restoring talks about are we there yet, he chronicles the history of u.s. autos and argues against are driving this car, as this is about an hour and 45 minutes. >> tonight we are joined by historian and not a lot of journalist and how, dan has spent a career writing and teaching about the history and culture of technology, this articles can be found in popular science in the journal for the history of behavioral sciences, he holds a ph.d. in history from the university of michigan where he also taught in engineering, then also served as the curator of vehicle collections at the national museum of science and industry in london, he is the author are we there yet. the

american automobile past present and driver, less it's available for sale and please join me for welcoming him this evening. on (applause) thank you so much, that was really lovely, thank you amanda, really generous and sweet and production, i thank everybody for being, here otherwise i'd be year but myself, i on especially, amanda has told me that these people reminded me of how engaged these audiences are that come to these events, so i feel like i have to be up on my toes and give you my a game to take this seriously and be a little intellectual, be a little heavy

if talking about the past, president, and future of the automobile, there's a lot of material in the book on everything from teaching my daughter to drive to a freudian analysis. and a little bit of this theory of how one understands that. at the end of the day i want to talk about a little bit about the theory anne and the reason i'm doing and is to put us in the present moment, whereas you may have heard, drivers cars are on the rise, but at the end of the day i really want to talk about cars, i have both a lover and a heater of cars for a variety of reasons and i am looking forward to hear from you about your experience with the automobile, so without further ado let's get started with cars.

i mean i had to show you, this how many people know this machine, keep your hands up if you stayed and listened to the entire soundtrack, how many of you went to the gift shop afterwards and bought the vinyl record and brought it home and played it, hey well these two i know them, pretty much me, as long as we are raising hands, i didn't think in brooklyn and we were going a lot about cars and i realized halfway through it, they say it help many of you own a car? like three, so can i get a quick show of hands how many of you on a toyota? how many of you on a mercedes? how many on an american car? how

many don't own a car at all? ordinarily drive? interesting diverse audience, that's exciting, so we are not gonna talk very much about trains we're gonna talk about cars, and this is the museum of history at technology, national museum of american history as it was back in 1974, that's in me, you now just in the, world i grew up in coast bill we would come all the time, anytime i guess from at a, time relative or whatever go to the museum to see the airplanes pelosi go to history and technology because what alice is there, a here there's some are museums but, i don't know about them, so that is sort of me, it's not actually me, i was much fatter back then but this

is a stock photo from the smithsonian collection and i want you to get a sense of, it i was talking about how that exhibition has changed and talk a little bit about what that exhibition tells us about how we think about technology, the very hard part as we say or face the prospect of drivers cars is understanding the process by which they are coming upon us for evoking then, so we look at this, the first star is the encyclopedia, it's not really saying things about technology, it has a collection of objects, the labels typically say this guy invented in this, year it had this performance characteristic, very straightforward, but as you began, that is the way i experienced it as a kid but as i studied further and further and thought about different ways of understanding

technology i realize this actually has an implicit story behind it and that story is of technological evolution or technological determinism. technology is invented and it ping-pong through our lives, guttenberg has the printing press, iphones are invented, i don't know what is happening to us, but that we don't think about the other way of doing things and that is very much our lived experience, right, technology shows up and we buy it and we don't really think about the story behind it. but that is also reinforce in the museum exhibition that opened in 1964, in the beginning of a cold war, that is an explicit understanding that technology is important. technology advances, make us more

efficient overtime. bigger cars, faster cars. i just want to show you, quickly i, hope you can see things clearly enough here. i'm making things right, now i can see better. if you look back at the back while you can see the high wheeler poking out, an old-fashioned bicycle, before the bike chain was invented. we work our way from right to left, to a more modern bicycle. they get better, they get better they, get better. if you look in the far left corner in the back the horse and wagon, horse and wagon, more advanced car, more advanced car more, advanced car. we can see gas pumps there, from a very early hand pump gas bump to a later one. and of course, the centerpiece, the race car. the pinnacle of automotive capability. that is the ultimate machine. we don't know much about what it was like to

