk vendors (such as the strop oil salesman depicted here). Jaywalkerswere a nuisance more to others afoot than to motorists,depicted here as rare, peripheral,and aristocratic. (Source: "In Simple, Child-LikeNew York," Kansas CityStar, 30 April 1911, sec. 4, p. 1.)

To overcomelong-standing traditions of streetuse, motordomap- pealedto modernity."We are livingin a motorage," explained John Hertz of Chicago'sYellow Cab Company."And we musthave not only motor age education,but a motorage senseof responsibility."According to an indus- trytrade journal, "this is a changingworld and we haveto adaptourselves to thechanges." A car dealertold citypeople to getwith the times. "The automobileis hereto stay,"he wrote."The streetsare for vehicle traffic, the sidewalksfor pedestrians."44 Because jaywalker bore the right connotation

Walker"(editorial), Post- Standard, 25 November 1913, 4, which placed most of the blame forpedestrian casualties on motorists. 44. JohnHertz, quoted in "Agreeon Code of Sane Speed forSpeedy U.S.," Chicago Tribune,25 March 1926, 6; J.L. Jenkins,"New Police Order Bars JayWalkers at Busy Crossing,"Chicago Tribune,28 October 1923,A 12; Thomas J.Hay, "Carelessness, Not Speed,Cause of Auto Mishaps,"Chicago Tribune, 25 January1920, 15.

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of ruralbackwardness, it was justthe tool forthis reeducation effort. Ad- vocatesof pedestrian control tried to definea jaywalkeras anyonewho en- teredthe roadway at a placeother than an intersection;anything else was "crossingthe street in therube fashion."45 In itsearly years, jaywalker meant different things to different users. Over- workedpolice "cornermen" at intersectionsused it to targetpedestrians who APRIL ignoredtheir signals. By the middle teens, it was a featureof "policepar- 2007 lance."46But such use sparkedcontroversy. In 1915,when New York City's VOL. 48 policecommissioner Arthur Woods sought to applythe word to anyonewho crossedthe streetat mid-block,the New YorkTimes protested, calling it "highlyopprobrious" and "a trulyshocking name." Any attempt to arrest pedestrianswould be "sillyand intolerable."47 Others, however, promoted the termas a legitimatetool of public safety publicity, and itsuse spread.

Pedestrian Reeducation: Jaywalking in City Safety Weeks

Motordomfound opportunities in thecity safety campaigns of the late teensand earlytwenties to promotethe new term and influenceits connotations.In 1920Chicago's Charles Hayes asked for less attention to "speed- ersand recklessdrivers" and moreto "JayWalkers."48 Two years later John Hertz,the presidentof the city'sYellow Cab Company,also adoptedthe term."We fear the 'jay walker' worse than the anarchist," he declared,"and Chicagois his nativehome."49 By the autumnof 1923,Hayes's Chicago MotorClub was usingjaywalker in an offensiveagainst prevailing notions oftraffic safety.50 WhenHayes and theChicago Motor Club persistedin suchclaims, city coronerOscar Wolff retorted that accidents were due to speedingcars, not pedestrians,and in 1924he joined police chief Morgan Collins in a "waron speed"to "savethe children" and "givethe pedestrians a chance."51Hayes foughtback. Heated exchanges enlivened newspapers; the club pronounced Wolff"derelict in hisduty." Similarcontroversies erupted in citysafety weeks elsewhere. Through

45. CornermanWalter H. Douglas,quoted in NickWoltjer, "Jay- Walking Campaign Is a Big Success,"Grand Rapids Herald, 12 June1921, 5:3. 46. "Police Department,"Washington Post, 20 February1916, A2. 47. "Middle-BlockCrossing Is Defended,"New YorkTimes, 2 December 1915, 10; "Crossingat the Corners"New YorkTimes, 1 1 November1915, 12. 48. Hayes (n. 32 above). 49. JohnHertz, quoted in J.L. Jenkins,"Sees BigCut in Taxi Ratewith Traffic Relief," ChicagoTribune, 29 March 1922,4; see also "'Jay-Walker' Blamed by Hertz for Most Auto Mishaps,"Chicago Tribune, 6 February1922, 5. 50. Chicago Motor Club, "Who Is to Blame forAccidents?" (Traffic Talks no. 2), ChicagoTribune, 27 September1923, 18. 5 1. Keep the ChildrenOff the Streets,Coroner Urges,"Chicago Tribune,22 July 1924,7; "UrgeChildren Sign Pledgeto BewareTraffic," Chicago Tribune, 24 July1924, 7.

