BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: America on the Move

DC -- Natl Museum of American History -- Exhibit: America on the Move:

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. SIAHMV_031124_118.JPG: 1920's The Connected City: New York, New York Water, Water, Everywhere America's earliest cities grew up next to the rivers and oceans that connected them to each other and to world trade routes. Small colonial outposts expanded into major centers of population, commerce, manufacturing, and culture based on their ties to this natural transportation network. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, railroads, canals, and road systems brought prosperity to landlocked cities. Still, the country's largest cities remained those along the water. New York City in the 1920's demonstrated the nation's continued reliance on maritime commerce. Bordering one of the finest natural harbors in the world, the city handled almost half of America's international trade. People, agricultural products, raw materials, and manufactured goods of all kinds came and went through its giant waterfront railroad terminals, conveyed in thousands of ships dispatched by more than 200 shipping companies. The sea-lanes of New York served the needs of the city and those of the nation as well. What Happened Next: What Happened to New York? America has been involved in global trade since colonial times. In the first half of the 19th century, the United States exported raw materials and imported manufactured goods. As the country industrialized, it became a major exporter of factory-produced items, from sewing machines to cars. In recent years, it has again imported manufactured goods, and exported agricultural products and financial and computer-related services. The United States has been a major player in the international economy since the 1880's. New York City has been central to the story of America's international trade. In the 1920's, half of America's imports and exports moved through the city. But New York's role as a port began declining in the 1960's as container ships moved to terminals elsewhere in the area, and New York's transportation problems made it harder to get trucks and trains from the ports out of the city. Ocean liners no longer carried millions of immigrants to New York. Manufacturers moved out of the city, looking for cheaper labor. But New York reinvented itself as a new kind of global city. More than ever, it is a center of international finance, banking, art, culture, and professional services. The new New York is a city tied to the world economy not only by the goods it manufactures, buys, sells, and transports, but also by the ideas, culture, and financial information services it provides.
2. SIAHMV_031202_006.JPG: The Container System By itself, the container would not have launched a revolution in international commerce. Hauling goods in sturdy, standardized boxes had been tried with some success on land and at sea. But the idea of an integrated, mechanized system in which the same container could travel on rail, truck, and ship transformed global trade. The system reduced cargo handling to a minimum.
3. SIAHMV_031202_024.JPG: This was an early device for servicing cars. The mechanic would rotate it to work underneath it. Fixing Cars Early cars required frequent maintenance and repairs. Many machinists, blacksmiths, bicycle mechanics, and others started auto repair shops. New-car dealers and gasoline stations also offered repairs, and most cities had garages that stored, cleaned, fueled, and serviced automobiles. Even though cars became more reliable, the auto repair business remained a necessity. By the 1920's, there were more than 60,000 service shops. In the 1930's, oil companies also provided repairs. They used brand identify and the promise of uniform quality to attract customers. Americans Adopt the Auto Why did the closed body become the standard type of car? Though more expensive, heavier, and hotter in the summer, and dangerous before the introduction of safety glass in the 1920's, the closed body appealed to the buyer who wanted an affordable luxury. It kept you cleaner, and out of the weather. And when metal replaced wood, it was easier to manufacture. Middle-class city and suburb dwellers especially appreciated the closed-body car. Why did the steering wheel end up on the left? Some early cars had the wheel on the left, some on the right. Right-hand drive allowed entrance and exit at the pavement, but road improvements ended that advantage. And having the wheel on the right side made passing a dodgy proposition. The very popular Ford Model T, introduced in 1908, had its steering wheel on the left. It set the style for later cars. The Human Cost of Roads Like railroads, trolleys, buggies, horses, and ships, automobiles kill and injure people. In 1913, more than 4,000 people died in car accidents. By the 1930's, more than 30,000 people died every year. In an effort to lower accident and death rates, safety advocates stressed the Three E's: engineering, enforcement, and education. Since most safety advocates -- like most Americans -- assumed that careless people were the cause of wrecks, early safety efforts focused on educating drivers and pedestrians, rather than designing and producing safer automobiles and highways.
