Whatever else they may have sacrificed, Mississippians did Implies that auto-related spending held steady throughout theĭepression. Ten years later, the figure had increased The situation in Mississippi was even more striking inġ929, fifteen percent of Mississippians' retail spending went
Vehicle registration dropped by only ten percent in that same period.Ĭlearly, Americans were going to considerable length to keep their cars Production declined seventy-five percent between 19, motor The massive financial upheaval, the Depression did little to cool theĪmerican family's reliance on the motor car. Latter's survival at least partly due to the automobile. The industry survived, as would the American family, the Increasingly tight-knit organizations as the transformation of theĮnterprise from a cottage industry to a global corporate structure wasĬompleted. United Auto Workers, after a ferocious struggle, finally succeeded in Went under during the Depression, leaving General Motors, Ford,Ĭhrysler, and the American Motors Corporation as the major players. Period was one of corporate consolidation as dozens of smaller companies The 1930s, the industry nonetheless transformed itself in many ways. While this growth came to an abrupt halt during World's motor vehicles, and the auto industry was the largest in By 1927, the US was home to eighty percent of the Perceived gap between modernity and the agrarian family.Ĭar culture in the 1930s was, of course, well established even in The car, I argue, offers a way of bridging the Sympathetic, listening reader, the truth seems to lie somewhere in the "whether the clan at the reunion is being celebrated for itsįamily-centered agrarian solidarity or satirized for its refusal toĮnter the modern world," Jane Hinton concludes that to "the The book falls in terms of the perceived divide between the machine and That the novel achieves a similar delicate balance isĮvident from the range of opinions expressed by Welty scholars on where Long employed by the auto manufacturers: marketing the car in terms ofįamily values and advertising it as a means of cementing family ties andĬreating community-at the same time that public sentiment continued toĮxpress reservations regarding the impact of the car on those Situated in a historical moment of tremendous pressure on both theįamily and the automobile industry, Losing Battles documents theĬar's position as an ally rather than an opponent in the relentless Amid all the competing and conflicting stories in Losingīattles is the story of the automobile and its hold on the family and Lingered even after the automobile was well established as a standard ofĪmerican life. Welty astutely captures these concerns, concerns that
Had rarely enjoyed and one that facilitated a possible exodus from homeĪnd family. It gave rural women mobility, a kind of power they Young, to escape the family home, to skip church for Sunday drives, to But cars also allowed people, especially the The Beecham family reunion is enabled by the automobile most of Certainly the auto companies touted theĬar's use in allowing extended families to stay in touch, to visitĮasily. Novel, Losing Battles, set in Mississippi in the 1930s, reflects theĭebates, inconsistencies, and directions of the American automobile Possibilities for women's place and agency. The car reconfigured family values and began to open up new Promising by writers such as Eudora Welty, who explores the ways that This progress was viewed withĪlarm by the Southern Agrarians but recognized as both inevitable and This scrutiny so pronounced as in the South, one of the last regions toīe conquered by automobility. Increasing dependence on automobility, exploring the potentials andĭangers of a country determined to keep its cars moving. That America's love affair with the car has gone unscrutinized.Īcross the century, the greatest American novelists took aim at the Off the farm, and everyone to get off their feet. It enabled women to get out of the house, children to get Single object taken hold so quickly and re-cast American life soĬompletely. THAT THE CAR PERMEATES AMERICAN CULTURE IS OBVIOUS.
MLA style: "Eudora Welty's Losing Battles: cars and family values." The Free Library.