Jack Prince, designer of Playa del Ray, Elmhurst, Des Moines, Omaha,Uniontown, Cotati, Charlotte, Laurel; co-designer with Arthur Pilsbury Fresno, San Carlos, Kansas City, Altoona, Culver City, Salem, and Amatol.
Hi folks -- I am just starting my next project -- a cultural history of automobile racing in America to 1941. So I am starting from near scratch, so to speak, and my first major source is Griff Borgeson's The Golden Age of the American Racing Car. Board tracks have always fascinated me -- see reference in my Automoible and American Life. Taken from Borgeson, p. 323, 2nd edition, here is a list of Board Tracks and length of operation:
Nader, Ralph. Unsafe At Any Speed. New York: Grossman, 1965.
Nauen, Elinor. Ladies, Start Your Engines: Women Writers on Cars and the Road.Boston: Faber and Faber, 1996.
Nelson, Walter Henry. Small Wonder: The Amazing Story of the Volkswagen. Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1967.
Nevins, Allan. Ford. 3 vols. New York: Scribner, 1954-1963.
Nye, David E. Consuming Power: A Social History of American Energies.Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998.
O’Barr, William M. Culture and the Ad: Exploring Otherness in the World of Advertising.Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994.
O’Connell, Sean.The Car and British Society: Class, Gender and Motoring 1896-1939.Manchester: ManchesterUniversity Press, 1998.
O’Neill, William L. American High:the Years of Confidence, 1945-1960. New York: Free Press, 1986.
O’Toole, Jack. Forming the Future: Lessons from the Saturn Corporation.Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1996.
Olsen, W. Scott. At Speed: Traveling the Long Road between Two Points. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2006.
Olson, Sidney. Young Henry Ford: A Picture History of the First Forty Years. Detroit: WayneStateUniversity Press, 1963.
Page, Victor W. Prevention of Automobile Accidents. New York: Henley, 1932.
Partridge, Bellamy. Fill’er Up! The Story of Fifty years of Motoring.New York: McGraw-Hill, 1952.
Patton, Phil.Bug: The Strange Mutations of the World’s Most Famous Automobile. NewYork: Simon & Schuster, 2002.
------. Open Road: A Celebration of the American Highway.New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986.
Pelfrey, William. Billy, Alfred, and General Motors: The Story of Two Unique Men, a Legendary Company, and a Remarkable Time.New York: AMACOM American Management Association, 2006.
Peterson, Joyce Shaw. American Automobile Workers, 1900-1933. Albany, NY: StateUniversity of New York Press, 1987.
Post, Dan. Cord: Without Tribute to Tradition.Arcadia, CA: Post-Era Books, 1974.
Post, Robert C. High Performance: The Culture and Technology of Drag Racing.Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 2001.
Preston, Howard Lawrence. Dirt Roads to Dixie: Accessibility and Modernization in the South, 1885-1935.Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1979.
Rae, John B. The American Automobile. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965.
------. The American Automobile Industry.Boston: G. K. Hall, 1984.
------, ed., Henry Ford.Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1969.
------. The Road and the Car in American Life.Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1971.
Ralston, Marc. Pierce-Arrow.San Diego: A. S. Barnes, 1980.
Rifkin, Herbert R. The Jeep: Its Development, and Procurement Under the Quartermaster Corps, 1940-1942. WashingtonD.C.: Quartermaster Corp, 1943.
Roberts, Peter. Any Color So Long as its’ Black....the First Fifty Years of Automobile Advertising.Newton Abbott: David & Charles, 1976.
Rothschild, Emma. Paradise Lost: The Decline of the Auto-industrial Age.New York: Random House, 1973.
Rubenstein, James M. The Changing U.S. Auto Industry: A Geographical Analysis. New York: Routledge, 2002.
Texts:John Heitmann, The Automobile and American Life.
Kevin L. Borg, Auto Mechanics:Technology and Expertise in 20th Century America
Ben Hamper, Rivethead.
Grades: The final grade for this course will be based upon one Mid-Term Exam, (30%), Two Critical Book Reviews (40%), and Final Exam (30%). The grade scale is as follows: A94 to 100; A-90 to 93; B+87-89; B 84-86; B-80 - 83; C+ 77-79; C 74-76; C- 70-73.A similar pattern applies to lower grades.Letter grades are assigned a mid-point numerical grade. Additionally, attendance can influence your final grade at my discretion: if you miss more than 2 classes, one letter grade will be deducted from your grade; if you miss more than 4 classes, a two letter grade reduction will take place. Grade averages may be influenced by such factors as trends over the time of the course; for example, how you finish is far more important than how you start. Policies for exams strictly follows History Department Guidelines, and make-ups will only be offered with a valid, documented excuse.
