The Motoring Age

The Motoring Age
Title The Motoring Age PDF eBook
Author Peter Thorold
Publisher
Pages 400
Release 2017-05-12
Genre Transportation
ISBN 9781910670750

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In the forty odd years between 1896 -- the year the Locomotives on Highways Act came into effect and the Second World War, Britain was changed for ever by the automobile. This rich, evocative and entertaining book charts that fascinating chapter of social history. At first motoring was a sport, the car a plaything of the rich -- from King Edward to Mr Toad. But soon motor transport by car, bus, motorcycle and lorry -- their value confirmed many times over in the Great War -- became central to the economy. The huge growth in ownership of private cars rejuvenated countryside, towns and villages left derelict by agricultural depression and the railways. The car was also individually liberating -- and glamorous too.

Fighting Traffic

Fighting Traffic
Title Fighting Traffic PDF eBook
Author Peter D. Norton
Publisher MIT Press
Pages 409
Release 2011-01-21
Genre Technology & Engineering
ISBN 0262293889

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The fight for the future of the city street between pedestrians, street railways, and promoters of the automobile between 1915 and 1930. Before the advent of the automobile, users of city streets were diverse and included children at play and pedestrians at large. By 1930, most streets were primarily a motor thoroughfares where children did not belong and where pedestrians were condemned as “jaywalkers.” In Fighting Traffic, Peter Norton argues that to accommodate automobiles, the American city required not only a physical change but also a social one: before the city could be reconstructed for the sake of motorists, its streets had to be socially reconstructed as places where motorists belonged. It was not an evolution, he writes, but a bloody and sometimes violent revolution. Norton describes how street users struggled to define and redefine what streets were for. He examines developments in the crucial transitional years from the 1910s to the 1930s, uncovering a broad anti-automobile campaign that reviled motorists as “road hogs” or “speed demons” and cars as “juggernauts” or “death cars.” He considers the perspectives of all users—pedestrians, police (who had to become “traffic cops”), street railways, downtown businesses, traffic engineers (who often saw cars as the problem, not the solution), and automobile promoters. He finds that pedestrians and parents campaigned in moral terms, fighting for “justice.” Cities and downtown businesses tried to regulate traffic in the name of “efficiency.” Automotive interest groups, meanwhile, legitimized their claim to the streets by invoking “freedom”—a rhetorical stance of particular power in the United States. Fighting Traffic offers a new look at both the origins of the automotive city in America and how social groups shape technological change.

The Automobile Age

The Automobile Age
Title The Automobile Age PDF eBook
Author James J. Flink
Publisher MIT Press
Pages 478
Release 1990-07-19
Genre Social Science
ISBN 9780262560559

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In this sweeping cultural history, James Flink provides a fascinating account of the creation of the world's first automobile culture. He offers both a critical survey of the development of automotive technology and the automotive industry and an analysis of the social effects of "automobility" on workers and consumers.

American Road

American Road
Title American Road PDF eBook
Author Pete Davies
Publisher Macmillan
Pages 316
Release 2003-05
Genre History
ISBN 9780805072976

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Davies recounts these treacherous travels in a brisk and readable style . . . he has put history, sociology, politics, and human nature into well-tuned balance. The Boston Globe

Fuelling the Motoring Age

Fuelling the Motoring Age
Title Fuelling the Motoring Age PDF eBook
Author Nick Evans
Publisher History Press
Pages 0
Release 2019-11-29
Genre Service stations
ISBN 9780750991490

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A nostalgic celebration of 100 years of the British petrol station

Autonorama

Autonorama
Title Autonorama PDF eBook
Author Peter Norton
Publisher Island Press
Pages 322
Release 2021-10-21
Genre Architecture
ISBN 1642832405

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In Autonorama: The Illusory Promise of High-Tech Driving, historian Peter Norton argues that driverless cars cannot be the safe, sustainable, and inclusive "mobility solutions" that tech companies and automakers are promising us. The salesmanship behind the "driverless future" is distracting us from better ways to get around that we can implement now. Unlike autonomous vehicles, these alternatives are inexpensive, safe, sustainable, and inclusive. Norton takes the reader on an engaging ride--from the GM Futurama exhibit to "smart" highways and vehicles--to show how we are once again being sold car dependency in the guise of mobility. Autonorama is hopeful, advocating for wise, proven, humane mobility that we can invest in now, without waiting for technology that is forever just out of reach.

Roads Were Not Built for Cars

Roads Were Not Built for Cars
Title Roads Were Not Built for Cars PDF eBook
Author Carlton Reid
Publisher Island Press
Pages 374
Release 2015-04-09
Genre Architecture
ISBN 1610916891

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In Roads Were Not Built for Cars, Carlton Reid reveals the pivotal—and largely unrecognized—role that bicyclists played in the development of modern roadways. Reid introduces readers to cycling personalities, such as Henry Ford, and the cycling advocacy groups that influenced early road improvements, literally paving the way for the motor car. When the bicycle morphed from the vehicle of rich transport progressives in the 1890s to the “poor man’s transport” in the 1920s, some cyclists became ardent motorists and were all too happy to forget their cycling roots. But, Reid explains, many motor pioneers continued cycling, celebrating the shared links between transport modes that are now seen as worlds apart. In this engaging and meticulously researched book, Carlton Reid encourages us all to celebrate those links once again.