drive it. where was it born? where did it live? how did people experience? did people go to the races? was it something to happen on the side? 2009 maybe, america on the move exhibit, right? this is general motors transportation hall. a few things that happened. the railroad, the 14 oh one is in the hall because they are never moving that train again. a gorgeous train. also there is an intention and a purpose in putting trains and these bicycles and other vehicles altogether. that is to stop thinking about them and stop organizing them in terms of technical differences. there's no point in putting a four cylinder engine over here, a six cylinder engine over there,

that is not the point. the point is how do we use them? so we look, for example, at this, i believe i, meant to get over there today, i believe it is about a 55. it is 55 country squire why get. the wooden paneling calls for it history, back when station migrants had wooden bodies. all of that is beautiful. what else is there? right? there is context. i wonder if they're moving. the kid looks a little bit unhappy. what is a bicycle? learning to be a road user. by the same token, if you look at the red car, what is that? what does that tell me? it tells me that kids like toy cars. no way is it genetic. more to the point,

it is children rehearsing what their parents do. right? toy kitchen, toy car. you learn how to be an adult. that is very much part of american society and culture. that is the way that automobile fits in to our society. there are loads of these mannequins in this exhibition. old school, this is a 1950 bullet. someone can correct me. i am pretty sure, you can tell by this, it is gorgeous, it is key. the three holes on the side. these are classic bullet symbols. you will even notice, they don't even do anything, but you noticed them on a lot of biloxi that is it that is a gorgeous car. notice how far in the

wheels are set, and how far said the vehicle comes. this is a vehicle with a low tire, and you flown along. it is a magic carpet, in a lot of ways. the problem is, of course, you have to go to a car dealer to buy it. i feel terrible for these poor people. they are in for eternity going to be negotiating with a car salesman. any car salesman here? one of the most disruptive things is being able to avoid car dealerships. there is an interesting history about this, and i trust of them. leaving that aside, it is actually a very inconvenient and very not

20th century way of buying something. you have a thought, you touch a phone the, thing arrives. why does not happen with cars? some companies are trying to do. that for me, god forbid, i could see a lamborghini touch my phone, and the next thing i know, amazon drops a box. for the car dealership, that is where they want to go. that purchase process is really not in the system. it is a problem for consumption. that is kind of the way i want to frame this. okay? i don't want to look so much at the buick i do want to look at a lot, i don't do understand so much the buick except in the concept or context of what it meant for people and how it interacted

with their lives. how did the family use it? what was it like when you taught your daughter or son to drive? what was their first experience? what was it like to have these features? all of those things. what was it like to buy it? what was it like to get it fixed? what was it like when it was finally gone? was it sad? all of those things. that goes to the way we think about the process of innovation and the process of invention. again, you think about driver this cars. they have been invented many times. by the same token, i will show you the automobile has been invented many times in history. if i asked you off the top four heads, when would you say the automobile was invented? 1900?

1910? 1898? very specific years. would you like to give me a month? july. there you go. i will prove you all wrong. the question is not so much birth, it is adoption. it is born many times, often stillborn. the real questions i have our two, why was it invented? why was it adopted? what was it really? you kind of think, oh, automobile, you get a car, it is a machine forgetting places, transportation. obviously, as the far as the car people think about, that is how they think about. it they're not talking about tailspin's. they won't talk about it sitting in the

driveway and how your kids will think it is like being around automobile. it is kind of a strain question, what is an automobile? by the same token, i think you will be surprised perhaps to learn, that driver this cars have been invented many times. thought about and technology described in the thirties, tested in the 19 fifties, proven quite viable by government testing in the 1990s. two things are important about that. we had them, why didn't we --? it turns out, as you are looking at a deeply those our cars that are having a driver. me we will look a little bit about these cars are like, and what they are like today you are all wrong. the automobile was invented a 16 72,

all right? this guy was a jesuit monk i believe, he was a missionary. he went to china he went there to turn the emperor into a christian. he tried to convince them to turn to christianity. he brought him a card to turn him to christiana. it is cool. there is a ball, a hose, a fire, below it, very simple, straightforward. steam driven out of it. spins a turbine, turbine drives a couple of woods fears. the big will in the back, here, is for steering. i don't quite see how that works from the drink. i'm sure they had it figured out. this was actually only big enough to carry a rat. the question is not, okay, so

