Vehicles of Change
Although the automobile was invented in the early 19th century in Europe, it would take another 100 years for the car to become a force for radical change in the United States. The mass production of affordable vehicles in 20th-century America democratized mobility—that is, the ability to move freely and easily. No longer reliant on less effective modes of transportation such as trains and horse-drawn buggies or restricted by seemingly unconquerable distances, many Americans were given newfound freedom to live, work, and travel where they pleased.
The ubiquity of the automobile transformed landscapes and architecture, stimulated the growth of tourism and its related industries (service stations, roadside restaurants, drive-ins, and roadside hotels and motels), connected rural and urban centers, and led to the creation of the highway system. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, approximately 78 percent of American households owned one or more motor vehicles in the 1960s; in the 1980s, this figure increased to 87 percent, with many American households owning more than one.
The automobile would also help fuel the historic changes that occurred throughout the country in the 20th century—a time of civil rights, women’s rights, anti-war protests, and loosened social mores and moral codes. The opportunities granted by the automobile freed individuals from confined geographic locations, homes, or prescribed roles. The empowering nature of the vehicle and its ability to foster a new type of self-expression is exemplified by Jack Kerouac’s On the Road (1957)—a novel about a band of youths traveling the country by car and living off poetry, drugs, and jazz—which inspired a generation of individuals and artists to take to the roads.
Many Black Americans, who were oppressed by legally mandated and broadly condoned racial discrimination, identified transportation as a pivotal battleground in the struggle for freedom. Indeed, they fought transportational segregation in and out of the courts for half of the 19th century and most of the 20th century. Buses and cars were also used to stage boycotts (most famously, in Montgomery, Alabama from 1955–1956) and organize Freedom Rides to the South in 1961. In Savannah, activists were able to register an unprecedented number of Black Americans to vote in 1963 by offering free rides to register voters; this effort gave Black Savannahians powerful leverage in their fight to desegregate the city.
These photographs from Telfair Museums’ permanent collection not only testify to the centrality of the automobile in 20th-century American society; they also speak to the many ways in which vehicles helped usher transformational change, whether in the fight for civil rights or the desire for increased freedom, mobility, and new modes of self-expression.
