1920's Lifestyles and Social Trends | The Affair With the Automobile

Love Affair.

Sinclair Lewis wrote in 1922, "To George F. Babbitt, as to most prosperous citizens of Zenith, his motor car was poetry and tragedy, love and heroism." As one historian put it, "No people on earth took to the motorcar so quickly or so passionately as the Americans." They adored the automobile because it provided them with individual privacy and freedom of movement, both deeply valued in American culture. Autos changed dating and courting behavior by providing couples with a new source of privacy. Motorcars permitted the growth of suburbs, enabling urban workers to live outside the city but to avoid fixed railroad schedules and routes, high fares, crowded railcars, and long waits in terminals.

Automobile Revolution.

Henry Ford created the automobile revolution by making automobiles accessible to ordinary Americans, and by 1929 more than 23 million cars were registered and 5.3 million new cars were...