there was, it didn't work very well. so what? why didn't someone look at it and go, oh yes, that is a good start. let's do that some are. imagine, if of last 400 and something years, the chinese had decided to pursue rat cars. we'd have cars -- we see that it was invented, and we can't quite say that it did not work. we can say it wasn't adopted. this is a fascinating car. this is 1790, he patented a steam powered self propelled road vehicle. a car. at the time, there was no u.s. patent. that is hilarious. i think actually on the patent is george washington's signature. the patent office had not been invented yet. he had this idea, he got a patent, what did he do

with it? he did not start selling this. no capital available. no interest. let's look at a couple others. this is another one of my favorites. i call this the first amphibious car. a very accomplished engineer, he did a lot with process innovation and flour mills and flour, bread milk, if you will. he was building for the city of philadelphia a boat, that goes out and digs up the mud. he was also interested, once he had this lightweight steam engine in collecting capital, attracting capital for a car business. rather than getting some guys on a wagon to drag it down to the water, he said i will put some wheels on it.

that is exactly what he did. maybe will call that the first amphibious car, i don't know. it's in a five, no cars yet. this is one of my favorite. i will show to in a second. in another version. this is 1853. it is esteem why and. a few things are interesting about it. this is 1853. that car burned fire. i will show you in a minute. the boiler sat in the middle. people sat on either side. it is essentially like a mini bus. a very successful business. running people are too long island from new york city. 30 miles an hour. for comparison, a ford model t came around 1908. it topped out at 40 miles. was perfectly viable. not picked up. also, his reason

for developing the car had nothing to do with what you might think. he was not about transportation per se. he said he wanted to end the fearful misery of horses. this is something that was developing in this period, this spca sensibility towards animals. thank you them not as machines to be abused,. quickly, here is another version of it. this is 1866. i show it to you because it is part of the smithsonian collection. it is not on display. where are the curators? it should be on display. it is a great machine to look at. it really does tell us something about road transport. understand. i was a curator. now, here is my most interesting. like this is also in the collection. it is a

model. different times in history you had different things, not just a drawing what a physical model of the machine. 1879 this is patented. there is a patent attorney in upstate new york. he was very smart. it describes everything that we knew about the early automobiles. lightweight, hydrocarbon explosion engine, internal combustion, gasoline. able to deal with any reasonable in climb, all kinds of other basic details. 1879, the vehicle is not produced. it is very smart patton thing, he kept filing amendments. there are different ways to other patent attorneys in the room? you can kind of extent it. you are locked in because you have

patent pending. you can do very things to make sure doesn't have issues, in 1895 the automobile has arrived, the automobile has been borne for hundreds of years and certainly was quite viable by the middle of the 19th century, by the 18 seventies, it's not until the 1890s it it has been picked up, so here we are and i'm just going to digress for a second because i know you want to know more about electric cars, also how do you drive and electric cars an electric car, one, to, tesa, tesla? okay, so one of the big questions people ask is why other no electric cars, so you can ask the same question,

so if you look at the top there there is about 4000 vehicles in 1900 and as you can see steam and electric, the internal clearly and his stories look at that and say cnn fly so a cancer men goldfish can't buy, a point in fact the electric vehicle had a good business model and was very viable for urban transportation which is where the early automobiles

were and was also cleaner, quieter, more sensible, they would be classed and at a time when gasoline automobiles couldn't have glass, they shook and the glass would crack and so forth, the other thing is that the electric car had a business model that's very different than the business model we think of over the last hundred years of, okay we saw chris to people and will make our money, build more cars the electric vehicle company developed and i want you to think about uber or left, that is what they were, in 1899 they had a fleet of hundreds of taxicabs, mostly in new york city and you could get basically a taxi ride, you could ranch the cold for a week or a, month you could buy the vehicle, it was relatively

