The Automobile Reshapes America

What happened

As cars became affordable and common in the early 20th century, the automobile remade American life. It carried people out of crowded cities into new suburbs, filled the country with paved highways — among them the legendary Route 66, the 'People's Highway' from Chicago to Los Angeles — and turned driving into a defining part of American culture and landscape.

Why it matters

The car reshaped where and how Americans lived, worked, and travelled, helping transform a largely rural 19th-century nation into a mobile, suburban, highway-bound society.

Sources

• Smithsonian National Museum of American History. America on the Move · Reputable source