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This content downloaded from 201.103.57.203 on Mon, 20 May 2013 20:37:12 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions NORTON I Jaywalkingand the Inventionof the Motor Age Street theinfluence of local motordom and themore pragmatic reformers, adults on footwere subjected to intensesloganeering against "reckless pedestrians."52In Syracuse'spioneering safety campaign of December1913, a man in a Santasuit used a megaphoneto denouncecareless pedestrians as "jay walkers."According to one safetyreformer, those singled out forthis treat- ment"never forgot it."53 Bythe late teens, safety campaigns were spreading the term quickly and shapingits connotations.54 In 1917, a jaywalkerin Bostonwas "a pedestrian whocrosses the streets in disregardof trafficsignals."55 The followingyear in St. Louis,leaflets distributed during the first public safety week organ- izedby the National Safety Council taught pedestrians that the "jay walker" is "theman who refusesto use thecrossings and cutsthe corners."56 Other citieswent further. In a 1920safety campaign in San Francisco,pedestrians foundthemselves pulled into mocked-upoutdoor courtroomswhere crowdsof onlookerswatched as theywere lectured on the perilsof jaywalking.The idea was to "kidthe people into taking care of themselves," thoughsurely many defendants didn't appreciate the joke.57 A yearlater, BoyScouts in Providence,Rhode Island, summoned jaywalkers to a "school forcareless pedestrians" for reeducation.58 Bythen, Boy Scouts were a mainstayof publicsafety campaigns, where theyintroduced thousands to theword jaywalker and itsmotor-age definition.59During a 1921safety week in GrandRapids, Michigan, for example, thesafety council posted Boy Scoutsto issuecards to offenders,teaching themthat they were "jay-walking" (fig. 5). Tojustify the curtailment ofpedes- trians'customary rights, the cards explained that cutting corners was "per- missiblewhen traffic was horse-drawn,"but "today it is dangerous- condi- tionshave changed!" As a localnewspaper put it, "thousands of people who neverknew what jaywalking meant have learned the meaning of the word."60

52. "JudgeAssails Talk of 'RecklessPedestrians,"' Detroit News, 24 August1922, 10. 53. Ivan H. Wise, How a SafetyFirst Campaign Was Conducted, AmericanCity 10 (1914): 322-26, quote on 326. 54. Lehmanfound it not common (n. 42 above), 109. 55. RobertP. Utter, Our UpstartSpeech, Harpers Magazine 135 (1917): 66-72, quote on 70, citedin OxfordEnglish Dictionary, 2nd ed. (1989), as thefirst known use of jaywalker(cf. n. 4 above). 56. "Conventionof NationalSafety Council Opens,"St. LouisPost- Dispatch, 16 Sep- tember1918, 3. 57. A. McKie Donnan, "The Human-InterestSafety First Campaign in San Francis- co,"American City 23 (1920): 154. 58. "Jay-walkersWill Be Curbed To-Day,"Providence (R.I.) Journal,1 July1921, 13; "SafetyWeek Still Leads 1920 Record,"Providence (R.I.) Journal,2 July1921, 11. 59. Perhapsthe earliestexample occurred in Clevelandduring its 1919 safetyweek; see "Make Final Plans for'Safety Week,'" Cleveland Plain Dealer,26 September1919, 16. 60. "Did You Get One of These?"Grand Rapids Herald, 7 June1921, 3; "Jaywalkers Scarceas SafetyFirst Crusade Makes Its Impression,"Grand Rapids Herald, 10 June1921, 3.

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FIG.5 With cards, Boy Scouts taught pedestrians to relinquishtheir customary rightsto the street. Top: This 1921 card, distributedto pedestrians in Hartford, Connecticut,promoted the redefinitionof "jay walking." (Source: "Boy Scouts and Kiwanis Club of HartfordPut on Anti-JayWalking Campaign," National Safety News 3 [7 February1921], 4. Courtesyof the National Safety Council.) Bottom: Two years later,600,000 of these cards were distributedin New York City.(Source: Barron Collier,Stopping Street Accidents: A Historyof New York City'sBureau of Public Safety [New York, 1925], 76. Courtesyof the Barron Collier Company.)

Duringsafety weeks, unwanted attention - whetherfrom department- storeSantas, judge impersonatorsin mockhearings, or street-cornerBoy Scouts- wasintended to discourageold pedestrianpractices (figs. 6 and 7). In some safetycampaigns, however, clowns took the ridiculepublicly, as examplesto others.In Cleveland,"crowds of 'jaywalkers"' (recruited for the purpose)taught parade-goers to disapproveof the practice.61 Onlookers in NewYork City laughed as a buffoonallowed himself to be repeatedlyrear-

61. "SafetyGospel Will PermeateCity This Week,"Cleveland Plain Dealer,28 Sep- tember1919, 1, 11.

