Personal Mobility Provided by the Automobile

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Mobility. This one concept was at the core of the booming economy of the 1920’s. Personal mobility provided by automobile. Professional mobility provided by growing job opportunity. Social mobility provided for by an onslaught of new motion pictures, musical styles like jazz and expanded radio broadcasting. And moral mobility as the U.S. population became increasingly disenchanted by traditional values. This one concept was the underpinning of the major movements of the decade of the 1920’s.
At the core of the boom that was the “roaring 20’s” was the automobile. The primary boom industry of the period, the automobile industry employed one of every 14 manufacturing workers and spawned a plethora of ancillary industries. Industries and companies needed to provide the materials of automobile production boomed in support of the industry. Steel, plastics, rubber and glass manufacturing ballooned to support the growth in automobile sales, which grew from 5 million in 1920 to 26 million in 1929. Oil exploration grew in response to the need for petroleum, not only for gasoline but for production of other products which had a petroleum basis. Construction of new roads, manufacturing plants, and homes were born of the markets created by the rise in availability of the automobile to the masses. And smaller but no less important ancillary businesses like gas stations, auto repair shops, upholstery shops, and even consumer stores, in more remote areas away from the major cities, were the direct result of the automobile industry and its far reaching impact and influence on the economy of the time. And the mobility that transportation would provide would spur other impacts and influences and continue to feed the boom that was the 19...

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...ex, alcohol consumption, smoking and dancing, fostered further division between the past and the future. And while widely chided and scrutinized, the idea that the nation had fallen from its traditional roots was not actually as new or widespread as feared. It had actually appeared before World War I with the popularity of new fashions, music and strive for material possessions. It was just more widely known due to publication in the form of movies, radio and documentation of its presence.
The 1920’s were a seminal moment in our nation’s history. So many key events and people of the time shaped the future of our country. This period of growth, prosperity and social change would not be realized again until the post-WW II years. The enduring impact of the automobile on our nation and the professional, personal and social mobility that it provides, exists today.

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