Transportation: Past, Present and Future “From the Curators”
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Transportation: Past, Present and Future “From the Curators” Transportationthehenryford.org in America/education Table of Contents PART 1 PART 2 03 Chapter 1 85 Chapter 1 What Is “American” about American Transportation? 20th-Century Migration and Immigration 06 Chapter 2 92 Chapter 2 Government‘s Role in the Development of Immigration Stories American Transportation 99 Chapter 3 10 Chapter 3 The Great Migration Personal, Public and Commercial Transportation 107 Bibliography 17 Chapter 4 Modes of Transportation 17 Horse-Drawn Vehicles PART 3 30 Railroad 36 Aviation 101 Chapter 1 40 Automobiles Pleasure Travel 40 From the User’s Point of View 124 Bibliography 50 The American Automobile Industry, 1805-2010 60 Auto Issues Today Globalization, Powering Cars of the Future, Vehicles and the Environment, and Modern Manufacturing © 2011 The Henry Ford. This content is offered for personal and educa- 74 Chapter 5 tional use through an “Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike” Creative Transportation Networks Commons. If you have questions or feedback regarding these materials, please contact [email protected]. 81 Bibliography 2 Transportation: Past, Present and Future | “From the Curators” thehenryford.org/education PART 1 Chapter 1 What Is “American” About American Transportation? A society’s transportation system reflects the society’s values, Large cities like Cincinnati and smaller ones like Flint, attitudes, aspirations, resources and physical environment. Michigan, and Mifflinburg, Pennsylvania, turned them out Some of the best examples of uniquely American transporta- by the thousands, often utilizing special-purpose woodwork- tion stories involve: ing machines from the burgeoning American machinery industry. By 1900, buggy makers were turning out over • The American attitude toward individual freedom 500,000 each year, and Sears, Roebuck was selling them for • The American “culture of haste” under $25. “In a sense, then, the cheap, factory-made buggy • The American attitude toward democracy became to 19th-century Americans what the Model T Ford • The American attitude toward risk would become to their children and grandchildren” (Kinney, • The American attitude toward natural resources 2004, 22-23). • Characteristically American vehicles When the bicycle arrived in the late 1880s, Americans Transportation and Individual Freedom embraced it for similar reasons, as a vehicle that offered One of the driving forces in American history is the concept great personal mobility at low cost. As soon as the auto- of personal or individual freedom. It is no accident that the mobile became cheap enough for large numbers to afford, best-remembered line in the Declaration of Independence Americans adopted it with a vengeance. is the one about God-given rights to “life, liberty and the While it is true that Americans also quickly took to travel pursuit of happiness.” One manifestation of these rights is in railroad trains in the 19th century, one observer reacted unfettered freedom to travel, to move wherever the urge and to the rise of trains by articulating where Americans’ hearts economic opportunity lead. This, in turn, has produced an really lay: “After all, its old fashioned way of five or six miles American fascination with personal vehicles. an hour, with one’s own horse and carriage, with liberty to Prior to the 19th century, personal vehicles usually meant dine decently in a decent inn, with the delight of seeing the horse-drawn carriages, but during the 19th century, cheaper, country and getting along rationally, is the mode to which I lighter vehicles were developed. Designed to be pulled cling, and which will be adopted again by the generations of by a single horse, they were less expensive to maintain after times” (Rae, 1971, 22). than a coach. Though based on European designs, the light two-wheeled chaise evolved into the American shay. New England builders developed the four-wheeled pleasure wagon before 1825. It could carry light freight and be used for passengers. The pleasure wagon presaged the appearance of one of the characteristic American horse- drawn vehicles, the buggy. The one-horse buggy — light, strong and designed to bounce over bad rural American roads — was also cheap. 