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FIG.6 At a safety parade In New York City,circa 1924, a clown played the role of a jaywalker while a Model T repeatedly struckhim. (Source: Barron Collier, Stopping Street Accidents: A Historyof New York City'sBureau of Public Safety [New York, 1925], 76. Courtesyof the Barron Collier Company.) endedby a slow-movingModel T.62In Philadelphia,a pair of "Country Cousins"dressed "as rubes"distributed "Cautious Crossing Crosser" but- tonsto pedestrians.63

Repaymentin Kind: The Inventionof JayDriving

Manypedestrians resented and resistedantijaywalking campaigns. In GrandRapids, the chief of thelocal safetycouncil admitted that "some of thepeople were very indignant over it, as theynaturally are when their per- sonalliberty is interferedwith."64 A New Yorker objected to thedistribution of"rebuke cards." A Michigancouple took resistance almost to thepoint of a civildisobedience campaign, "collecting about 15 blue warningcards" fromBoy Scout enforcers as theydeliberately crossed streets "in everyplace butthe crosswalks."65 A Detroit judge courted such dissenters in a reelec-

62. BarronCollier, Stopping Street Accidents: A Historyof New YorkCity's Bureau of PublicSafety (New York,1925), 114. 63. "'Make AprilSafe' Was Philadelphia'sSlogan," Electric Railway Journal 69 (1927): 809, 81 1. See also NationalSafety Council, Seven Days for Safety (Chicago, 1930), 14-15. 64. J.C. Townsend,quoted in "Discussionon TrafficHazards," in Proceedingsof the NationalSafety Council, Tenth Annual Safety Congress, Boston, 26-30 September1921, 593. 65. NickWoltjer, "Jay- Walking Campaign Is a Big Success,"Grand Rapids Herald, 12 June1921, 5:3; PhilipVyle to editor,"Pedestrians' Rights Ignored," New YorkTimes, 6 July 1925, 10.

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FIG.7 Ridicule of jaywalkers featured prominentlyin trafficsafety campaigns by the early 1920s. (Source: New YorkEvening Journal,1923; reprintedin George Earl Wallis, "Teaching Father Knickerbockerto Watch His Step," National Safety News 8 [October 1923]: 11. Courtesyof the National Safety Council.)

" tioncampaign: "The pedestrianshe said,"have a rightin thestreet, how- evermuch reckless drivers insist to thecontrary."66 Criticsof pedestriancontrol fought to regainthe rhetoricalhigh ground.A Chicagoeditor proposed that a pedestriancondemned as a "jay

66. CharlesL. Bartlett,speech to theVortex Club, Detroit, 23 August1922, quoted in "JudgeAssails Talk of 'RecklessPedestrians,'" Detroit News, 24 August1922, 10; see also "SavingWomen, Children Bartlett's Idea of Justice,"Detroit News, 31 August1922, 33.

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This content downloaded from 201.103.57.203 on Mon, 20 May 2013 20:37:12 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions NORTON I Jaywalkingand the Inventionof the Motor Age Street walker"was insteadlikely to be "a fairlyalert frontiersman trusting to his instincts."67In a 1922letter to his newspaper,a St. Louis man turnedthe "jaywalking"label against those who promotedit. "We hearthe shameful complaintof jay walkers,to consolejay drivers?he wrote."It is theself-con- ceitedindividual who thinkspeople are cattleand runupon themtooting a horn."Instead, cities should "give precedent to peoplewho are walking. The streetsbelong to thepeople and notto anyone class,and we havean equal right,in fact,more right than the automobile."68 Withina year,jay driverwas gaining more conspicuous use. In 1923the WashingtonPost argued that "the jay driver is evena greatermenace to the publicthan the jay walker." Washington, D.C.'s deputy traffic director, I. C. Moller,later endorsed the term.69In 1925 a stagesketch called "The Jay Driver"amused audiences at Chicagovariety houses.70 To a point,motordom was preparedto join pedestriansin ridiculing recklessdrivers, fearing that the worst among them would provoke rules prejudicialto everyoneelse. In 1922the American Automobile Association (AAA) evenoffered twenty-five dollars to the personwho suggestedthe bestnew epithetfor the motoringequivalent of a jaywalker.The winner wasfliwerboob, a term that, like jaywalker, cast classaspersions (it could hardlyapply to driversof Pierce Arrows, for example). But the AAA did lit- tleto promotefliwerboob, and thereis no evidencethat it ever caught on.71 Buteven jay driverfailed, despite its more natural origins.72 Itlacked the

67. "A JayWalker Law" (editorial),Chicago Tribune, 14 July1927, 8. 68. GeorgeA. Davies to editor,"Auto Traffic," St. Louis Star,31 October 1922, 14 (emphasisadded). For a rebuttal,see E. A. M. to editor,"Traffic a Two-SidedQuestion," St.Louis Star, 3 November1922, 14. As earlyas 1915,the Kansas City Star urged its readers"Don't Be a JayDriver," but theterm did not catchon; see reprintin the Washington Post,10 October 1915,M3. 69. "Make theStreets Safe" (editorial), Washington Post, 31 July1923, 6. Justas reckless motoristswere sometimes called "jay drivers,""joy rider"was at leastonce reversed and appliedto a pedestrian.In 1919,a policemanstopped champion boxer Jack Demp- seyon a Chicago streetfor crossing against the signal. The Tribunedescribed Dempsey's violationas a "joywalk" ("Champion JackDempsey 'Stopped' - byTraffic Cop," Chicago Tribune,8 July1919, 16). 70. "Theater,"Chicago Tribune, 2 March 1925, 17 (cf.n. 39 above); and H. B. H., letterto editor,"Jay Driving," Chicago Tribune, 10 November1926, 10. 71. "The Motor'Fliwerboob,'" New YorkTimes, 9 July1922; "Consider the 'Fliwer- boob; a HorribleExample," Chicago Tribune,17 September1922, All. The National SafetyCouncil used theword for some monthsin safetyposters; see theposters included in NationalSafety News 8 (Augustand September1923). The termwas coined by R B. Simpsonof Cedar Rapids,Iowa. David Blankeof TexasA&M Universityand theauthor independentlybrought this term to lightagain in 2004. 72. The term(and variants)did persist(through survival or reinvention).In 1929,a Chicago residentfingered the "jay-autoist" as "the realtraffic offender" (letter to editor, "The 'Jay-Autoist'Menace," Chicago Tribune, 25 August1929, A7); in 1936,a New Yorker complainedthat "jay driversare moreof a menacethan the jay-walker" (William Floyd to editor,New YorkTimes, 13 July1936, 14).

