A Reliable Car And A Woman Who Knows It

The audacity of driving a horseless carriage from coast to coast in the early years of the 20th century is hard to imagine in an age of superhighways and global positioning systems. Roads might be nothing more than muddy ruts made by wagon wheels; sources of gasoline or replacement parts were few and agonizingly far between; frequent repairs and tire changes were necessary; and the traveler was subject to the whole range of nature's perils and discomforts. For a woman to attempt the trip was, at the time, a jaw-dropping event. Yet in 1909, 22-year-old Alice Ramsey and three female companions piled into a Maxwell in New York City, and 59 days later they triumphantly rolled into San Francisco. A few years later silent film star Anita King would become the first woman to make the transcontinental drive solo. These and other early coast-to-coast drives proved women's growing independence, as well as the automobile's long-distance viability. Detailed accounts of five coast-to-coast drives make up this lively history. Drawing from plentiful contemporary newspaper reports and the women's own words, author Curt McConnell recounts the bold adventurers' experiences day by day and mile by mile.

Our continued use of the combustion engine car in the 21st century, despite many rational arguments against it, makes it more and more difficult to imagine that transport has a sustainable future. Offering a sweeping transatlantic perspective, this book explains the current obsession with automobiles by delving deep into the motives of early car users. It provides a synthesis of our knowledge about the emergence and persistence of the car, using a broad range of material including novels, poems, films, and songs to unearth the desires that shaped our present “car society.” Combining social, psychological, and structural explanations, the author concludes that the ability of cars to convey transcendental experience, especially for men, explains our attachment to the vehicle.

Over the years, cars have helped to define the experiences and self-perceptions of women in complex and sometimes unexpected ways. When women take the wheel, family structure and public space are reconfigured and re-gendered, creating a context for a literary tradition in which the car has served as a substitute for, an escape from, and an extension of the home, as well as a surrogate mother, a financial safeguard, and a means of self-expression. Driving Women examines the intersection of American fiction—primarily but not exclusively by women—and automobile culture. Deborah Clarke argues that issues critical to twentieth-century American society—technology, mobility, domesticity, and agency—are repeatedly articulated through women's relationships with cars. Women writers took surprisingly intense interest in car culture and its import for modern life, as the car, replete with material and symbolic meaning, recast literal and literary female power in the automotive age. Clarke draws on a wide range of literary works, both canonical and popular, to document women's fascination with cars from many perspectives: historical, psychological, economic, ethnic. Authors discussed include Wharton, Stein, Faulkner, O’Connor, Morrison, Erdrich, Mason, Kingsolver, Lopez, Kadohata, Smiley, Senna, Viramontes, Allison, and Silko. By investigating how cars can function as female space, reflect female identity, and reshape female agency, this engaging study opens up new angles from which to approach fiction by and about women and traces new directions in the intersection of literature, technology, and gender.

"I remember everything about the day I bought my first car. The pride, the awe at the financial responsibility, the way I stroked the paintwork...I loved that car with an intensity that still persists, years later. And even after all the fancy cars I've driven since then, if you gave me half a chance -- if they still made that car -- I'd buy it again." Lesley Hazleton remembers that day so clearly because while men take for granted the independence that cars bring, women do not. For women, a car means freedom. It means control over their own lives. It means, really, far more to women than it does for most men. Yet for years, automakers didn't consider women when they designed cars. As far as they were concerned, women were in the bleachers and men were in the grandstands. Not anymore. Lesley Hazleton talked to 150 women all over America to find out what they really thought about cars. What she discovered will make you laugh and it will make you think. This book is as much about the romance of owning a car (and romance inside a car) as it is about antilock brakes and air bags. More than a car manual (though it's filled with how-to advice on taking care of your car), it will enable you to negotiate for the best deal, teach you how to test-drive, help you decide whether to buy or lease, explain safety features and security issues, and guide you to know your car as much as you love it. With lively anecdotes, charts, and illustrations, Everything Women Always Wanted to Know About Cars, But Didn't Know Who to Ask is revealing, insightful, and extremely informative.