The Automobile and the City in the American South

Abstract

In the American South the automobile was never a luxury: it was a way of life. It was an inextricable part of the family patrimony and frequently, through various permutations, did indeed pass down through generations. The auto’s greatest impact on the South probably occurred in the region’s rural reaches where the new technology broke the chronic isolation and loneliness of life, made urban life and its attractions and distractions more readily available to country residents, and provided a means to get to that mill job while still retaining the family farm. The auto encouraged or, rather demanded, decent roads. In fact, the Good Roads Movement that energised Southern states during the 1920s attained its most loyal constituency in the rural districts. Good roads, in turn, encouraged the establishment of better services and industry. By bringing farms closer to market towns and cities, improved roads and the motor vehicles upon them transformed Southern agriculture in certain areas from the historically soil-leeching staple crop cultivation to dairying and truck farming.