Critical Book Reviews: Three critical reviews of assigned books serve as integral assignments in this course. Each review should be 3-5 pages in length, typed, double spaced. One should aim to critically summarize the book, aiming sure to discuss the authors content, themes, and perspectives, and then also provide an introspective response to the book that incorporates one’s own evaluation of the work’s authenticity and value.
Attendance at lectures is crucial if you are to expect a good grade in the course, and I want you to be at every class if that is at all possible. On many occasions material presented is not covered in the readings, and so many of the ideas discussed central to the development of modern science are complex and often confusing. Your attitude and what you bring in to the classroom can make the difference between a mediocre offering and a most positive educational experience.
Cheating and plagiarism will not be tolerated and offenses will be punished accordingly. A first offense will result in a failing grade for the exam or paper in question; a second offense will result in a failing grade for the course.
Course Purpose:It has been said that the automobile is the perfect technological symbol of American culture, a tangible expression of our quest to level space, time and class, and a reflection of our restless mobility, social and otherwise. In this course we will explore together the place of the automobile in American life, and how it transformed business, life on the farm and in the city, the nature and organization of work, leisure time, and the arts. This is a most complex transition that we will study, as the automobile transformed everyday life and the environment in which we operate.It influenced the foods we eat; music we listen to; risks we take; places we visit; errands we run; emotions we feel; movies we watch; stress we endure; and, the air we breathe.
SCHEDULE OF LECTURES AND ASSIGNMENTS
The week of:
Week 1/May 10Introduction; What our cars tell us about ourselves. The car in everyday life: the automobile age and its contradictions.Automotive Pioneers; Putting America on the Road; Henry Ford and the Model T; The Rise of General Motors; “Master Hands.”
Reading: Heitmann, .Introduction, Chapter 1-3.
Films: “Wild Wheels”; “Horatio’s Drive;” “Automobile Parade;” “Gussle’s Day of Rest”
Week 2/May 17Advertising, Styling, Design and the Art of the Automobile
On the Road;
Reading: Heitmann, chapter 4.
Film: “Grapes of Wrath;” “Route 66;" “Detour.”
Review of Borg's Auto Mechanics is due on May 21
Week 3/May 24Religion, Sex, and The car as a Home
Reading: Heitmann,Chapter 5
Film: “Automobile Advertising 1910-1940;”“Thelma and Louise”; “Motorcycle Diaries”
Mid-Term Exam is May 28
Week 4/ June 1The Interwar Years: The Great Depression, Aerodynamics, and Cars of the Olympian Age
Readings:Heitmann, Chapter 6.
Films: “The Crowd Roars;”“Burn Em’Up Barnes.”
Week 5/ June 7World War II:Detroit, the Arsenal of Democracy; The Post War Industry and Technological Suppression; Chrome Dreams of the 1950s
Readings:Heitmann, Chapters 7-8.
Film: “Jitterbugs;” "Tucker;" "Rebel Without a Cause;" "Thunder Road;" "American Graffiti;"“Goldfinger;” “Thunderball” “Bullitt.”
June 11 Review of Ben Hamper's Rivethead is due
Week / 6 June 14 Oil Shock I: Japan, James Bond, and Mobile Lovemaking; The Automobile World Upside Down, 1980s to the Present.
Readings: Heitmann, Chapters 9-10, Epilogue.
Films: “Gone in Sixty Seconds.” “Fast and Furious;” “The Bourne Identity.”
Mike and Mike Landry with their 1971 VW Karmann-Ghia A nice early TR3 set up for racing Headlight from a custom Ford Hot Rod Dash from a 1936 Packard 12
Hi folks -- finally the long winter is over and we had a Friday night without rain! And the cars came out, but the hundreds, although with grandpas and grandmas, young children, and 60 year- old geezers like me. It was warm and brilliantly sunny, a perfect evening for a top down ride as well. I only have a few photos to share this time around, but more will be posted with each successive week. This is an event that has no class, age, race, or gender, barriers -- as all who attend have one interest, namely a love affair with the automobile.