4. SIAHMV_031202_045.JPG: The guy is standing on a piece of concrete that was actually part of US 66. You don't really notice it when you're there though.
5. SIAHMV_031202_072.JPG: The Trailer "Problem" During the Depression, thousands of Americans took to living in their trailers year-round. Because trailer residents could pull up stakes easily, and because they did not pay real estate taxes, "trailerites" were seen as a social problem. During the 1930's, permanent trailer parks, such as the Ryder Mobile Home Park on Route 1 in Milford, Connecticut, began to cater to trailer residents. Although many people looked down on them, trailer parks provided a low-cost housing alternative. Decauter Motor Camp Many Americans took their vacations on the road. Autocamping and trailer living helped renew family ties and relieve some of the pressures and distractions of daily life, while it preserved some home comforts. Every summer in the late 1930's and 1940's, the Cate family of Lakeport, New Hampshire -- Eben, Vernie, Rudolph, and Virginia -- towed their Trav-L-Coach house trailer to York Beach, Maine, for a week at Decatur Motor Camp. Keeping house in their vacation cottage on wheels, they relaxed, took walks on the beach, and swam in the Atlantic Ocean. But Mrs. Cate still had to perform most of the house chores that she did at home.
6. SIAHMV_031202_074.JPG: Ring's Rest By the 1930's, clusters of family-owned tourist cabins, restaurants, and gasoline stations kept long-distance motorists fed, rested, and ready to go. Fred E. Ringe Sr. and his teenage children operated Ring's Rest, four tourist cabins on Route 1 near Muirkirk, Maryland, north of Washington. Ring's Rest was cozy, homelike, and convenient, but isolated. Tourist cabins never achieved the respectability of hotels. Many had a slightly sinister atmosphere after dark. Some had reputations as criminal hangouts or dens of vice. The Ringes refused service to locals in order to screen out the "hot-pillow" trade. [The audio track that plays for this exhibit has the kid telling the traveler that he can't stay here because his license plate is from Virginia -- the Ringe's prohibited people from Maryland, DC, or Virginia since they might be illicit couples or other undesirables.] Creating Consistency Comfort, cleanliness, and clientele varied greatly at mom-and-pop tourist cabins, and motorists could not always find satisfactory lodgings on the road. Some cabin owners joined referral organizations that promised higher standards -- as did the few chains of franchised cabins or courts that appeared before World War II. After the war, motel chains such as Holiday Inn, Howard Johnson, and Best Western set a new standard for lodging, removing the guesswork and worry from long-distance automobile travel, as well as the local flavor and personal touches. "Jim Crow" on the Road Roads were open to all motorists, but the facilities that lined them were not. Some African Americans owned automobiles by the early 1920's, but the discriminatory practices of hotels, tourist cabins, and other lodgings made highway travel difficult. Some African Americans opened roadside accommodations, but not all communities had such conveniences. Black motorists either sought black-owned establishments or stayed with friends and relatives. At times, they were forced to spend uneasy nights parked at service stations or beside highways when commercial hospitality was nowhere to be found.
7. SIAHMV_031202_118.JPG: 1950's City and Suburb: Chicago and Park Forest, Illinois The Sprawling Metropolis A rapidly growing dependence on the car helped reshape life in American cities and suburbs after World War II. It created the suburban landscapes and culture that have come to dominate much of contemporary American life. Owning a car made it easier for white middle- and working-class families to move to sprawling new suburbs. Local and national transportation policy often encouraged suburbanization, to the detriment of older cities. By the 1950's, growing traffic problems and rapid suburbanization threatened the welfare of Chicago's central business district. In response, city officials implemented a series of transportation projects designed to encourage downtown development. Instead, the improvements encouraged people and businesses to move out of the city. Park Forest, one of the suburbs that attracted Chicago residents, was a planned development where the landscape and the rhythms of daily life revolved around the family car.
