America's Automobile Culture

Mark S. Foster's A Nation on Wheels: The Automobile Culture in America Since 1945, examines the impact the automobile has had on American life. His thesis is that the automobile has been a powerful and aggressive shaper of American culture. Although the book is only 213 pages long, Foster covers many elements and issues relating to America's automobile culture; these include car design and production, automobile ownership, the impact of the automobile on mass transit systems and on the environment, the automobile's relationship to youth culture, various industries that developed as a result of widespread use of cars, and how the automobile revolutionized the American way of life. This paper will summarize some of Foster's main points and theories, and then present a critique of the book.

The book is divided into nine chapters, plus a preface and index. Foster begins with the historical development of the automobile. He claims that although the car culture did not reach its maturity until after World War II, the political, economic and social frameworks affecting it were in place before the war (2). He suggests that Americans were always looking to expand their horizons, including vacationing, traveling and moving. Although trolleys, bicycles, horse and buggies and ships provided the means of travel, roads were poor and people could not travel far. Machine-powered devices that could move great distances were envisioned by many people, and eventually railroad technology was

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transit as the needs of the suburb became paramount. Foster contends that suburban living also had major ramifications for race relations in the USA. While blue-collar, ethnic Americans such as Italian-Americans, were able to realize their dream of one-family home ownership, a backyard and a good car to get around in, African Americans were excluded from early suburban developments such as Levittown in New York. The book pays a great deal of attention to the big three auto companies of Detroit, including corporate managerial problems, conflicts between management, unions and labor, the impact of consumer tastes on design, the economic impact of Japanese auto production, government bailouts of economically troubled automakers, and personal stories of key personnel in the industry such as Lee Iacocca and John De Lorean. Foster also provides many descriptions of various vehicles including muscle cars, drag cars, stock cars, luxury cars, economy cars and SUVs. Foster discusses the "unprecedented spread of the automobile in the 1950s and 1960s" and its affect on American culture ranging from popular music rock and roll to automobile-related occupations and teenagers" (65-67). He gives examples of how the youth culture used cars

Category: History - A