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supportof a powercomparable to motordom,and it was notquite apt. A jay is foolishor gullible.Critics of motoristscould call them cold-hearted, tyrannical,or selfish,but a motorcar conferredtoo muchpower, modernity,and worldlysophistication to be thepossession of a simpleton.Pedes- trianswho riskedtheir lives to crossbusy streets without the protection of a cornermanor signalcould indeed run foolish risks, however, and "reck- APRIL lessexposure to danger"became part of thefirst dictionary definitions of 2007 jaywalker.73Motorists1 most persuasive claim to roadwaypriority thus lay VOL. 48 in thephysical threat they represented to others.

Los Angeles: Pedestrian Education as Precursor to Pedestrian Control

Pedestriancontrol began to workbetter when cities learned to precede it withintense publicity that questioned customary pedestrian practices, whilemaking enough concessions so thatthe more compliant would not be temptedto jaywalk.Los Angelesled theway, while other cities watched and learned.Los Angelesshowed them that legal measures and technical devices(such as automaticsignals) were only adjuncts to moreeffective methods. Los Angelesproved that successful pedestrian control depended as muchon publicityefforts as on rules.City police had triedissuing rules thatordered pedestrians not to "walkin the roadway,except to crossthe street,"and not to "crossthe intersectionsdiagonally" - to no apparent effect.The Automobile Club of Southern California tried to helpthe police. Atits own expenseit paintedcrossings and postedsigns warning that "jay walking"was prohibited,even though the term did notappear in thetraf- ficcode (fig.8). These,too, were largely ignored.74 In 1922groups with a stakein thecity's traffic problem joined the automobile club in a coalition callingitself the Los AngelesTraffic Commission. The groupincluded rep- resentativesof theelectric railways, but it was dominated by automotive interestgroups (its president,Paul Hoffman,was Studebaker'stop regional salesman).Finally, in July1924, the commission hired Miller McClintock to finda wayto solvethe problem. McClintock,just twenty-nine,was a formercollege English teacher completinga doctoratein municipalgovernment at HarvardUniversity. Forhis dissertation research, he spentthe summer of 1924observing traf- ficin cities.When McClintock visited Los Angeleshe metHoffman and his

73. Webster'sNew InternationalDictionary of the English Language, 2nd ed. (Spring- field,Mass., 1936), 1331. 74. "Eldridgeto AskLaw ControllingWalking Traffic," Washington Post, 22 July1925, 20; RobbinsB. Stoeckel,"Our Rightson the Highway,"National Safety News (1923): 19.

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FIG.8 With motordom's help, Los Angeles, like Washington, elevated "jay walking" from an offensiveepithet to a term with legal standing. In 1923 signs notified LA. pedestrians: "JayWalking Prohibited by Order- Police Department." The Automobile Club of Southern California paid for the signs. (Source: Robbins B. Stoeckel, "Our Rightson the Highway," National Safety News 8 [December 1923], 19. Courtesyof the National Safety Council.)

colleagueson thecommission, who put him to work.The resultwas a pro- posedtraffic ordinance that McClintock hoped could serve as a modelfor citiesnationwide.75 The L.A. CityCouncil approvedthe ordinancein November;it went into effect in January1925.76 McClintock- likeTom Swift'srival Andy Foger - said a newage justi- fiednew ways. "The old commonlaw rulethat every person, whether on

75. MillerMcClintock, "Simple Rule Code Needed forTraffic," Los Angeles Times, 16 November1924,6:1,3. 76. Thomas Sugrue,"Miller McClintock," Scribner's Magazine 102 (1937): 9-13, 99.

