Sex and the Automobile

You can thank this post to my dentist, Dr. Bill Haggerty, who recently read my book and found it engaging, but felt the cover needed to be changed to include more sex and less nostalgia. He did say, however, do it tastefully. So in that spirit I have included above several images that reflect what I feel is an incredibly powerful theme (perhaps the most significant overall theme when dealing with car culture from a scholarly point of view) that links sexuality and the automobile. The more I teach this subject, the more I think that sex and gender are central to the entire story -- adverstising, literature, film, music, and more. Nevertheless, I have only a vague sense of what this connection is all about, as have other authors, including David Lewis and Stephen Bayley. I did include the topic in my The Automobile and American Life, and here is a bit of it from Chapter 5:

Although no other twentieth century innovation has so intensely influenced manners, customs, and living habits, the nature and scope of the automobile’s influences are far from being fully understood. As early as the first decade of the twentieth century, the automobile was equated with adventure, including and perhaps especially sexual adventure. It liberated riders from social control and allowed men to pursue women (and women to pursue men!) in a manner that was to change patterns of courtship and sexual behaviors.

Music of the day reflected the romantic possibilities and opportunities now afforded by the coming of the automobile. In 1899, Alfred Dixon published “Love in an Automobile,” and a year later at least six song titles featured the theme of a charming young woman riding in a car. That same year, Rudolph Anderson wrote the following song about a male persuading a female to take a romantic drive:

“When first I propose to Daisy on a sunny summer’s morn,She replied, ‘you must be crazy’ and laughed my love to scorn.Said I, ‘Now I’ve hit on a novel scheme, which surely to you may appeal.Say wouldn’t you go for a honeymoon in a cozy automobile?’When she heard my bright suggestion, why, she fairly jumped for joy.
Her reply was just a question, ‘Oh joy, when do we start dear boy?’Said I, ‘You will take ‘about half an hour to pack up your things and grip.And the ‘round the corner we’ll married be, and start away on our trip.We’ll fulfill your dreams, marring mishap of course.”
The famous song of this era, “In My Merry Oldsmobile” sold between 600,000 and 1 million copies of sheet music. It ran:
Come away with me LucilleIn my merry Oldsmobile.Over the road of life we’ll fly,Autobubbling you and I.To the church we’ll swiftly steal,And out wedding bells will peal,You can go as far as you like with me,In our merry Oldsmobile.

Other early titles included:
“The Automobile Girl”
“My Automobile Girl”
“My Auto Lady”
“The Motor Girl”
“The Auto Show Girl”
“Motor Maid”
“Let’s Have a Motor Car Marriage”
“Automobiling with Mollie”
“In Our Little Lovemobile”
“An Auto Built for Two”
“Riding in Love’s Limosine [sic]”
“On an Automobile with a Girl You Love”
“The Auto Kiss”
“The Automobile Honeymoon”

Previously, “calling” was the traditional means by which couples were brought together. “Calling” was a courtship custom, and it involved three central tenets of middle class American life: the family, respectability, and privacy. Calling admitted the male into the young woman’s private home, where boys engage in conversation with the girl under the watchful eyes of her mother. Tea was often served, and perhaps the girl would display her musical talents and play the piano as light entertainment. All of this took place in the parlor. Mothers, the guardians of respectability and morals, decided who could call on their daughters and who could not. Daughters could request a certain male visitor, but the mothers made the final decision as to his acceptability. Family honor and name, along with class boundaries, were to be respected.

The calling ritual as practiced resulted in giving middle class mothers and daughters a measure of control. How much of this was real and actually practiced is certainly open to question, particularly since horse-drawn carriages, the woods, and the haystack were also options for young couples. But community controls and prevailing rituals and beliefs certainly have power. Yet it is undeniable that the emergence of the automobile and dating caused the loss of some of that control as power shifted from women to men. Under the calling system the woman asked the man; but in dating, the male had the car and invited the female out beyond the sphere of the parental domain. Cars took young couples off porch swings, outside of home parlors, and far away from concerned mothers and irritating brothers and sisters.

This transition in coupling habits was well described in a 1927 song entitled “Get Em in a Rumble Seat.” The so-called rumble seat, was an extension of the trunk, open and separate from the automobile interior. The racy and imaginative lyrics went like this:

Now you can love your sweetie in
The parlor at night,
But if you want your lov-in’
And you want it done right,

Just get ‘em in a rumble
In a little rum-ble
Get ‘em in a rumble seat.

It certainly was a little tight in a rumble seat. Despite the space constraints, social commentators feared the thought of young people getting together unsupervised. There were also concerns over promiscuity and premarital sex. Initially, cars were open and seats were uncomfortable. But by the mid-1920s, most vehicles were closed, and heaters were soon available. Seats became wider and more luxuriously appointed. And as historian David Lewis has remarked, “Many cars were also equipped with long, wide running boards, and starting in the mid-1920’s increasingly long, sloping fenders,” which when covered with pillows and blankets provided impromptu settings for romance. By the 1920s, manufacturers designed beds into the front seat that folded into the rear seat cushions to assist in romance. The 1925 Jewett slept two people in comfort, as long as the couple did not stretch out more than 6 feet. Other car companies followed with “sleeper” cars, convenient for both auto-campers and illicit lovers.

