THE AUTOMOBILE REVOLUTION

IMAGE FROM: STEPHEN B. GODDARD, GETTING THERE (NEW YORK: BASIC BOOKS, 1994)

By the 1920s, with the advent of Henry Ford’s Model “T” and sprawling industrialization and national growth, the problem of the popularity of automobiles arose.  Turnpikes and other roads developed for horse-drawn carriages could not support the increasing auto traffic and congestion.  When the railroad exploded onto the American scene in the nineteenth century it had done so under the condition that its own steel “roads” would be built first.  Trains ran on tracks that were obviously apart from the main thoroughfares that were in place prior to its arrival.  Automobiles did not, and they overmatched Main Streets all over the country as their appeal spread.  Middletown was not immune to this transportation revolution, as it had not been to the upheaval caused by the train close to one-hundred years before.  It would have to evolve and adapt.  Its features and character would have to change and adjust. 

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