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footor driving,has equal rightsin all partsof theroadway must give way beforethe requirements of moderntransportation," he told the press.77 His ordinanceincluded strict pedestrian control measures, with fines for jaywalkers.On downtownstreets pedestrians had to keepwithin crosswalks and obeytraffic signals; where there were none, they would have to raisea handto haltoncoming motorists.78 But backers of the new code had learned APRIL thehard way that rules alone would not suffice. Led by the automobile club, 2007 theytherefore persuaded the city to delayenforcement, using the interval to VOL. 48 "educate"Angelenos to regardstreets as motorthoroughfares.79 In E. B. Lefferts,the Automobile Club of SouthernCalifornia had a diplomaticleader who could package the threat to thecar's urban future as a communitysafety issue and cultivategood relationswith the city's police department.While admitting that "it is not particularlydifficult to sell" pedestriancontrol to "a populationwhich is 'motor-minded,'"henonethe- lessorchestrated a meticulous sales campaign for the new rules. The auto club distributedsome printedpublicity itself, and morethrough local oil companiesand the police.In theweek before enforcement began, every radiostation in thecity broadcast nightly "informative talks" on pedestrian controlso that"the radio audience had no escape."The clubalso initiated a bond-issueproposal to financepedestrian tunnels that would protect childrenon theirwalk to school.When voters approved it, the club sur- veyedschool neighborhoods and selectedthe first forty tunnel sites. These passagewaysprotected children and, accordingto Lefferts,"expedited vehicularmovement" on streets,promoting a new proposition: that pedes- triansdo notbelong in streets.80 Likeothers before him, Lefferts found that to ensurecompliance, "the ridiculeof theirfellow citizens is farmore effective than any other means whichmight be adopted."81Rather than fine jaywalkers, police blew their whistlesat them,attracting unwanted attention from passersby. At least two

77. McClintock, SimpleRule Code Needed, 3. 78. "TrafficLaw Explained" Los AngelesTimes, 23 January1925, 2:2; Los Angeles Times,24 January1925, 1:1. 79. JaywalkersGiven Grace, Los AngelesTimes, 24 January1925, 2:1, 2; E. B. Lefferts,"Regulation of Pedestrians"(address to theNational Safety Council, 28 Septem- ber 1927), in Transactionsof theNational Safety Council, Sixteenth Annual Safety Con- gress,vol. 3 (Chicago,1927), 19-24. See also E. B. Lefferts,"Effective Regulation of Pedes- trians,"American City 37 (1927): 434-36. The most defiantpedestrians were arrested immediately,however; see "New Law on JaywalkingIs in Force,"Los AngelesTimes, 25 January1925, 1:7. 80. Lefferts,"Regulation of Pedestrians,"20-21; Lefferts,"Effective Regulation of Pedestrians,"434-35; "School TunnelAction Urged," Los Angeles Times, 25 October1925, 1:14. 81. Lefferts,Regulation of Pedestrians,21; Lefferts,Effective Regulation of Pedes- trians,"436. Baldwin(n. 12 above), 224, reportsa similaruse of unwelcomepublic atten- tiondirected at violatorsarrested in Hartfordin 1929.

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This content downloaded from 201.103.57.203 on Mon, 20 May 2013 20:37:12 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions NORTON I Jaywalkingand the Inventionof the Motor Age Street pedestrians,angered by thistreatment, fought back physicallyand were promptlyarrested. At the sound of a whistleand "an admonitionto return to thesidewalk," however, most "violators grinned sheepishly and scuttled back to the curb."82There, Lefferts said, the wrongdoer"shamefacedly" foundhimself "facing a largegallery of amused people." By refraining from arrests,the police avoidedantagonizing pedestrians and sidesteppedthe riskthat judges might use common-lawprecedents to castdoubts on the legalityof pedestriancontrol. Above all, however,the techniqueturned enforcementinto another form of "pedestrianeducation" not just forthe violator,but also forthose witnessing the violation. After months of warn- ings,police stepped up enforcement.By the winter of 1925-26,a reporter foundthat pedestrians had "learnedto obeythe stop and go signalsthe sameas vehicles"and that"jaywalkers are arrested."83 Leffertspromoted the Los Angelesway to nationalaudiences. To ex- plainhis city'srelative success, he notedthe importance of thesocial ele- mentin technicalproblems. To a Chicagoconvention of the National Safety Councilin 1927he explained:"We have recognized that in controllingtraf- ficwe musttake into consideration the study of human psychology, rather thanapproach it solelyas an engineeringproblem." In pedestriancontrol, thismeant extending "ridicule" to pedestrianpractices that were incompat- ible withthe motorage street.84Through Lefferts 's promotion and the backingof nationalmotordom, the Los AngelesTraffic Code of 1925be- came- as McClintockhad hoped- a modelfor cities across the country.85 As Chicago'sattempts at pedestriancontrol had shown,pedestrians wereunable or unwillingto negotiatestreets within the narrow limits of officialregulations. Each side had power.Motorists, through superior horsepower,could drive people off the street wherever police were not there to stopthem. This brute fact negated pedestrians' legal right to signalauto- mobilesto stopat crossings.The LosAngeles Times noted that because "no pedestrianbelieved" cars would stop,this rightwent unexercised and "nobodywas hurt."86Yet pedestrians could fightback with their superior agility,entering streets anywhere they could manage. By granting pedestrians certainrights, the Los Angelesway of pedestriancontrol attempted a compromisebetween these extremes. On all busycity streets, however -