As Frederick Lewis Allen recounted in his Only Yesterday, the 1920s brought with it a revolution in terms of sexuality among young people. While the automobile was one venue for sexual activity, it was far from the cause of this shift in moral values that was perhaps brought on by World War I and the disillusionment and modernist thought that followed.

Every community had its lovers’ lane and makeout point. After World War II, and despite the intention of drive-in owners to make their businesses attractive to families, drive-ins were often seen as “passion pits.” In-car shows were often better than what was transpiring on the screen. If a speaker was not in the car window, there were credible suspicions that something had to be happening inside.

In an interesting study published in 1953 by Alfred Kinsey and the staff of the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, 983 women were surveyed concerning the places where they had premarital coitus. While a marginally greater proportion of liaisons took place in the homes of the male or female than in automobiles, the data suggested that sex in automobiles, outdoors, or in hotels and rented rooms occurred in nearly equal numbers, and only slightly less than in a home. Kinsey concluded that “the importance of the car has more than doubled in the thirty years covered by the sample. In earlier generations in both European and American history, the buggy or other horse-drawn conveyance appear to have served the function which the automobile now serves.”

The Road Ahead

Hi folks -- Despite what some people think, historical work evolves over time and that is certainly true of my efforts in researching and writing automotive history. So given the fact that I have some free time this summer and a sabbatical in the fall, I listed some of the topics that I want to deal with as I begin to add on to my The Automobile and American Life book that just came out. A major area of work that needs to be far more fully explored centers on the time period after 1960. That insight was clear to me as I began to try to explain to myself and my students why the American automobile industry collapsed towards the end of last year. So here is a list of things I want to review in the months ahead, with the held of my assistant Peter, who will be working with me until August 15.

1. Alternatives to the ICE – electric car post-1960, the gas turbine, and the Wankel. Government contracts to develop the electric vehicle, and its ultimate shelving by 1980 or so.

2. The electrification of the automobile—sound systems (esp. 8 track); CB craze of the late 1970s; radar detectors

3. More on robotics and the 1980s

4. Union agreements in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the crisis of the auto industry after oil shock 2 to live up to those agreements given a new global marketplace. More on GM management practices after 1968 and also the Lordstown assembly plant.

5. Manufacturing in Mexico, post- NAFTA

6. Autos and music videos, post early 1980s and MTV

7. The most popular car songs post-1970

8. The most significant autos in film, post 1970 – French Connection I and II, for example.

9. Automobiles and Hip-Hop Music

10. Automobile advertising post-1970

11. The Aurora ESV and Catholic Social Justice

12. Statistical Analysis of Brands both domestic and foreign, post 1970 – data from Automobile Industries

13. Insert material from John DeLorean’s On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors

14. Need to develop far more on American Graffiti

15. Expand on the Mustang

16. Gone in Sixty Seconds – 1974 and 1998 versions

It wasn't all automobile factories and museums while in Germany

Hi folks -- the numerous posts previously entered suggested a near death march across Germany as our Study Abroad Program visited many museums and auto plants. While it was strenuous at times, we also had some fun -- even me! One highlight was a night at the Karaoke Bar on the Ring in Leipzig, where student George Lescher and myself brought down the house with a version of Eric Burdon's "The House of the Rising Sun." I just wanted to teach the East Germans something about New Orleans. It was a great night to say the least. Many thanks to University of Leipzig graduate and program mentor Ulricke Eckhardt for supplying the photos. Interestingly enough, Ulricke rarely went to bed after 11 p.m. before the American students arrived. Toward the end of our stay she wanted to go out virtually every evening! Again, we ended up corrupting the morals and habits of a fine German student.

A Rainy 4th of July Americana Festival Car Show

Beginning at noon, rain threatened the Centerville Americana Festival and Car Show, and by 4 p.m. the rain became steady and rather heavy. And while the weather kept the number of cars down at the show, several interesting cars were present, inlcuding my favorite, this 1963 Plymouth Valiant station wagon modifed to a California beach cruiser. A nice thing about the car hobby is that not everyone has to like the same automobile -- we respect the cars of others, but some just touch us in ways personal and unique. The Valiant was introduced in the fall of 1959 as an import fighter, to counter the likes of the VW Beetle and other foreign makes that were suddently gaining acceptance. It featured a slant six engine, unitized body, and alternator, and according to many contemporary accounts a rugged and economical vehicle. This car is adorned with uncoventional paint and upholstry to say the least, but refects a drive for individuality that is often expressed in our cars. This was particualrly true during the 1960s, when Cold War conformity choked our freedoms; yet, despite the insidious and invisible cultural restrictions, many Americans found personal expressions in their cars, and thus this one touched me. It says "get to the Beach, and forget about all the trifles of the day that take away from your joy and well being."

Red, White, and Vroom: The Fourth of July and America's Love of the Automobile

On July 4, 1776, our Founding Fathers shaped the country's future by deciding that our government would be by the people, for the people and of the people. But it was the automobile that made that abstract political principle a reality for so many.

