The Automobile: A False Sense of Freedom Essay

The automobile has had a profound impact on the United States. It has brought us

American culture has projected itself onto the automobile, imparting a sense of Manifest Destiny. In a car, the driver owns the road. Driving is an entitlement, a privilege, a right. The driver creates his or her own social space within the car, which becomes a symbolic boundary between the self and Other. Only friends, family, and

The document “The Social Influence of the Automobile” was written in June of 1922 by Allen D. Albert. In this article Albert is saying that since the creation of automobiles the life has shifted for the better. “…almost without a pause in our thinking have we adjusted our lives to these factors new since yesterday”1 while automobiles brought a drastic change in life as it was, people adjusted to it quickly. In 1920’s cars were available to the general public at an affordable price, therefor offering the public a better, faster way of getting from place to place. Most importantly according to the document cars brought a change in the social aspects of life. With the help of a car travel times were decreased. Cities were now in reaching distance.

In the early 1900s, the United States of America would see the introduction of a piece of technology that would change the way we as a society would look at travel. Henry Ford began production of Model T, the vehicle soon found its way into many American homes. By 1927, the Ford Motor Company had sold nearly 15 million of the mass produced, affordable car. The automobile was no longer a luxury but, a necessity for Americans. During the infancy of the automobile, the roads where nothing more than a mere rutted up path through the country side. Though shortly, people realized the need for better roads. The only problem was, who was going to pay the bill?

In the early twentieth century, science and technology brought the automobile. In less than one hundred years, humans especially Americans have grown

The car can also be a source of therapy and relaxation for many Americans. In the essay “America’s Key to Freedom” it reports that “The car offered downright Joy as well”3 with the automobile, parents or a frazzled worker could just hop in the car and go into the open road away from all the stress and anxiety. With the addition of cars also came a new thing, instant vacations, people could just hop in the car with their families and decide to go places that were not their homes, thus razing up tourism all around the world and at home.

Karl Benz invented the first automobile in 1866; it has changed the world in how we commute every day. From riding in carriages to now cutting our time travel whether it is riding a bus or our on car. It has become more of a necessity in today's world to have a car because its something that we choose to have in our daily life that it is a choice that is high on the priority list to own. As to wealthier people the type of car you drive puts in a different class. Where some get the choice of car that they want others have a certain budget on what to look for. The way an automobile symbolizes today, changed in society, and how a car has become a collection.

Premise that the car is the main physical-psychological-social killer of our era, why is it considered out of any possible revision, as indispensible? As the authors and our Professor Foster explained in class, it is an integral part of the capitalistic economy and the automobile industry provides profits to all the other corporate businesses connected to it, therefore in the capitalism world it is untouchable, out of

In Donaldson’s piece, America's Love Affair With Cars, which was ironically published by a Canadian journal, she points out that Americans are raised to love cars from the very beginnings of life. There are toy cars that not only are shiny and fun but have working parts, windshield wipers and horns, and remote controls. Going into young adulthood, it is always the kids in school with the newest, fastest, and nicest cars that get the best chance at a date with a popular girl or boy. She notes that “Clearly, the automobile has been much more than simply a means of transportation for most Americans. Once man and woman felt the breeze blowing on their faces as they sped along a road, a passion was created. The car is just about everything today including a form of art and craftsmanship, a collector's item, a cultural icon.” (Donaldson, 2012) Here in again, we as Americans know that we love our cars, but the world also identifies this as typically an “American”

The value of this source to the topic at hand is the book’s heavy focus on the automobile’s progress over time, in the case of the pursuit of fuel efficiency and practicality over time, to the eventual issue of the environment. The limitation of this source is the book’s primary focus on the history of the

Technology has brought many luxuries to people. The invention of the automobile has brought convenience to everyday living. People use their vehicles to commute to work, school, home, and other events. Some people cannot even imagine living life without the use of an automobile. People have different tastes in the type of automobile that they drive; the automotive industry has made several different ways to commute. The car and the sports utility vehicle seem to be the most common types. The sports utility vehicle is inferior to the car.

The automobile has had a tremendous impact on society and the environment since its development in the beginning of the 20th century. Today, there are over 500 million motor vehicles on the earth. The automobile's efficiency, style, and performance have changed over the years, but there is one thing that has not - the pollution the automobile generates. Because of the pollution, people find themselves asking whether this technology has helped our society or hurt it. Should the consequences of the automobile be cause to eliminate it? Or should science develop technology to eliminate the pollution caused by the car?

Since the development of the steam engine people had been interested in creating self-powered vehicles, this manifested during the industrial revolution as the train. However, as time went on people became interested in creating a vehicle that wasn’t confined to tracks. The earliest attempts were moderately successful but served little practical purpose. Automobiles first began to truly spread with the invention of the electric motor which created cheaper, more powerful, and safer automobiles. Still the automobile still had numerous problems and were mainly in the hands of the rich. It was the development of the internal combustion engine and the assembly line that was truly able to create a practical vehicle that could be used by all and

In the beginning, man’s only form of transportation was his own feet. Later, to comfort his journey on foot, was the invention of footwear. Through envy of the speed of other animals he would learn to tame these animals. People who live in the desert ride atop camels. The people who live in the frigid climates travel by dogs. Some people from places like India ride elephants. But the must widely used form of transportation by animal power was by horse. Man would soon develop boats and ships to travel long distances over water and time would flow like the rivers and hundreds of years later, in the late 1700s steam power became the new craze. Steam power got the wheels turning amongst many inventors who

It’s a fact, commercial vehicle use around the world is expanding, both in the developed and developing world. It is debatable whether the use, and more specifically ownership, of a passenger vehicle is a need, or a want, but before we consider the implications surrounding this debate, we need to discuss what these terms mean. Needs are things such as food, water, shelter, clothing, sleep, and comfort that are necessary for human survival. Wants are things that may increase a person’s feelings of self-worth, self-fulfillment, independence, and personal potential. Note that defining what is a need, and what is a want is not always black and white, there are many things, such as passenger vehicles, that may fall somewhere in between these