Peter D. Norton - Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City

edited by Wiebe E. Bijker, W. Bernard Carlson, and Trevor Pinch

For a list of the series, see page 379.

Peter D. Norton

vii

I Justice

II Efficiency

III Freedom

In 1988 I got a job sorting through a collection of photographic negatives for the Historical Society of Delaware. Working in downtown Wilmington at the Society's headquarters-an old bank building on Market Street-I picked through unending piles of cellulose nitrate eight-by-tens, holding each up to a light so that I could classify it by subject. They showed Wilmington subjects taken by a local photographer from about 1910 to about 1960. I worked at a small wooden table in the society's imperfectly lit basement, usually alone and with little to remind me of my own era. Deprived as I was of other sensations, the job offered little to remind me of the world outside the old bank building. In return the negatives offered unfamiliar sensations. The smell of the decaying celluloid made the job something like working in a vinegar factory. My visual world was Wilmington, several decades earlier. It was a dim, brown version, with reversed shadows. The photographer's subjects were diverse. Those I remember best were the street views, when the photograph captured people going about their business. At 5 o'clock I would leave the basement and return to 1988. As I walked to the bus stop on King Street I would see the 1988 versions of the same streets. The contrasts between the streets I saw in the negatives and those I saw on my journey home planted questions in my mind that this book seeks to answer.

I am grateful to the people who made this book possible, and who made it better. Special thanks go to Brian Balogh. As my dissertation advisor, Brian set an example for me of professional commitment to scholarship. Because he would not let mediocrity slip by, his encouragement, when it came, was truly encouraging. I admire his decency, and have benefited from it. I am very lucky to have been his apprentice, and very proud now to be his colleague. He has my profound gratitude.

W. Bernard Carlson, Nelson Lichtenstein, and Edmund Russell read the dissertation from which this book is derived, and all offered insightful and expert criticism that I used to make the book better. Three referees read portions of the book manuscript, and their valuable advice was also a substantial help. Some manuscript readers offered generous words of encouragement. Because of my great admiration for the work of Clay McShane, Gijs Mom, and Zachary M. Schrag, I am honored and grateful for their kind comments.

I thank the editors of The MIT Press's Inside Technology series for helping me to see the material I studied from new and illuminating perspectives. I am lucky indeed to have Bernie Carlson just two doors away. Through their written work and in their visits to Charlottesville in 2005 and 2007, Wiebe Bijker and Trevor Pinch have also been sources of intellectual inspiration.

I thank the editors at The MIT Press, particularly Sara Meirowitz, Marguerite Avery, and Paul Bethge, for their support, expertise, and professionalism-and for their patience.

Friendships, conversations, and expressions of interest from many sources have helped me as well. I cannot name them all, but I wish especially to thank Jameson M. Wetmore, Dimitry Anastakis, Steve Penfold, John Staudenmaier, David Lucsko, Betsy Mendelsohn, Joel Morine, William Keene, Malcolm Bell, and Mildred Robinson. I owe distinct and substantial debts to each of these good people. In this category there are also many students and some former teachers, and though space will not allow me to name them, they have my thanks.

The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in West Branch, Iowa, and the Headquarters Library of the American Automobile Association in Heathrow, Florida, were rich sources of evidence for this book, and both opened their collections to me for days at a time. Also helpful were the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, Delaware, and the National Archives in Silver Spring, Maryland. Practical support for research at the Hoover Presidential Library came from the Hoover Presidential Library Association through a fellowship provided by the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation of Chicago. I presented some of my research at a conference in Toronto; funds for travel were provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Archivists and other professionals at numerous institutions provided indispensable assistance. They include Dwight Miller, Dale Meyer, and Cindy Worrell of the Hoover Presidential Library; Stephanie Haimes, Melissa Phillips, and Patty Wolfe of the Headquarters Library of the American Automobile Association; and Christopher Baer of the Hagley Museum and Library. Others saved me the expense of travel by helping from a distance, including Danielle Green of the Harvard University Archives, Tracy Larkin of the Eno Transportation Foundation, Robert Denham of the Studebaker National Museum, Raymond Geselbracht of the Harry S. Truman Library, Alan Raucher of Wayne State University, and the entire staff of the Interlibrary Loans office of the University of Virginia Library. In obtaining picture permissions, I was helped by the following people and institutions: Anne Brugman of Motor Age, Lynn Catanese and Marjorie McNinch of the Hagley Museum and Library, Deborah Cribbs of the St. Louis Mercantile Library at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, Lamar Gable and Susan Maturo of the Barron Collier Company, Lee Gardner of the American Risk and Insurance Association, Chris Hunter of the Schenectady Museum and SuitsBueche Planetarium, Heather Hunter of the American Automobile Association, Carol Paszamant of the New Jersey Department of Transportation, Beth Payne of the International CityCounty Management Association, Kay Peterson of the National Museum of American History, Suzanne Powills of the National Safety Council, and Edward Reis of the George Westinghouse Museum.

For some, no words can adequately express my gratitude. These include Frances F. McMurdo (1901-1998) and Sally M. Hotchkiss (1929-2006). I remember my parents, David L. Norton (1930-1995) and Joan Carter Norton, later Dershimer (1932-1972). To my extraordinary good fortune, Richard A. Dershimer (1926-2007) and Greta G. Dershimer became parents to me, and thereby made all possible.

For my children, Will and Paul, I offer this book, entrusting the past, with its stories and its lessons, to the future. To Deborah, I dedicate this book. She has blessed me by her faith in me and in this project.