Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2001. [Vol. 7.] Eger Journal of American Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 27)

Studies - Sándor Végh: Adoption or Adaptation?: Interpretations of the Automobile

with the coming of the automobile's

—and the question arises: Did the automobile play an initiative role in the process that resulted in an increasingly self-conscious average American citizen or did this happen the other way around? Or is there a meaningful link operating at all? Well, the answer is no to the first two questions; however, as to the interaction between the two, a viable link might exist. The changes in the popular consciousness had started in the 1890's. By the end of the first decade of the 20th-century, it had developed to a widely noticeable extent amplified by the Progressive movement, the nationwide workers' unions, and the increased reform activity in journalism and literature. On the other hand, the automobile had not been mass produced until 1913

1; without which it was impossible to have an effect on a considerable segment of society. Even when massproduced, the automobile did not become available to the working class for another decade or two. As a matter of fact, the classic case study of the impact of the automobile in Muncie, Ind., Middletown, conducted by Robert and Helen Lynd in the 1920's, has been proved to be wrong in its prediction, because of the facile assumption that the automobile had revolutionized the lifestyle of the American society of the 1920's {Automobile Age 158). As Flink rightfully noted in his masterly historical narrative of the automobile, the statement itself is not true without pointing out that the period of the 1920's was a revolutionary time only for the middle and upper classes, while the change in the life of the working class came as late as the 1950's. In fact, in 1927, more than half of the American families did not own a car (130). The connection between the self-awakening of the American worker and the automobile lies in the fact that the automobile industry and mass production techniques are very specific instances of 'the environment where the American worker found himself oppressed and for which he demanded changes. At the same time, the automobile itself is a particular object that

—in its 1 In fact, Ransom E. Olds had introduced the method earlier with the two main principles that the work should be brought to the worker, and that the line should be elevated to the waist level so the worker did not have to stoop. Thus, the 1903 Oldsmobile was the first car ever made on the assembly line, but its production output had not been more than a few hundred and Ford was the one who refined the method and put it to work more effectively. 80