University of Chicago Press Machines of Youth – America′s Car Obsession

For American teenagers, getting a driver’s license has long been a watershed moment, separating teens from their childish pasts as they accelerate toward the sweet, sweet freedom of their futures. With driver’s license in hand, teens are on the road to buying and driving(and maybe even crashing) their first car, a machine which is home to many a teenage ritual―being picked up for a first date, “parking” at a scenic overlook, or blasting the radio with a gaggle of friends in tow. So important is this car ride into adulthood that automobile culture has become a stand-in, a shortcut to what millions of Americans remember about their coming of age. Machines of Youth traces the rise, and more recently the fall, of car culture among American teens. In this book, Gary S. Cross details how an automobile obsession drove teen peer culture from the 1920s to the 1980s, seducing budding adults with privacy, freedom, mobility, and spontaneity. Cross shows how the automobile redefined relationships between parents and teenage children, becoming a rite of passage, producing new courtship rituals, and fueling the growth of numerous car subcultures. Yet for teenagers today the lure of the automobile as a transition to adulthood is in decline.Tinkerers are now sidelined by the advent of digital engine technology and premolded body construction, while the attention of teenagers has been captured by iPhones, video games, and other digital technology. And adults have become less tolerant of teens on the road, restricting both cruising and access to drivers’ licenses. Cars are certainly not going out of style, Cross acknowledges, but how upcoming generations use them may be changing. He finds that while vibrant enthusiasm for them lives on, cars may no longer be at the center of how American youth define themselves. But, for generations of Americans, the modern teen experience was inextricably linked to this particularly American icon. Review "In this welcome addition to the literature, Gary S. Cross delves into a subject often referenced but rarely explored directly: teen car culture. Specifically, Machines of Youth examines how modern American youth culture evolved hand-in-hand with mass car culture, with important implications for both. Tracing a rise-and-fall arc, Cross dates the emergence of teen car culture to the 1930s, places its peak in the 1950s-1960s, and follows its relative decline in the 1970s-1980s before concluding with a discussion of its legacy in the 1990s and beyond."--David Lucsko "Technology and Culture" "A valuable book in terms of its original research and the growth of car customizing and hot-rodding. . .Among the most informative and enjoyable parts of this book are the very large number of reminiscences Cross has gathered from veteran car enthusiasts, generally identified by their home town and date of birth. He is particularly good at evoking the early days of the prewar era, when secondhand virtual wrecks could be picked up for a few dollars and customized into something that would leave most other road users trailing in the dirt."-- "The Spectator" "The 1930s through the 1980s represented a "golden age of American teen car culture". . . Machines of Youth recreates this fascinating but largely neglected slice of social history."-- "Times Higher Education" "Machines of Youth succinctly traces the accelerated-how could it be anything else?-evolution of rodding into the second part of the twentieth century, where it fragments into progressive and preservationist camps, births interesting subcultural offshoots such as the Latino low-riders and eventually settles into senescence as an expensive niche hobby for nostalgic middle-agers."-- "Times Literary Supplement" "Machines of Youth traces the rise and fall of the car culture among American teens from its origins in the 1920s and 30s to its decline and virtual disappearance. This very readable book rests on wide-ranging scholarship, including