8. SIAHMV_031202_167.JPG: Chicago Transit Authority Rapid Rail Transit Car 6719, 1959 By the end of World War II, many of Chicago's privately owned bus, rapid-transit, and streetcar companies were nearly bankrupt. In 1947, the city purchased most of these lines and unified them under the newly created, semipublic Chicago Transit Authority. The CTA had to modernize rolling stock, pay wages, and improve service solely on money raised from fares, even as ridership and receipts fell. Car 6719 was one of hundreds of transit cars purchased by the CTA in the 1950's to replace obsolete trains. This car carried L and subway passengers for almost 30 years. What Happened Next: What Happened to Public Transit? Public transit ridership peaked during World War II and then declined as more Americans took to their cars, and as residential and commercial development moved farther away from existing mass-transit services. Between the late 1950's and the early 1970's, over 170 U.S. transit companies ceased operations. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson called for the nation to rebuild mass-transportation systems to renew American cities, and Congress passed legislation to provide some funding for transit. By the 1970's, aid to mass transit was one of the fastest growing federal programs. Support for mass transit was on the rise, even if ridership was not. The civil rights movement had raised awareness of transportation needs of the disadvantaged. Environmental issues gained public prominence, as did the escalating price tag for massive road-building projects and the costs of increased car and truck travel. But America's cities continued to sprawl, and transit couldn't compete with the convenience of car travel. The Chicago Transit Authority was hard hit by falling ridership and revenue. Some even wondered whether the system would survive. But in the late 1990's, public transportation began a surprising comeback as planners explored smart-growth and transit-oriented development. Will more Americans turn to public transportation as roads become increasingly congested?
9. SIAHMV_031202_185.JPG: Grand Plan Starting in the late 1930's, politicians debated and engineers studied the idea of linking America's cities by a system of high-speed national highways with access limited to a few interchange points. The plan became a reality when President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Federal -Aid Highway Act of 1956. The federal government was to provide 90 percent of the funding -- mostly from gasoline taxes -- and each state would provide the rest. Originally, Congress called for 41,000 miles of limited-access roads designed for speeds up to 70 miles per hour, to be completed by 1972. Beginnings of the System In 1938, Congress requested the Bureau of Public Roads to study the feasibility of a system of superhighway. Its 1939 report, "Toll Roads and Free Roads," was the beginning of the concept for the Interstate Highway System. Throughout the 1940's, additional studies addressed the way new highways would support defense and economic growth. The limited-access design of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which opened in 1940, became a model for future superhighways. Reworking the Landscape The Interstate Highway System changed the American landscape. Workers cleared large swaths of land, demolished buildings, built bridges, and blasted through hills. The interstates would shape decisions made by individuals, governments, and businesses: roads dictated the location of housing developments, commercial buildings, factories, and truck terminals. Across the country, the interstates contributed to urban decline and suburban growth. Stop the Bulldozers! In the interstates' early years, most of the public eagerly awaited the broad, safe new roads. But by the mid-1960's, public concerns over the environment and disruption of neighborhoods forced the federal and state governments to include social and environmental impact in their calculations. In 1973, these concerns brought changes that channeled federal highway funds to mass transit, bikeways, and pedestrian walkways as well as highways.
10. SIAHMV_031202_231.JPG: First Drive across the Continent Driving an automobile from coast to coast in 1903 was a difficult and daring achievement. H. Nelson Jackson, a physician and businessman from Burlington, Vermont, captured the nation's attention when he and Sewall K. Crocker, a mechanic, drove from California to New York. Despite mud, washouts, breakdowns, and a lack of roads and bridges in the West, they finished their trip. Two other motoring parties -- each anxious to claim the title of first to drive across the country -- departed while Jackson and Crocker were en route, but could not overtake them. The trip began after a discussion in a San Francisco men's club as to the feasibility of a transcontinental auto crossing. Jackson decided to give it a try. He purchased a 1903 Winton touring car, named it "Vermont," and headed east. Jackson and Crocker followed trails, rivers, mountain passes, alkali flats, and the Union Pacific Railroad across the West. After 63 days on the road, the expedition reached New York. Jackson had spent $8,000 on his trip, including hotel rooms, gasoline, tires, parts, supplies, food, and the cost of the Winton. The Winton Motor Carriage Company published details about the Jackson-Crocker cross-country trip and emphasized the car's ruggedness and reliability. Bud, a bulldog, accompanied the drivers, and was featured in many news photos. In Idaho, Jackson acquired Bud, and the bulldog accompanied the pioneering motorists to the East Coast. Churning dust irritated Bud's eyes, and Jackson purchased [a] pair of goggles for him. Winton touring car "Vermont," 1903 IN 1903, H. Nelson Jackson and Sewall K. Crocker completed the first motor trip across the United States in this car, which Jackson named for his home state. It is displayed with reproductions of supplies and equipment that the men carried. They often used a block and tackle to pull the car out of mudholes. When the Winton needed repairs, they telegraphed the factory for parts and awaited delivery by railroad.