82. "JaywalkingLeads to Jail,"Los AngelesTimes, 27 January1925, 2:1. 83. Oscar Hewitt,"Motor Toll Cut,Traffic Speeded - in Los Angeles,"Chicago Trib- une,10 January1926, 22. 84. Lefferts,"Regulation of Pedestrians";Lefferts, "Effective Regulation of Pedes- trians." 85. In the late 1920s,under the aegis of the U.S. Departmentof Commerce,auto- motiveinterests spread pedestrian-controltechniques pioneered in Los Angeles.See Norton(n. 31 above). " 86. "JaywalkerLaw Works;No Injuries Los AngelesTimes, 26 January1925, 2:1. See also "Confessionsby a Jaywalker,"Los AngelesTimes, 28 January1925, 1:2.

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evenin Los Angeles- practicedid not liveup to principle.As streetsbe- came motorthoroughfares, most pedestrians conceded their rights wher- evermotorists showed the least inclination to violatethem, and mostcon- tinuedto cross the streetwherever they thought they could safelydo so- lawor no law.

APRIL The of as a Word 2007 Legitimation Jaywalking VOL. 48 Meanwhile,changing newspaper coverage was underminingold as- sumptionsabout who belonged in thestreets. Reflecting prevailing perceptionsof thestreets, most city newspapers had demonizedautomobiles for accidents,routinely blaming motorists and givinglittle or no responsibility to pedestrians(fig. 9). The threatof a speed-governorordinance in Cincin- naticonvinced motordom that it had to challengethese assumptions. A monthafter the successfulfight against speed governors,safety expert CharlesW. Pricegave the auto industrygrounds for hope: "The whole problemof the accident situation is stillin theformative stage, awaiting the leadershipof some groupof interests- such as the automotiveindustries."87Success, however, would requirea transformationof newspaper accidentcoverage. Auto manufacturerGeorge M. Grahamof the NationalAutomobile Chamberof Commerce(NACC) acceptedPrice's challenge. Somehow, he toldhis colleagues, "pedestrians must be educatedto knowthat automobiles haverights." Graham explained that NACC, an industrygroup representing all majormanufacturers except Ford, could reconstruct the safety problem throughthe press. Newspapers, he said,sometimes reported accident fatali- tiesas u

87. Price(n. 22 above), 1187-1190. 88. Graham,address to the Societyof AutomotiveEngineers, Washington, D.C., 15 December 1924,published as "Cause and Preventionof Accidents," Journal of the Society ofAutomotive Engineers 16 (January1925): 12-13 (quote on 12). Graham,"Education, Punishment,and TrafficSafety" (address, 14 February1924), 2-3, in bound collection marked"Pamphlets" (New York:National Automobile Chamber of Commerce,1919- 1933), Library,United States Departmentof Transportation,Washington, D.C.; re- printedas Graham,"Stern Action Is Urgedto BanishDeath fromHighways," Automotive Industries50 (28 February1924): 495-98, 511 (quotes on 496 and 497). See also Graham, "SafeguardingTraffic: A Nation's Problem- a Nation's Duty" (address,23 September 1924),Annals 116 (November1924): 179.

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FIG.9 "Right of Might," 1925. To many pedestrians, loss of access to the streetswas not a rational adaptation to new conditions but an unjust theft perpetrated with superior horsepower. (Source: Winsor McCay,New York Herald Tribune,1925; reprintedin The Outlook 140 [29 July1925], 445.) manof the Hudson Motor Company and laterPresident Hoover's secretary of commerce,remembered one such case. Sometimearound 1910 "the ChicagoTribune would not mentionthe name of any motorcar in its columns.The dealersin Chicagosimultaneously withdrew their advertising fromthe Chicago Tribune. In a mightyshort space of time that paper woke up andpromised to do almostanything ifthey could get the advertising, and sincethat time they have been very decent in theirattitude."89 Other papers withbig Sundayautomobile sections became newsprint cheerleaders for theirsponsors.90 The WashingtonStar was on veryfriendly terms with the

89. Chapin to Hugh Chalmers,quoted in J.C.Long, Roy D. Chapin (privatelypub- lishedpresentation copy, 1945), 95. 90. The CincinnatiEnquirer and Los AngelesTimes are cases in point.To theLos An- gelesTimes, for example, a jaywalkerwas merelya personlacking "thrift enough to own a car" (editorial,"Jaywalkers," 1 April 1926, 4). In neithercase, however,can a definitive relationshipbetween sponsorship by auto interestsand editorialpolicy be proved,and in

