The invention of the automobile has probably had the most long-reaching effects of any technological advance in American history. The earliest cars were electric, often playthings of the rich, but advances in internal combustion engines made the car more powerful, less expensive, and quicker to refuel than its battery-powered competition. The mass production of automobiles by companies like Oldsmobile and Ford enabled the middle class to become car owners, which in turn freed them from the need to live near rail stations. As long as there were roads, they could live anywhere. And so began America’s romance with the car, which parallels, to a large degree, the birth of suburbia.

In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, which authorized $25 billion for the construction of 41,000 miles of the interstate highway system. Meant to eliminate unsafe and inefficient routes, as well as traffic jams, the interstate system was also developed to provide evacuation routes in case of nuclear attack. Most Americans supported the act, which was paid for largely by taxes on gasoline. There was some backlash, as the new highways threatened neighborhoods, and some cities, like San Francisco, put the brakes on their construction. Nevertheless, most of the highways were built, and the second half of the twentieth century was the high point of America’s “automobile society.”

Since its earliest days, the automobile has been viewed as a threat and as a blessing. Both romanticized and demonized in popular and high culture alike, it is a curse on the environment and a boon to personal freedom. It represents economic opportunity at the same time that it hinders it. It is considered both an equalizer and a creator of class difference. Today, we are questioning the automobile’s place in American life, as we begin to feel the impact of urban congestion and suburban sprawl. Can America’s love affair with the car be rekindled? Can the problems of our car culture be solved? Will virtual mobility ever take the place of actual mobility? The following ten selections ask you to ponder these questions and more, as you consider whether America’s long love affair with the automobile is finally over.

Sources

Ohio Electric Car Company, The Ohio Electric (1916)

E. B. White, Farewell, My Lovely! (1936)

John Updike, from Rabbit, Run (1960)

Tom Wolfe, from The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (1963)

Stephen Dunn, The Sacred (1989)

Heather McHugh, Auto (1994)

Pew Research Center, Americans and Their Cars: Is the Romance on the Skids? (2006)

P. J. O’Rourke, The End of the Affair (2009)

Allison Linn, Carmakers’ Next Problem: Generation Y (2010)

Frank DeFord, Americans Hit the Brakes on NASCAR (2012)