11. SIAHMV_031202_277.JPG: Growing for a Wider Market Railroad companies laid more than 100,000 miles of new track between 1870 and 1890. Along with the development of refrigerated cars, this new network helped create a growing market for fruit and other produce. By the 1880's, Armour, Swift, and other meatpacking companies shipped refrigerated beef around the country. Fruits and vegetables became more widely available. Strawberries from Tennessee, Georgia peaches, Florida oranges, and a cornucopia of produce from California poured into midwestern and eastern cities, feeding America's expanding urban populations.
12. SIAHMV_031202_284.JPG: Steam locomotive, Jupiter, 1876 Made in Philadelphia in 1876, Jupiter was the Santa Cruz Railroad's third locomotive. Built for narrow-gauge track (36 inches between rails), Jupiter became obsolete in 1883 when the line switched to standard gauge (56-1/2 inches). Jupiter was sold to Guatemala, where it hauled bananas for more than 60 years. In 1976, it came to the Smithsonian as part of the United States bicentennial exhibition.
13. SIAHMV_031202_334.JPG: Fares, Please! Washington, one of many American cities that built new electric streetcar systems, began converting from horse and cable cars in 1888. Trolley lines created the modern suburb and the commuter, and enabled people to live farther from their jobs in the commercial center of the city. In Washington, the streetcars were privately owned and run. Real estate developers built many lines to promote new neighborhoods. Washington's streetcar companies consolidated into two systems in 1902. "Jim Crow" Public transit was a battlefield in race relations, especially in southern cities where "Jim Crow" laws restricted African Americans' access to public transportation. In 1896, Homer Plessy sued to overturn a law that barred him from riding in a "whites only" railroad car. The Supreme Court upheld Louisiana's "separate but equal" accommodations, and other southern cities passed laws segregating transportation systems. While the District did not pass a streetcar Jim Crow law, unwritten social customs segregated blacks and whites on the streetcars and other public places. Electric streetcar, 1898 The Capital Traction Company streetcar ran along 7th Street from the wharves at the Potomac River to Boundary Street (now known as Florida Avenue), which at the time was the edge of the City of Washington. Washington banned overhead wired, so streetcars used an underground electric conduit within the city and an aboveground wire outside city limits.
14. SIAHMV_031209_011.JPG: Taking the Bus After World War II, residential and commercial development spread farther from the central city into less densely populated areas, and farther from existing fixed-route transit systems like the L and streetcars. A bus, though forced to compete with trucks and private cars on congested roadways, could go anywhere, connecting neighborhoods with the L and with the city center. And buying buses was cheaper than building new transit systems. By the late 1950's, the Chicago Transit Authority had replaced the city's extensive network of streetcars with buses. One-quarter of all Loop commuters arrived at their destination on a bus. Even more took a bus to a rapid-transit line to begin their commute.