That is why if there were ever a day dedicated to celebrating the automobile in American life, it would be the Fourth of July. This is the day we celebrate our freedom, and intimately included in that celebration is our showcasing of the automobiles that we love, which have contributed to that freedom through mobility and prosperity.

No other technology has leveled space, time or class like the automobile and thus influenced the lives of everyday people. For Americans who do not think along political or historical lines, their views of independence are often centered on their mobility — their unalienable right to go where they want and do what they want.

Cars are featured in our parades, sometimes carrying politicians and local celebrities, sometimes just showing off. These cars are often supplied by local car dealerships, a recognition of the long-standing relationship in America between dealers and their communities. Cars are featured in local shows, where the collector and appreciative public alike share their love of the automobile. And cars compete in races, on the national stage, and also in communities across the U.S.

Unfortunately, this year's Independence Day celebrations come at a time when the independence of our once great auto industry is in jeopardy. Fiat recently took over Chrysler and is replacing American managers with Italians. We'll have to wait and see, but I can't possibly envision Americans driving tiny Fiats on our cross-country interstates.

General Motors, too, has lost its autonomy as the federal government and the UAW have more ownership of that great firm in a way that Alfred Sloan I'm sure never thought possible.

Yet, it is not all bleak, despite our current economic situation. As Americans, we still have an indomitable spirit that brings us back after we slip. And we still know how to have fun.

From Dayton, Ohio, to McKinney, Texas, to Tallahassee, Florida, car shows, parades and races will provide the lead-in to an evening of fireworks. It truly is a day of Red, White, and Vroom.

Review of Peter Norton's "Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City"

This review of mine was just published in Isis, volume 100 (June, 2009), 426-7:

Peter D. Norton. Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City. (Inside Technology.) xii + 396 pp., illus., figs., index. Cambridge, Mass./London: MIT Press, 2008. $35 (cloth).

During the early 1960s, as the Golden Age of the automobile in America began to wane, several commentators, including Lewis Mumford, raised the critical question of whether the automobile existed for the modern city or the city for the automobile? How and when the automobile became central to urban life is deftly addressed in Peter Norton’s Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City. This study is certainly one of the most important monographs focusing on the place of the automobile in American society within a historical context to appear in recent times, and interestingly supplements David Blanke’s Hell on Wheels: The Promise and Peril of America’s Car Culture, 1900-1940 (University of Kansas Press, 2007). In the process of telling his story, Norton convincingly demonstrates that it was people acting within interest groups who decided how the automobile would be used; this is not a tale of a technology having an irrepressible effect on the marketplace.

Norton, who teaches in the Department of Science, Technology, and Society at the University of Virginia, blends an empirical study of a battle for urban streets with a theoretical analysis based on social constructivist theory. His effort is well balanced, clearly articulated, and fundamentally successful, with little of the dense abstract analysis that tends to drive a good number of general readers away from this kind of scholarship.

Above all, Fighting Traffic is an engaging story that pits a number of diverse constituencies in a struggle over who would control city streets. These groups included pedestrians, safety reformers, police, street railway and trolley interests, downtown business associations, traffic engineers, and automobile business interests (known as “motordom”). The drama was largely played out during the 1920s, with closure by the mid-1930s.

Norton divides his work into three main sections entitled “Justice,” “Efficiency,” and “Freedom.” He generally follows a chronological scheme, beginning with a narrative of the horrific carnage that the automobile inflicted on pedestrians, and especially children, in the period after World War I and before 1925. So many deaths occurred that some cities erected monuments to the dead, similar to those in memory of the fallen from World War I. At this point, there was no doubt in the public mind that the automobile, with its excessive speed, was largely at fault. In many respects, the “Devil Wagon,” once the scourge of country folk, was a decade and a half later unleashed on urbanites. While police and the National Safety Council did some good, the problem was far bigger than anything traditional law enforcement and traffic control remedies could handle.

Subsequently, however, the focus of the problem of the automobile in the city shifted away from accidents and discord to congestion. In this regard, “progressive” Chamber of Commerce leaders secured traffic engineers to make transportation more efficient. But this solution was fragile at best, for motordom, recoiling from a drop in sales during 1923 and 1924, an attempt in Cincinnati to place governors on automobiles, and the suggestion that streets were to be shared responded with a rhetorical drive that led to their ascendancy within less than a decade.
Ultimately, it is this public relations campaign that won the day for the automobile interests. While numerous institutions played an important part in the fight, Norton holds that Miller McClintock of Harvard University was the key to motordom’s success. McClintock was an unlikely figure, a former Chaucer scholar turned traffic expert, with the first Ph.D. in the field. Supported by Studebaker executives Paul Hoffman and Albert Russel Erskine, McClintock became the most articulate spokesperson for motordom, arguing that the automobile represented freedom and that the street should be thought of not as a public utility but, rather, as a commodity. From that point on, pedestrians were often targeted for jaywalking and assigned the blame for the majority of urban accidents. The automobile was now considered essential to the fabric of urban life and was ascendant on American city streets.