3 Transportation: Past, Present and Future | “From the Curators” thehenryford.org/education Transportation and the American “Culture of Haste” Transportation and Democracy When Europeans arrived on the American continent, they We have been conditioned to think of democracy as a politi- saw it as a vast, empty space that needed filling with people, cal concept, but in America it has played itself out in other buildings and farms. Early on, colonists developed a sense ways. Daniel Boorstin has commented that the widespread of urgency to clear land, plant crops and build a society. production and consumption of goods is an expression of Impatience became an American characteristic. Historian American democracy. The sheer volume of stuff turned out Daniel Boorstin called it a “culture of haste.” One reason by American factories had a leveling effect. Not for nothing that railroads were embraced so readily was their poten- did American carriage makers claim that they were making tial for conquering distance and time. The lure of fantastic “Rich Men’s Vehicles at Poor Men’s Prices.” The railroad 30-miles-per-hour speeds proved irresistible. made travel available to a wider group of people, but it was the automobile that really democratized travel. The auto But haste has other manifestations. It led to hurried building truly moved from being a rich man’s toy to being everyman’s of roads and vehicles with an emphasis on quantity conveyance. Throughout automotive history, the character- over quality. As one English observer put it, “Let it go at istics of expensive cars have steadily migrated down to the that seems written all over the face of the land. You see it common vehicles – from big engines (Ford’s V-8) through in the wretchedly laid railway and tramway tracks, in amenities like radios and power windows, to advanced tech- swaying telegraph poles and sagging wires . in streets nical features like antilock brakes and stability control. unscavenged, in rubbishy cutlery . in scamped and hurried work everywhere. There seems to be a disdain of Transportation and Risk thorough workmanship and finish in detail” (Ferguson, 1979, 13). The rapidly built carriages, bicycles and, later, auto- From its very beginnings, America has attracted risktakers. mobiles are manifestations of this impulse. The quality of The risk-averse did not make hazardous ocean voyages in mass-produced Model Ts may not have lived up to that of small ships or, in later years, did not leave familiar surround- low-production European vehicles, but Americans wanted ings to go to a new country where they did not even speak their cars cheap and wanted them now. Ironically, the linger- the language. Risktakers built or invested in steamboats, ing effects of this attitude may today be hampering the very canals, railroads, streetcar systems, cable car systems, stage automakers that had once profited from it. lines and automobile companies. One historian credits the rise of Detroit as an automobile center to the presence of a number of entrepreneurs who would rather go broke build- ing automobiles than get rich doing something else. For users of transportation, risk is often balanced with speed and convenience. In the 19th century, steamboats exploded with distressing regularity and railroad accidents were common, yet getting there quickly and cheaply was deemed worth the risk. Since automobiles became widespread, 40,000 to 50,000 Americans have died annually in auto accidents, a fact that seems not to lessen our enthusiasm for the vehicles. 4 Transportation: Past, Present and Future | “From the Curators” thehenryford.org/education Transportation and the American Attitude Toward When the automobile arrived in the early 20th century, it Natural Resources was, fortuitously, followed by the great oil strike at Spindle- top in Texas. Images of gushing wells, combined with low The first Europeans to arrive in America were astonished by oil prices, set Americans on a course they are still following. its natural abundance. Land, water, fish, game and eventually Cheap gasoline is now regarded as a basic right, an essential minerals like coal and iron ore were available in “inexhaust- component of the “pursuit of happiness.” ible” supplies. And they were used as if they really were inexhaustible. Game was slaughtered for food, hides, fur and Characteristic American Vehicles sheer sport. Land was farmed, depleted and abandoned for new fields. Nowhere was this pattern more typical than in We have mentioned vehicles such as the pleasure wagon, the use of wood. the shay and the buggy, but American conditions gave rise to other vehicles as well. For farmers, wood was a nuisance, and clearing the land of trees was one of their main tasks. Trees fed the Ameri- The Concord coach, built primarily by Abbot-Downing can (and the British) shipbuilding industry. The shortage in Concord, New Hampshire, but also in places like Troy of labor and abundance of trees led to the development of and Albany, both in New York, was designed for rough water-powered sawmills while the British still relied on hand American roads. Though associated in the popular mind sawyers. The explosive growth of American railroads was with the American West, this stagecoach was originally used literally built on and fueled by wood. Wood ties underlaid in the East, until railroads made it obsolete. Its ruggedness the rails (in contrast with the stone blocks favored by Euro- resulted in its successful export to places like Australia and pean railways); bridges and trestles were built of wood (again, South Africa. in contrast with the masonry structures favored across the The American buckboard wagon was among the simplest of pond); railroad cars were built of wood; and the locomotives vehicles. Light and cheap, buckboards utilized horizontal slats burned wood long after European railroads switched to coal.