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book
BookPrinted Material
Author Heitmann, John Alfred.

Title The automobile and American life / John A. Heitmann.

Publication Info. Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland & Co., [2009]
©2009

Item Status

Location Call No. Status OPAC Message Public Note Gift Note
 Moore Stacks  HD9710.U52 H39 2009    Available  ---
Description xi, 248 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-239) and index.
Summary "The book covers the automobile from inception and later a plaything for the well-to-do; Henry Ford and the machine age; competition in the 1920s; road culture; religion, gender, courtship and sex; Great Depression; World War II; 1950s and youth culture, hot rod and rock and roll; societal changes in the 1960s; and changes since 1980"--Provided by publisher.
Contents Introduction : The automobile, its history and influence, and some contradictions -- 1. Beginnings : from a mechanical curiosity to a plaything for the well-to-do -- European by birth, American by adoption -- Technological antecedents : the bicycle -- Compact power : the internal combustion engine -- Choices made : competition from steam engines and electric motors -- American pioneers -- Organization as power -- Automobile for better or worse? -- Music galore -- Mechanical arts and the coming of the machine age -- Quest for speed -- 2. The inscrutable Henry Ford and the rise of the machine age -- From a Dearborn farm to the world stage -- Frederick Winslow Taylor and "one best way" -- Genesis of mass production at Highland Park -- Flivver King -- Model T : what a car! -- Later years : hero or anti-hero? -- Gone in sixty seconds : joy-riders and criminals -- 3. The rise of the competition and the consumer during the 1920s -- Billy Durant and "Silent" Sloan -- Kettering, Earl, and "keeping the customer dissatisfied" -- City of the future and dynamic Dayton of the 1930s -- Last of the Big Three : the Chrysler Corporation -- Independents -- Innovation at the periphery : the Cracker Jacker, Rickenbacker -- Jordan and advertising the dream -- 4. From out of the mud to on the open road -- Which came first : good roads or the automobile? -- Good roads movement -- Transcontinental link : the Lincoln Highway -- Federal legislation and the gas tax -- Two lane black top, or concrete if there is money -- Auto camping and "gypsying" across America -- Fill'er up -- Road food -- Divided highways, parkways, and expressways -- 5. Religion, courtship, sex, and women drivers -- An answer to prayer or something to pray about? -- Sex in the back seat -- Those women drivers! -- Cars as homes.
6. The interwar years : the Great Depression, aerodynamics, and cars of the Olympian age -- Olympian automobiles of the 1930s -- Streamlining and the Chrysler "airflop" -- Sitdown, the coming of the United Auto Workers, and the battle of the overpass -- Poetic response to the automobile -- Singing the blues about automobiles and life -- Filming on the race track and soundstage -- 7. World War II and the reconversion economy : no time for sergeants or aspiring automobile manufacturers -- Little Bo Peep has lost her Jeep -- Wartime labor : sacrifices and selfishness -- Gas rationing -- Black Market : "chiseled gas" -- Reconversion economy and a man's dream -- 8. The golden age of the automobile : the 1950s in America -- Automobile and civil rights -- Hot rod -- Sports cars on American tracks, and the red car -- Some critics surface : safety and the environment -- Dealers, good and bad -- UAW, the Big Three, and pattern bargaining -- Cars of the golden era -- 1958 recession and European competition -- Volkswagen Bug -- Cars and rock and roll -- Film : the rebels -- Night at the drive-in -- On the road -- Coming of the interstates -- Summing up the glorious 1950s -- 9. The go-go years, 1959-1973 -- Microbus, cars, and the hippies -- Cadillac and the establishment -- Age of ambivalence -- Harry Crews and the "white trash" in his novel Car -- Ralph Nader and unsafe at any speed -- Government regulation : safety and the environment -- From a brief affair with economy vehicles to the emergence of the muscle car -- California dreaming -- Oil shock I -- Japanese automobiles come in a big way to America -- James Bond, Steve McQueen, and the action thriller -- Mobile lovemaking -- Summing up the sixties -- 10. The automobile world upside down, 1980s to the present -- Rivethead and the quality cat -- Automobile and contemporary art -- Lessons not learned -- Trucks, sport utility vehicles, and crossovers -- Car hobby : car crazy -- Cars and crime : the drive-by -- NASCAR nation -- Saturn, Chrysler, and Germans in the new South -- New technologies -- Automobiles, women, Eros, and film -- Poetry, women, and passion -- Where does the automobile in American life go from here? -- Epilogue : The automobile and one American life.
Subject Automobile industry and trade -- United States -- History.
Automobile industry and trade.
United States.
History.
Automobile industry and trade -- Social aspects -- United States -- History.
Automobile industry and trade -- Social aspects.
ISBN 9780786440139 softcover alkaline paper
0786440139 softcover alkaline paper