15. SIAHMV_031209_033.JPG: 1930's - 1940's The People's Highway: Route 66 Life on the Open Road In the 1920's and 1930's, new highways began to affect people's lives. Some Americans used highways to migrate. Others earned a living on the road, or by its side, running businesses. Many Americans began to take to the highways for pleasure. Travelers often saw the highway as a symbol of independence and freedom, even though they depended on government for the roads they drove on, and on businesses such as automobile and tire manufacturers, oil refiners, gas stations, and roadside restaurants for support. Route 66 was commissioned in 1926 and fully paved by the last 1930's. It ran from Chicago to Los Angeles, creating connections between hundreds of small towns and providing a trucking rote through the Southwest. While not the first long-distance highway, or the most traveled, Route 66 gained fame beyond almost any other road. Dubbed the "Mother Road" by John Steinbeck in "The Grapes of Wrath," Route 66 carried hundreds of thousands of Depression era migrants from the Midwest who went to California hoping for jobs and a better life.
16. SIAHMV_031209_053.JPG: What Happened Next: What Happened to the Railroads? Before World War II, railroads were an integral part of peoples' lives and one of the nation's premier businesses. They employed between 1.5 and 2 million people annually -- about 10 percent of all industrial workers -- and transported hundreds of billions of ton-miles of freight. But after the war, as Americans embraced cars, trucks, and highways, the role of railroads changed. In the 1940's, diesel locomotives began to be introduced on U.S. railroads in large numbers. Steam and diesel locomotives ran side by side for a brief time in the 1940's and early 1950's, but new diesel locomotives took over as they radically cut maintenance and operating expenses. Steam locomotive 1401 was last repaired at Spencer in 1951. All steam locomotives on the Southern were retired by 1953, and Spencer Shops, not easily convertible to diesel work, closed in 1960. By 1950, rail traffic was dropping steadily, motivating rail managers to cut costs. This drop in traffic on every railroad and the fact that diesels needed far fewer people to maintain them combined to cut rail employment. By 1962, U.S. railroads had half the number of workers they had in 1946. In the 1980's and 1990's, passenger trains were no longer a part of most travelers' lives. But railroads rebounded economically, due to growth in rail shipment of freight containers, automobiles, coal, grain, food, and other products. In the 1990's, rails carried more commercial freight more miles than waterways or trucks.
17. SIAHMV_031209_058.JPG: 1930's Roadside Communities: Ring's Rest, Muirkirk, Maryland Cabins for Rent--Nightly rates only As more people took to the road, clusters of roadside businesses sprang up to accommodate motorists' needs. By 1925, many tourists stayed in roadside cabins rather than at campsites or hotels. Hotel operators, worried that cabins were undermining their business, warned that the cabins were dens of vice and danger. FBI director J Edgar Hoover claimed that criminals used tourist cabins as hideouts. Still, auto courts became more and more popular. But as motorists began to look for consistency along the road, they patronized chain restaurants and motels instead of family-owned businesses. Ring's Rest, located about 20 miles north of Washington DC, was one of the many small tourist courts scattered along US 1 from Maine to Florida. The Ringe family rented out four wooden cabins and owned a roadside store with gasoline pumps. Miles from the nearest town, the Ringe family lived within earshot of highway traffic, but in relative isolation. The only neighboring buildings were a general store, a railroad station, and a roadhouse.
18. SIAHMV_031209_067.JPG: 1930's Family Camping: York Beach, Maine At Home on the Road In the 1930's, as more and more Americans enjoyed paid vacations and access to automobiles, many families purchased or made house trailers. Ads promoted trailer life as a way to strengthen family ties through the pleasures of a vacation on the road. Trailers built in the 1930's were scaled-down versions of a home, with fold-out beds, stoves, sinks, and other amenities that let a family travel without having to pay for a hotel or meals. Although taking the housekeeping on the road often meant that women did not have much of a holiday, trailers provided a way for hundreds of thousands of people to take vacations. Every summer in the late 1930's and 1940's, the Cate family of New Hampshire towed their Trav-L Coach house trailers to York Beach on the southern coast of Maine. They stayed at one of the thousands of trailer camps that sprang up around the country to accommodate this new form of tourism. There, like other middle-class families, they spent a week in a vacation cottage on wheels.