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AmericanAutomobile Association, which often used the paper,through pressreleases, as a publicityagent. The paper frequently reprinted, verbatim, articleswritten at AAA,without comment and underthe namesof Star reporters.91In 1923 the Chicago Motor Club began buying space in theChi- cagoTribune for periodic "Traffic Talks," where it publicizedfindings pro- portingto showthat the "reckless pedestrian" caused "almost 90%" of the APRIL collisionsbetween automobiles and people.The solution?"Don't jay walk." 2007 It soon organizedits own "accident prevention department" to collectand VOL. 48 interpretaccident statistics for itself. In newspapersand on theradio, the clubused its findings for "berating the careless pedestrian."92 To reshapecoverage coast to coast,Graham proposed a variationon thesetechniques. Instead of purchasingspace in dozensor hundredsof newspapers,NACC launcheda centralaccident news service. To "make sure thatthe reportergets and recordsthe essentialfacts," newspapers reportedaccidents on blankforms NACC supplied.93NACC assembled completedforms, drawing its own conclusionsabout where blame lay. It thenreported its statistics back to thepapers, together with proposals for accidentprevention. Grahamexplained that motordom would thus "make the newspaper a clearinghouse" for the industry's"safety suggestions." NACC hoped that participatingnewspapers would "be influenced... to givegreater publicity to the realcauses of trafficaccidents."94 If it worked,the plan wouldput NACCahead of the National Safety Council as themost influential national authorityon trafficaccidents. Even before the first filled-out accident forms cameback to NACC,Graham knew what they would prove: "In a majority ofautomobile accidents the fault is withthe pedestrian rather than with the automobiledriver."95 Thosewho carefullyfollowed newspaper coverage of accidentstatistics

Los Angeles,pro-automobile coverage might plausibly have been a fairreflection of readers'sympathies. 91. See AlfredG. Seiler, Scrap Book, catalogueno. A200 Am35s 1920-29, Head- quartersLibrary, American Automobile Association, Heathrow, Florida. The author gratefullyacknowledges AAA forgranting him freeaccess to theAAA libraryin 1994;in a 2005 visit,however, the author'srequest for access was denied and the library'sexis- tencewas questioned. 92. Chicago Motor Club,"Who Is to Blame forAccidents?" (n. 50 above), and "The Passingof JayWalking" ("Traffic Talks no. 50"), ChicagoTribune, 18 September1924, 22. 93. Graham,"Education, Punishment, and TrafficSafety," 5; Graham,"Stern Action is Urged,"497. 94. "Tryingto Get Newspapersto TellAccident Causes," Automotive Industries 50 ( 17 January1924): 125 (emphasis added); Graham,"Education, Punishment, and Traffic Safety"(n. 88 above), 6. Accordingto AutomotiveIndustries, "The real purpose ... is to getthe pressto treatautomobile accidents more fairly than in thepast." 95. Graham,"Education, Punishment, and TrafficSafety," 2-3.

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This content downloaded from 201.103.57.203 on Mon, 20 May 2013 20:37:12 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions NORTON I Jaywalkingand the Inventionof the Motor Age Street perceiveda changein tonewithin months. By November 1924, Bruce Cobb, magistrateof New York City's Traffic Court, noticed that "it is nowthe fashion to ascribefrom 70 to 90 percent of all accidentsto jaywalking."News- papers'use of theword in 1924alone seemsto havematched or exceeded theirtotal use of it in all years prior to 1923.96Cobb suspected the auto industry'sinfluence was behind the new trend. "I am notsure," he wrote,"but that muchof the blame heaped upon so-called 'jaywalkers' is but a smokescreen, to hidemotordom's own shortcomings as well as to abridgethe now existing legalrights of the foot travelers on ourstreets." Cobb was not easily misled - accidentfigures, he knew,were "a matterof theviewpoint of thestatisti- cian"- butto othersstatistics bore almost scriptural authority.97 Monthslater, events in Washington, D.C., lentsupport to Cobb'ssuspi- cions.District commissioners appointed by Congressnamed AAA execu- tiveM. O. Eldridgethe city's traffic director, despite controversy over "the dangerof fillingthe new post with a personwho mightsee onlythe automobiledriver's side of the question."98The aggressiveEldridge wanted policeto forcestubborn pedestrians back to thecurb so that"the ridicule ofpassing motorists and bystanders"would reform them. He elevatedjay- walkerfrom slang to a worddignified by edict, defining it broadlyas "any pedestrianwho undertakesto crossthe stream of vehiculartraffic on his own responsibilitywhen there is a signalor a policemanat thecorner to startand stopautomobiles, or one who crossesin the middleof a block underany circumstances not involving an emergency."99 Butwhen Eldridge left Washington for a shortvacation, his deputy I. C. Mollerchanged course. "I thinkit is an unfortunatemistake to call pedestrians'jay walkers,'" he said."Neither motorists, policemen, nor anyone else shouldridicule pedestrians. Our job is to protectpersons using the streets, nothumiliate them. Traffic can be regulatedwithout demeaning citizens." Mollerdid not considerthe motorist's claim to thestreet superior to the pedestrian's,and fearedthat Eldridge's campaign against jaywalkers would