expensive but you could buy one, what they found is they had a hard time providing taxi service because so many people were releasing them or holding them for long periods of time, it was a viable business, so what killed it? well there is a couple of things culturally all talk about a four-minute but in terms of a business one of the things that killed it was an attack on monopoly so if you are familiar history, nina roosevelt, this is 1890, the turn of the century trust is a bad thing and so forth and particular a guy who was a big supporter of the gasoline automobile refer to them as a lead kept trust and they were rapidly expanding and in fairness just like uber or left you do need to have a monopoly, you need to have a large enough network because what it is it

if you only have 30 lifts any want to arrive, forget about it so in that sense it was true, but they were providing mobility as a, service they weren't interested in selling the vehicle, they were interested in selling you a ride, it worked, so i killed them in terms of business, they expanded rapidly, they kept increasing their capitalization and they got into a scandal and the stock place went and let me talk now about what the automobile is, when we get to the 1890s, 1893, so we can talk about what's the first automobile, i took out an electric car because it was complicated but i'll show you two of them, here 1893 also in

the museums collection, that's the motor why again, it's massachusetts and they had a real winning car, they wanna races and they were very durable, they could help climbs, long distance runs, they were good car, and those are not the kickoff drop guys, those are the stanley twins and they between 1905, little earlier sold about 2000 of these vehicles so it was a very viable machine, so it was a popular car the problem is

those were not the first cars that captured the attention of the people who could afford cars, the people who could of ford cars is the rothschild, vanderbilt, the top ten, what they did and do you think of them as americans but they enter married, they would cruise back and forth and meanwhile in france, there in 1893 let's look here at the top, look at, it has lights, got little gas lamps, that is a real car and in fact they were producing them and selling them, a place figure launch backs get right there, so this is not just a little tricycle this is a serious car he french eat

this up but they don't eat it up in the sense of transportation, these are rich man's toys, young man especially have inherited wealth, this, i'm sorry that's the putin my text got mixed up but this is one of the most significant vehicles, okay come on so my, french this vehicle seems like it's simple enough but as the motor gets bigger there is no place for back here, this is called the system can art and this is why engines are at the front and then they can move bigger and bigger so this

creates the modern architecture if you will of the automobile, engines can get bigger and these are powerful and fast and they were fun, ok, again i think we have some lights but mostly a lot more power, than we have a quote this is the new york times, and this is the beginning this is american pride, we will make up lost ground and then we will lead the world as we do in this and about all other things, the other thing i love is from the same article, reviewing the 1900 automobile show the reporter from the time says 14 out of these cars have adopted

that foreign freak the wheel, prince or problems but it's not as simple as financial reverses tearing, well it has a lot to do is something called the lack of steering system and it really is a major advance, all right let me keep moving, so a lot of things about the automobile, i can talk about why it comes with has to do demographic throw faces like southerly lately where he had catholic letters coming in and so florida the good americans from earlier in the 19 century but they seem not so nice to hang around so you begin to get these wealthier and i say that in the context of the native board it's considered that back then, this is not commentary for me, but there's an effort

to get out of the city, it's becoming more congested industrialization is happening, you have these new people so the idea on before the automobile there was an electrification and well into the 18 fifties cities were basically as big as you could walk across and about a half an hour you could walk in a radius and then the idea is the automobile will fill out, i'm gonna focus on one of the many elements, that is the bicycle, so right now we think of the bicycle, the automobile is enemies and certainly they are, anybody rides a bike on the street now is but in a lot of ways the bicycle stab list of the car culture, huge bike

raise, you can't even begin to imagine bike raises got huge crowds, bicycle fashion, bicycle advertising, playing cards with the bicycle on the back that's from that period and just to show you a couple of examples this i love, it's a very sociable bicycle, there's all sorts of different ones, and you can see here but i don't think she even has a wheel, i think it's just like a sidecar and you balance, i have to look into but it's a great way, you're gonna take a day, take the wife and you're gonna want to have her there, and this is a guy named major day-o about very interesting guy,

