Automobiles

The automobile, as a self-propelling vehicle for private passenger transport, made its first appearance at the end of the nineteenth century. The automobile [Page 79]is intimately related to consumer culture, partly because of its high capital cost, partly because of its exponential growth, and largely because its significance has radically transcended its utility value (mobility) to become symbolic of identity, status, and lifestyle. In addition, the automobile captures some of the contradictions of consumer culture in terms of inequalities in its distribution and the health and environmental implications of mass consumption.

There had been steam-driven buses competing with railways in the early nineteenth century, and steam tractors were widely used in farming since the mid-nineteenth century. But it was only from the 1890s—beginning in France—that automobiles were used regularly for private passenger transport. Steam engines, electric motors, and internal combustion engines had an approximately equal share in early automobility. In the United States, “steamers” were sold well into the 1920s before internal combustion motors swept the field. The term automobile, literally meaning self-mover, had been coined by the Académie Française in 1875 and was very successfully imported into most European languages with the initial exception of English. In the United States, the first automobiles were known as “horseless carriages,” and the most widely read journal covering the new frenzy was titled The Horseless Age. In 1909, the latter changed its name to The Automobile, thus ending more than a decade of linguistic independence. The United Kingdom resisted the French “automobile” and stuck to the “motor car.” Colloquially today, the “auto,” the “car,” or just the “machine” have been adopted by most languages.

At the turn of the twentieth century, the United States had become the biggest market for automobiles and has remained so ever since, both in terms of absolute numbers and in the number of automobiles per capita. At the onset of World War II, the United States was leading with 4.8 people per every car, and the United Kingdom and France shared the second place with 24 people per car, while all other major countries fell far behind. By comparison, as early as 1925, one car catered to just 1.8 inhabitants in Los Angeles, a figure that dropped to 1.4 at the eve of World War II. If the automobile ever had a home, it was California. What automobility meant and how it could transform everyday life was therefore invented in California and popularized by Hollywood. Widespread automobility in the Western world, however, was only part of post-WWII mass consumption, when the family car became a standard household good. Whereas early automobiles had been toys for the urban rich, very soon their most enthusiastic owners lived in the countryside, in small towns, and in suburbs. And this pattern held worldwide throughout the twentieth century.

In affluent societies, the highest share of households that can do without an automobile is to be found in densely populated big cities. In some major European cities like Paris or Berlin, only half of all households own an automobile. In the United States, only New York City comes close to this percentage. In the countryside, where the automobile proved most successful, it ended the isolation of farm life. In metropolitan areas, it was a powerful enabler of suburbanization. The stressfulness of daily commuting was mollified by the fact that most people actually like to drive. Indeed, in the 1960s and 1970s, when automobilization experienced its greatest surge in the Western world, driving for pleasure ranked among the five most favored pastimes. Suburbs and exurbs, with their low population density that does not allow for profitable public transport, consolidated a path-dependency on automobility for many societies, but people did not really mind.

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