A S S E S S I N G    T H E    2 0 T H     C E N T U R Y

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1920-30: The Automobile Age Begins
The third decade of the 20th century was a period of dramatic change. The automobile age began, and the nation would never be the same again.

During this period, the automobiles started to flow from the factories by the thousands, and drivers began to look for ways to travel not just within cities, but from one city to another. But there was a problem. There were no highways.

At the beginning of this decade, the highway system consisted of a mix of old Indian trails, the post routes by which the colonies had communicated with one another, and stage routes in the West. These crude trails were more or less satisfactory for the horse and buggy but were very unsatisfactory for the automobile.

Motorists who left the city carried as standard equipment an axe, a shovel and a chain. They used the axe if they found a tree lying across the road. If it was wet and muddy and they got stuck, they used the shovel to try to dig out. When that failed, they walked to the nearest farmhouse and made a deal with the farmer to bring a horse or two out to pull them out -- using the chain.

To remedy this situation, the nation began an ambitious highway construction program. A pioneering project was famed Route 66 extending 2,500 miles (4,000 km.) from Chicago to Los Angeles. Launched in 1926, it was completed about 10 years later, providing two lanes of pavement. At about the same time New York drivers benefited from the completion of the Holland tunnel between Manhattan Island and New Jersey.

The decade also brought advances in air transport. The first airmail between New York and California was delivered in only four days.

In 1927 Lindbergh flew the Atlantic. It is very difficult for those born later to understand that this was one of the most dramatic events in the whole century. The American people and the European people were just absolutely charmed with the realization that in only 33 hours one could travel from the United States to Europe.

I can remember my family clustered around a crystal radio set, listening for news of Lindbergh's flight. Most of the time we were thoroughly frustrated that all we could hear was static. We were in Alabama, and the radio station was in Pittsburgh. A survey made early in the decade estimated that throughout the USA there were some 5,000 radios in service.

A postage stamp cost two cents.

Two other events of that decade would have great impact later: The first talking picture was shown, and oil was discovered in the great Permian Basin centered around Midland, Texas. Today we continue to enjoy the benefits of both discoveries.

Overall, it was an exciting and productive decade. Unhappily, it ended on a sour note with the stock market crash of 1929.