| This study focuses on the interrelation of the automobile and specific organizations to understand the shaping of the modern urban environment in St. Louis during the 1920s. Automobile advocacy groups, the police department, and city planners shared in the common beliefs of progress, economic growth and professionalization, all of which shaped their interactions with the automobile. In confronting the problems of traffic congestion, poor roads and motor vehicle accidents, these groups succeeded in shaping an urban environment that catered to the automobile and motorists in general. Automobile advocates succeeded in merging the idea of progress with the automobile while using their organizational power to secure the creation of an auto-friendly environment. The police department used its power over traffic control as a vehicle to both professionalize the department and to rationalize the urban street system. Planners worked with city government to create the basis for shaping the city to meet the needs of the automobile. This new order created by these groups order was an outgrowth and facilitator for the growing consumer culture as well as representing the belief in the necessity to rationalize urban economic and spatial growth for the common good. This study adds to the scholarship on the consumer culture of the 1920s, and also adds to scholarship on urban political power and technological history. |