19. SIAHMV_031209_083.JPG: 1949 Suburban Strip: Sandy Boulevard, Portland, Oregon Free and Ample Parking Beginning in the mid-1920's, and accelerating after World War II, many grocery stores, car dealerships, and other businesses moved out of the city to the suburban strip. There they created a bustling scene where car-owning consumers could buy almost anything they needed. By moving commercial life out of the central business districts, suburban strips contributed to the economic decline of downtowns. As more people moved into the suburbs, the strips also became centers of social life. Like many cities that boomed during World War II, Portland, Oregon, developed suburban strips. Lined with stores that appealed to the car-owning middle class, Sandy Boulevard grew rapidly in the late 1940's. In 1949, Wallace Buick moved from its downtown location to Sandy Boulevard, and became one of the many auto-related businesses there. Portland residents increasingly shopped on suburban strips like this. Before long, many of them moved from downtown neighborhoods to new suburbs.
20. SIAHMV_031209_096.JPG: 1939 Going to School: Martinsburg, Indiana The End of the One-Room Schoolhouse In rural areas, the introduction of school buses changed the character of the communities they served and the lives of the children who road to school. Students who had once walked to a local, often one-room, schoolhouse now rode a bus to a large consolidated school where they were taught in separate grades. Progressive educators viewed buses as a step toward modernizing rural education. By 1932, there were 63,000 school buses on the road. In Martinsburg, Indiana, school administrators -- like their colleagues in other rural communities -- saw school buses as a way to give children access to better education and to save money. Some parents objected; they liked the local schools and thought that consolidated schools would increase taxes. But in 1939, three small one-room schools closed, and their 75 students began to take buses to the Martinsburg School.
21. SIAHMV_031209_125.JPG: 1956-1990 On the Interstate: I-10 A Nation of Highways In 1956, after decades of debate and planning, Congress passed the Federal-Aid Highway Act, and the interstate network was born. The 41,000-mile system was designed to reach every city with a population of more than 100,000. Mostly completed by the 1990's, at a cost of more than $100 billion, this gargantuan public undertaking was designed for fast and safe road travel. The interstates have profoundly changed American landscapes and lives, and the way business is conducted. Interstates chopped up cities and bypassed existing roadside businesses, created new kinds of cities and suburbs, and boosted industry and commerce. I-10 sweep almost 2,500 miles across the southern United States from Jacksonville, Florida to Santa Monica, California. It helped shape some of the fastest-growing cities in the nation, including Houston and Phoenix, into sprawling, automobile-dependent metropolises. It is the principal truck route connecting Los Angeles ports with the rest of the nation. And as with many Interstates, local interests forced changes in its proposed route in several cities, including San Antonio and New Orleans.
22. SIAHMV_031209_131.JPG: What Happened Next: What Happened to Plessy? Transportation has long been a flash point in the struggle for racial equality in America. In 1896, the Supreme Court's Plessy v Ferguson decision declared racial segregation legal. For the next half century, until 1954's Brown v Board of Education reversed Plessy, the doctrine of "separate but equal" was the law of the land. After 1954, segregation remained a common practice. Mass protests against segregated transportation helped create the modern civil rights movement. The Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott of 1955-56 showed the power of nonviolent direct action and encouraged other forms of protest against institutionalized racism. Transportation issued remained at the forefront of the movement when it entered the next stage: making sure that the new laws were being applied. In 1961, integrated groups of activists calling themselves Freedom Riders boarded buses and traveled into the South to see if bus stations were desegregated as ordered. The Freedom Riders were attacked as they traveled, and one of their buses was burned in Alabama, but their efforts pressured the federal government to make states comply with desegregation laws. Because of these kinds of protests over transportation, laws and social customers began to change throughout the segregated South.
23. SIAHMV_031209_140.JPG: 1927 Lives on the Railroad: Salisbury, North Carolina Riding and Working on the Railroad In the 1920's, railroads were a central part of American life. Railroad lines crisscrossed the country. They carried people, manufactured goods, food, the daily mail, and express packages. Railroads made long-distance travel possible, but the opportunities for travel were not equally shared. In the South, African Americans were segregated into "Jim Crow" cars. Salisbury, North Carolina, was linked to the nationwide system by the Southern Railway. Its main route ran between Washington, D.C. and New Orleans, Louisiana, by way of Salisbury. The depot and rail freight sheds made the city part of the country's rail network. The railroad also provided job opportunities in the community: in nearby Spencer, the vast locomotive repair shops employed 2,500 skilled workers.