number one razor in the country, obviously african american at a time where added americans racing against whites is typically not that, so the fact that you can make a career and a business is an incredible and go to certain hotels and so forth but i want to touch on israel quickly, there are a lot of these women's clubs, women biking clubs and they were part of suffragettes and women in impairment and one of the things you'll notice is there wearing long skirts and those had by chains and anyone biked with a long skirt even with handcuffs and i'm always stuffing it into my sock, you have to do this and that's why one of the straps and then you get to the office and you're like, someone at lunch pointed out to you. but this doesn't

work, so do they do? let's see if we can tell you what they do, yeah bloomers on women star wearing bloomers oh my god you can start seeing there ain't goals, this is a big deal people have a panic about these things they have a moral panic, they have a moral panic about women being bicycles, when it home for them selves on bicycles so you can see this, give you the context back in the day, you have baseball cards and got, out of the give you got many more but cigarette packs, cigar packs would come with a card, people collect, them so let's look at what this has, way in the corner you can see a lady on a bicycle

obviously this lady has a bicycle but then look at all these legs showing, right, even some over, there i mean wow, so what are they saying? well if women organist are dressing like that, what's next? they're going to start smoking cigars, can you imagine us women smoking cigars, they are turning into man, so there really is his moral panic but there's also this period of women's empowerment. let me show you a bit more about the bicycle culture and connected to the car culture. that is about the sexism, but also about empowerment. i have another slide i will show you. danger and speed. there are bikes that are not your typical, these are called high wheeler's. the bigger the where, the fast you go, right? simple

physics. the higher your real, the faster you go. by the time you're five feet in the air, you are going pretty fast. now you look like someone on a horse coming at you. they referred to them as scorches, racing through town. it's not attract. that is okay. 1901, speed and danger. this is henry ford. racing another gentleman. the idea that henry ford was a failed businessman at this point, beat the best racer from the biggest car company in the country was a huge deal. the car spotted in the race, and he lost. people went wild. one man threw his hat up in the air, and when it came down he stomped on it. they were so excited. he was so excited he

hit his wife on the head to keep her from flying off the handle. that description, you know that thing with the egg, i don't know. okay. another cyclist, a celebrity cyclist much like major taylor. henry ford got up to do his next race or, this is a few years later. this is called the nine nine nine, one year later. we saw his other car, he is sitting what amounts to a drawing room car of a drawing rooms. they probably took some pieces off of it and put it on their. he is steering with a flat bar. the engine is huge. is sucked in five gallons of air. with every stroke. huge amounts of air. huge amounts of waste. it

did mine 90 miles an hour. no seatbelt, no airbags. no dashboard. the crank case is open, the crime cases down at the bottom. it is drenched in oil. it was open. the oil sprayed everywhere. it was not. this was ford, we will make it as light as possible. he had no idea how to drive. they just said, hey, you are a bike racer. yes, i will dry. part of the reason i think there is this is because as that of, this he didn't know. that was all very exciting. rushed out to the races, there was a race that was thrown in new york by cosmopolitan magazine. people loved it. what people did not love, was when these rich folks started tearing through cities.

they were killing children. they were colonizing the streets, driving people out of the way. police men were even dodging them. by the way, this is called the crusade of the 500. i'm sorry the charge of the 400. back in the day, there is a socialite list, right? everyone was listed on it. that is the joke. this fellow willie vanderbilt the second was the most notorious one of these guys. the ones who really got into it, young man of wealth. the fathers had made a fortune. vanderbilt told a reporter, he thought he was his analyst, he said, you know wealth is a

certain definition to cocaine as to what morality. he has nothing to excite him and life. the automobile shows up, and off he goes. there's also an interesting op ed vanderbilt wanted to build and some of his buddies want to build a race way to long island a, private raceway. they said they don't want that. the fund-raising, is seeing how close they can get to pedestrians without killing them. okay. let me turn now to how we deal with this problem. problem in the city. we begin to try to control the chaos. we begin to try to control the

chaos of traffic. and there was a latin phrase used order from chaos. regional order from cast. hopefully we can get this to work. i will show you, a pretty remarkable scene. it is 1906. it is four days before the san francisco -- a company that did these films guys on the front of history car, a cable car cranking away on a camera. you will see the purple turn the people turn and looking. and riding down market street watching. i want you to look at the traffic. let me add, there is no sound in the original. film historians thought it would be nice, and they did a sympathetic and, thoughtful job of adding sound. he will get, i hope, a sense of the way this sounds. we will look at a few minutes of it. you can see it running down the track.

