Automobile & Society

The dawn of a new age

Everything began with the invention of the wheel, an achievement that is shrouded in the darkness of history. The first known illustration of a vehicle with wheels is dated to the year 3000 BC. The invention of the wheel ushered in the development of mobility. Ever more refined mechanical systems and ever more ingenious features for carts and carriages made transportation and travel easier. The inventions of Karl Benz, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach finally ushered in the automotive age.

One idea — how many parents?

The year 1886 marks the beginning of a new age of travel. With the motorization of road transport, society gained a new dimension in mobility. The earliest car drivers referred to themselves as automobilists - the term 'automobilism' embracing anything to do with the new mode of transport. From contemporary accounts, the word conjured up many positive associations — foreign travel, motor sport and a fascination with motor technology — as well as a few negative ones, such as road accidents, noise and clouds of dust and fumes.

Since its inception, the motorized vehicle has polarized public opinion. Owners could barely contain their enthusiasm for the motor car. It was seen as the means of transport for the future, the quintessence of progress, freedom and independence.

In 1903, the author Otto Julius Bierbaum was one of the first to undertake a journey by car to Italy. In the foreword to his account of the trip he sets the disadvantages of the railway against the advantages of the motorcar: We shall never run the risk of being confined in a coupé with insufferable people. [..] We shall be able to decide for ourselves whether we travel at speed or at leisure, where we shall stop and where we shall drive on without breaking our journey. We shall drive for days on end with fresh air in our faces. We shall not have to pass through those dark and fearsome caves to get from one side of the mountains to the other, rather we shall take the routes over the mountain tops.

The majority of motorists organized themselves into one of the many automobile clubs which sprang up around the turn of the century to serve the interests of members and to ensure better traffic conditions. The majority of the non-motorized public, on the other hand, protested at the increasing pollution from dust and noise, the risk of accident and the inconsiderate behavior of drivers, and would gladly have seen the car banned from roads altogether. One of the most pressing issues in the early years of motorized traffic was the dust which cars threw up in their wake. It was particularly problematic for those living in the countryside. Before long, antipathy towards the city-dwelling 'Lords of the road' erupted into loud protests against the motorists.

From the beginning, accusations of improper road use came from all sides and were commonplace.

The fright and the resulting mindless behavior of pedestrians often lead to confrontation. Most people, on hearing the warning signal, are incapable of curbing their instinct. Instead of standing still, they immediately start to run [...] It is curious, however, that people always attempt to ascribe the blame for the fright or the accident they suffer to someone else, and to heap abuse upon the motorist who just happened to be there at the time; they would do better to point the finger at themselves and to admit that they had been foolish in attempting to cross the road without first looking around.

But the rest of the population often objected to the manner in which motorists expected others to take due care and attention. How is it that the automobile has been allowed to claim for itself the freedom of the roads, and that it is now regarded as some kind of 'Lord of the highways' at whose bidding everyone else must simply scuttle out of the way like loyal and obedient subjects? (Heinrich Prinz zu Schönaich-Carolath, Debate in the Reichstag, 1906)

Public antipathy towards the automobile occasionally reached such extremes that motorists were physically attacked.

Two incidents gained notoriety: in the first, stones were thrown at the car of the Grand Duke of Hesse during a drive through Friedberg, although causing injury to no one; and the second was the so-called "Henningsdorf automobile murder". The stone-throwing incident prompted the motoring journal 'Automobil-Welt' to write that in Friedberg "a cobblestone, thrown from a great height, landed without warning in the center of the car". In this instance there was no question of it having been "an assassination attempt on the Grand Duke and Duchess", rather that the stone-thrower "had simply wanted to attack automobiles and had not considered that his sovereign prince may be sitting in the car." The victims of the Henningsdorf murder were the members of a jeweler's family from Berlin returning home after a Sunday excursion. The assassins had tied a thick wire cable across a bend on a well-used stretch of road, which caught the car traveling at 40 km/h. Herr and Frau Plunz died from their injuries, one daughter survived unscathed and the other was left seriously injured. The perpetrators of the murders were never found.

Although the majority of the population was opposed to the automobile, and in spite of the many restrictions imposed on motorized transport in the early days, there was now no stopping the expansion of the motor car — and, to a significant degree, the automobile clubs were responsible for this development. By organizing races and exhibitions the clubs saw a golden opportunity to advertise the new mode of transport. With the support of the press, such events could attract large crowds who could then be won over by the merits of the automobile.

It was above all the velocity of the motor car which fascinated the drivers — which perhaps explains how the top speed of these vehicles rose from 25 km/h to 180 km/h. within the space of a decade. On the one hand, the automobile provided a thrilling leisure activity, and on the other, it was seen as a practical and prestigious mode of transport. In short, it was the ideal way of getting about.

Such enthusiasm for the automobile in the first decade of the twentieth century shows that, even in this early phase, the foundations were being laid for the automotive society which was to characterize the rest of the twentieth century.