24. SIAHMV_031209_151.JPG: What Happened Next: What Happened to Streetcars? In the early 1900's, streetcars and electric interurban systems helped fill the nation's transportation needs. By 1917, there were 45,000 miles of transit track in the country, and millions of riders. But over the next few decades, the limitations of streetcar systems, government and corporate policies and actions, consumer choice, and the development of alternatives -- especially the bus and the car -- helped make trolleys obsolete. Buses began replacing trolleys in the 1910's. Many commuters considered buses a modern, comfortable, even luxurious replacement for the rickety, uncomfortable trolleys. Buses made business sense for transit companies; they were more flexible and cheaper to run than streetcars. In a few cities, auto and auto-supply companies, including General Motors, Firestore Tire and Rubber Company, and Standard Oil of California, bought an interest in transit companies and encouraged the conversion from streetcar to bus. But many cities made the choice to switch without this influence, and by 1937, 50 percent of U.S. cities that had public transit were served by buses alone. Most important, Americans chose another alternative -- the automobile. The car became the commuter option of choice for those who could afford it, and more people could do so. In Washington, D.C., the last streetcar ran in 1962. In 2000, a public-transit authority runs an expansive bus service and operates a subway system. But as in most cities, the majority of D.C.-area residents prefer to drive alone in their cars from their homes to their workplaces.
25. SIAHMV_031209_215.JPG: 1895 Delivering the Goods: Watsonville, California Growing for the Wider Market Railroads changed agriculture. As railways linked farms to a wider commercial world, farmers began to grow new crops for markets near and far. Vast wheat fields supplied flour for people around the world. Trains carried cattle and hogs to central stockyards and shipped meat by refrigerated railroad cars to retail markets across the country. City dwellers could buy fruits and vegetables year-round. Farms became commercialized, often specializing in single crops and tied to the ups and downs of a national market. With its rich farmland, Watsonville became a center of produce farming. When the railway opened up new markets, local farmers began to experiment with sugar, beets, apples, strawberries, and other cash crops. These new crops were highly labor-intensive, needing a vast array of workers to plant, cultivate, harvest, and pack them. Watsonville growers looked for low-cost and temporary field hands. They hired Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, and Mexican workers to perform the backbreaking work.
AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
Description of Subject Matter: America on the Move
November 22, 2003 – Permanent

This major exhibition examines how transportation—from 1876 to 1999—has shaped our American identity from a mostly rural nation into a major economic power, forged a sense of national unity, delivered consumer abundance, and encouraged a degree of social and economic mobility unlike that of any other nation of the world.

Arranged chronologically and through 19 sections, historical moments explored include the coming of the railroad to a California town in 1876, the role of the streetcar and the automobile in creating suburbs outside of cities, and the transformation of a U.S. port with the introduction of containerized shipping in the 1960s.

Among the 300 objects on view, highlights include:

Electrifying Cars (October 27, 2011-January 2012) explores the history of the electric car from the early 20th century to the present and showcases two cars—a 1904 Columbia electric runabout, the best-selling car in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, and a 1913 Ford Model T touring car, a gasoline car equipped with an early type of electric starter and electric headlights.
"Jupiter," a steam-powered locomotive built in 1876 for the Santa Cruz Railroad
260-ton "1401" locomotive, which pulled President Franklin Roosevelt's funeral train on part of its journey to Washington, D.C.
1903 Winton was the first car driven across the U.S.—by H. Nelson Jackson and Sewall Crocker, with Bud the Dog as a passenger
1926 Ford Model T Roadster; the Ford Motor Company ceased production of the Model T in 1927
1942 Harley-Davidson motorcycle
Chicago Transit Authority "L" mass transit car built in 1959
a piece of U.S. Route 66, the "People's Highway," that connects Chicago to Los Angeles
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