Air and Rail Travel

Air and rail travel matter deeply to the development of consumer culture. Often forgotten as engines of social change, air and rail travel—together with marine and road transportation—play a key role in the system of distribution of commodities. Moreover, air and rail travel—together with other forms of mobility—serve as media through which personal travel for work, leisure, and shopping takes place. And perhaps more insightfully, air and rail travel work not only as transportation conduits, or in other words as means for getting from point A to point B, but also as important places in and of themselves. Rail travel, for example, is often promoted as a more comfortable way to travel—compared to air and automobile transportation—and even as a destination in itself.

As historian Wolfgang ...