(noise)

>> we will go a little further. (noise) >> okay, that will be our stop. it is funny, quickly, you see a bunch of cars in their. i have looked at it closely, it was the same cars. the license tags. i am pretty sure he hired these cars, there weren't that many cars in san francisco. it does give you a sense of what is happening as the motor vehicles come in. they're moving faster, crazier than even now. as you can see, there are no rules to the road. it is chaos. it does work. i mean, there are certainly accidents. people are rundown by streetcars. stomped on by horses. it does work. it is a

functional space. it is a multi functional space. you will see not on market street, but on a lot of streets, kids playing. pushcarts, it is a multi functional space. over time, though, as the automobile comes in, there is a concern. they're develops a concern about traffic crash. it starts very early. i will jump ahead for just a second. in 1935, it is a pivotal year for a few reasons. one, is there is a spike in automobile traffic death. if you look at a public health graph, you'll see the number of deaths keeps going up, and spikes in the middle of the depression. also, there was an article that came out in 1935. it essentially said saving a

few minutes, and risking your life. another words, slowdown, drive carefully. what was different, which of course, you have heard that, right? you know that. what was different no one had done a full on blood and gore scoring. he talks about skin -- he goes and visits actual accidents after they have happened. he talks about bones sticking out. he talks about a woman's face which is so full of blood all you can see is a hole in the middle of where her mouth is. gruesome stuff. that was in order to shock people out of complacency of, hearing about death statistics. it does have an impact. it does not make people drive safely. it makes people go, oh my god. gallop polls say that people want more policing. they

don't mean them, they mean the bad drivers. so, right in this period, it is 1925, the aaa comes out. 1936 the answer insurance industry comes out. the press makes heroes of traffic engineers, traffic police, and a group called the traffic group, cycle technologists. this is the 1930s where -- there isn't a period where science generally is on the ascending, the expectation that science can solve problems. let's look at how it plays out. i will talk about fixing the driver, fixing the road and, fixing the car. mostly fixing the car out of the picture. for those of you that are familiar with it, ralph nature wasn't just a

presidential campaign, hero unsafe at any speed. we had seatbelts, airbags, all of the things that we now live with in this automotive cocoon that we drive. in fact, in the 1930s, following publication and sudden death it was called the auto industry did get involved in the rhetoric of driver safety. they began to advertised vehicles with the safety components. we have better breaks. we have a turtle top. a roof so it won't crush. so, you know, the auto companies, the american attack companies were terrible. lead gas, safety glass, seatbelts, airbags, every turn. we can talk about that if we want. it

was in the 1930s research into crash is viable. some of the richer's research made its way he turned it over to something called the automotive the safety industry. it is different than the 1960s solution. what will we do to fix this? this is 1903 on the right. this is the first set of traffic rules set up in new york city. there is a little guy named william phelps he recalled in 1867 getty called in the blockade. this was horses and wagons. he was a wealthy guy. another person from a rich family. never drove. it was before automobiles. he did not like the chaos on the streets. he's on his blockade. he was a child at the time. there are only 12 wagons here, this is nuts. we must be able to do something. as he got older, in 1903 he

convinced the police department, to institute a set of rules. there it is. posted on a placard. things that we take for granted. state to the right. turning left, the other car has the right of way, those kind of things. that spreads various state and local come together, critical in the 1920s. they begin to create a uniform code. one of the problems is, you could drive to mississippi from alabama and the rules changed. and on the left is the traffic light. this is fascinating. you come to an intersection, there is a traffic light. you have to stop. running a red light is one of the most dangerous things to happen. red light cameras stop that. but a rotary, which you may see coming, up not talking about the circle, and talk about modern traffic

rotary. has anyone been on a new rotary? have you noticed these showing up? there will be more and more of them. they are safer. even if you bump into someone, you won't do what you call a tea bomb. you will be safer.