96. A searchof theNew YorkTimes, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times,and WashingtonPost at http://proquest.umi.comresults in 119 articlesin which anyform of theword was used through1922, and 124 uses in 1924alone. Thusjaywalker and itscognates remained rare in thesenewspapers even in 1924,but the risein its fre- quency reflectscomparable growth in a much largerclass of articlesthat assigned re- sponsibilityto pedestrianswithout using the word. 97. Cobb, in NationRoused againstMotor Killings, New YorkTimes, 23 November 1924,5. 98. "M. O. EldridgeNamed Directorof Trafficby Commissioners," Washington Posty 21 March 1925, 1; "4 New Candidatesfor Traffic Chief Enteredin Field,"Washington PosUll March 1925,16. 99. "Eldridgeto Ban 'Jaywalkers'Here; Backedby Chiefs,"Washington Post, 4 August 1925,20; "83 Men and Women PedestriansSeized in Drive by Police,"Washington Post, 31 December 1925, 1-2.

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givepedestrians "the idea that we aretrying to slowthem down in orderto speedup motorvehicle traffic at theirexpense."100 In a latercompromise betweenthe two men (presumably after a tensebut unrecorded clash), El- dridgedropped official use of"jaywalker" but ordered that offenders be arrested."I hope theyland in jail,"he told reporters.Police soon arrested eighty-threepedestrians; forty-five showed up in court.The judge found all APRIL of themguilty, but releasedthem on conditionthat they join the"Careful 2007 Walkers'Club" he formedon thespot. After their solemn membership oath VOL. 48 to obeypedestrian regulations, the judge let them go.101 ButEldridge's tactical retreat did notslow the advance of jaywalker as a term.By then, safety weeks had introducedthe word to themillions. Fre- quentuse bluntedits once-sharp edge, and it was passinginto acceptable usageas a termfor renegade pedestrians who would not concede their old rightsto thestreet, even in thedawning motor age. In 1924,soon afterthe boisterouspublicity of citysafety weeks, jaywalker first appeared in a stan- dardAmerican dictionary. The entryofficially conferred upon the word its new,motor age definition:"One whocrosses a streetwithout observing the trafficregulations for pedestrians."102 By sponsoringsafety education in schools,motordom made thenext generationenemies of jaywalking.By thelate 1920sAAA led thefield in classroomsafety instruction. A featureof thenew safety education during theseyears was orchestratedpeer pressure.103 In 1925 1,300Detroit school childrengathered to witnessthe public trial of a twelve-year-oldaccused of "jaywalking"; the student jury convicted the defendant, sentencing him to washschool blackboards for a week.104In 1930a Texasjunior high school pupilconvicted of jaywalking by his youngpeers was orderedto writean essaytitled "Why I ShouldNot JayWalk," in whichhe had to explainthat jaywalking"is aginistthe rules of the city and theschool."105

100."Moller Opposes 'JayWalker' Term for Pedestrians," Washington Post, 19 August 1925,20. 101. "WalkersIgnoring Traffic Rule, Say Police Officials,"Washington Post, 29 December 1925,22; "83 Men and WomenPedestrians Seized in Driveby Police,"2. 102. The PracticalStandard Dictionary of theEnglish Language (New York,1924), 620. The editorsdid not classifythe wordas slangor colloquial,though some laterdic- tionariesdid. In 1936,in the firstnew editionof its unabridgeddictionary since 1895, Webster'sclassified jaywalk as colloquial and definedit as: "To crossa streetcarelessly or at an unusual or inappropriateplace, or in a dangerous,or illegal,direction, so as to be endangeredby the traffic"(Webster's New InternationalDictionary of theEnglish Lan- guage [n. 75 above], 1331). Variationsof the new,restricted definition appeared in other AmericanEnglish dictionaries during the 1930s. 103. On the transformationof school safetyeducation during the middleand late 1920s,see Norton(n. 31 above), 8. ' chap. 104. School Kids Sit in Judgmenton JayWalking Companions, ChicagoTribune, 8 March 1925,All. 105.A. L. Morgan, Pupil Participationin School Control, PeabodyJournal of Edu- cation? (1930): 268.

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Manycontinued to crossstreets on footwhere and how theypleased, butby 1930 most agreed that pedestrians who obstructed vehicles were jaywalkers.Bessie Buckley's question had beenanswered: except at crosswalks, mostbusy streets were for vehicles only. Because jaywalker condemned the actionit described,its admission to officialand unofficiallexicons meant thatperceptions of streetshad changed.As some misusesbecame newly legitimateuses, old customsbecame new misuses. Former ways persisted, especiallyin residentialneighborhoods; about 1960,the vitality of pedes- trianlife in thestreets of Boston's North End impressedJane Jacobs. But in the typicalcity street, Jacobs observed that "all but the mostminimum pedestrianneeds are gradually and steadilysacrificed."106 The legitimation ofjaywalking as a termcorresponded to itsfall into disrepute as a practice. This crucialstep toward the reconstruction of citystreets as motorthor- oughfaresmarked the dawn of the motor age in theAmerican city.

106. JaneJacobs, The Death and Lifeof Great American Cities (New York,1961), 33, 346.

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