1920\'s Freedom of Transportation

¶ … 1920s transportation changes. Specifically it will discuss how the growth of the automobile industry in the 1920's changed the world and what positive and negative influences it had on society. By the 1920s, automobiles were much more common, and American society was becoming more accepting of them. They changed the way Americans viewed transportation, and really altered society in many different ways.

The automobile was firmly established by the 1920s. More people could afford them due to mass production and competition between manufacturers, and that meant people had greater freedom and mobility. Previously, the only methods of transportation where horse and buggy or carriage, train, or public transportation like streetcars. However, by the 1920s, this was not the case. Editors at the Smithsonian Institution note, "By the time this photo was taken in the 1920s, automobiles had changed the city streetscape, and the carriage was becoming a rarity" ("America on the Move"). This gave people much more freedom in their schedules and in their recreation. They no longer had to rely on the schedules of public transportation; they could make their own schedules and travel independently. This was a major change in American society.

The automobile also affected education, especially rural education. Before the automobile, most rural children attended small, local schools that were near their homes. When school buses became common, they could attend larger, better-equipped schools that were farther from their homes, so they received a better education. An author notes, "But with the school bus, rural communities could transport youngsters to a consolidated school and combine resources in order to better outfit it" (Sandler 34). That is just one of the more surprising ways the automobile began to shift American culture and society during the 1920s.

The automobile allowed people to live farther away from where they worked, too, so the automobile actually had a hand in creating the common suburbs that surround just about every city in the country today. People could live in areas that are more desirable and still commute to their jobs in the city, so the automobile changed the way people looked at where they could live and where they worked. It also allowed them to travel farther away during their vacations, allowing them greater mobility and the freedom to travel to places they might not have been able to see from other modes of transportation.

The road system of the country had to change due to all the cars on the road by the 1920s. A Web site notes, "Roads (including wooden roads) had to be redesigned and rebuilt to accommodate the automobile, new road rules had to be introduced, standardized road signs erected, and methods of controlling traffic (like traffic lights) implemented in densely populated areas" ("1920s Automobiles"). They had to develop traffic lights and other traffic controls, and they had to build gas stations to fuel them. The roads had to be redesigned in many areas, because they were built to accommodate carriages and wagons rather than bulkier autos. However, probably the biggest change in the cities was traffic congestion. Author Sandler continues, "Combined with the trolleys that still moved along in great numbers over city streets, these vehicles created horrendous congestion" (Sandler 34). Many cities and communities still struggle with that congestion today. They also contributed greatly to the growing problem of air pollution in American cities.

Another surprising thing they accomplished was making people safer. Most people might not think about it, but fire departments and police departments used trucks and cars to respond quicker to emergencies, so people's safety actually improved in the 1920s as more departments acquired automobiles and used them effectively. People's insurance costs often went down as a result of their greater public safety.

Automaking became the nation's biggest employer by this time, too. Sandler states, "By the late 1920s- with more than 23 million cars on American roads and with about 85% of the world's motor vehicles being built in the United States-automaking became the nation's largest industry" (Sandler 35). This was a brand new industry, so it brought great change throughout the country, creating thousands of jobs and mushrooming into the giant car corporations of today.

All of this new technology created a new sense of freedom and movement that was hard to resist. All sorts of businesses sprang up as roads crisscrossed the country. Motor hotels sprang up along the highways, food stands and restaurants put down roots, and people began to take family vacations across the country because they could find a place to stay and a place to feed the kids while they were on the road. It made the country seem much "smaller," because it was easier to travel and it gave American families the ability to travel widely and discover the freedom of the open road.