Medicalizing the Automobile: Public Health, Safety, and American Culture, 1920--1967 (2006)
Gangloff, Amy Beth (Author)
State University of New York at Stony Brook
Tomes, Nancy
Edition Details: Advisor: Tomes, Nancy
Physical Details: 390 pp.
Language: English
My project explores how Americans responded to the risks of the automobile in twentieth century life, specifically how attempts to medicalize the dangers conflicted and competed with the meanings attached to the car. While work has been done on the shift from blaming the driver for automobile accidents to an emphasis on designing more "crashworthy" automobiles, few studies have examined how changing models of public health provided the rationale for such a shift. It is my contention that changes in medical thinking and the emergence of the new field of risk factor epidemiology provided a useful model for a younger group of traffic safety experts to challenge the automobile industry's control over automobile design. In doing so, they challenged traditional understandings of automobile accidents and the authority of the country's largest industry. In my study, I position these challenges within their wider cultural and social contexts in order to highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of the new approach to automobile risks. The first chapter offers an overview of the development of American automobility and early responses to automobile accidents in the 1920s and 1930s. The second chapter explores early attempts to engineer safety through traffic control, law enforcement and behavior modification. The third chapter focuses on the work of Hugh De Haven, an engineer who credited as the Father of Crashworthiness, in the 1940s and 1950s. De Haven argued that the first collision between the automobile and another structure was too difficult to manage, containing too many variables to control. Instead, he believed safety efforts should be focused on preventing injuries and fatalities that resulted from the second collision, when the passengers struck the interior of the automobile. This new paradigm provided politicians and social critics such as Ralph Nader with a powerful tool to challenge the automobile industry's autonomy. Chapters four and five examine congressional efforts to regulate automobile safety in a context where differing scientific perspectives provided uncertain guidance.
...MoreDescription “Explores how Americans responded to the risks of the automobile in twentieth century life, specifically how attempts to medicalize the dangers conflicted and competed with the meanings attached to the car.” (from the abstract) Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 68/04 (2007). Pub. no. AAT 3258930.
Similar Citations
Book
Packer, Jeremy;
(2008)
Mobility without Mayhem: Safety, Cars, and Citizenship
(/isis/citation/CBB000951011/)
Article
George Martin;
(2019)
A Sustainability Interrogation of the Autonomous Vehicle at Its Society-Technology Interface
(/isis/citation/CBB041327262/)
Book
Jones, David W.;
(2008)
Mass Motorization + Mass Transit: An American History and Policy Analysis
(/isis/citation/CBB000951998/)
Essay Review
Thompson, Gregory;
(2009)
Conspiracy or Consumer Choice?
(/isis/citation/CBB001566983/)
Book
Clarke, Adele E.;
Mamo, Laura;
Fosket, Jennifer Ruth;
(2010)
Biomedicalization: Technoscience, Health, and Illness in the U.S.
(/isis/citation/CBB001023175/)
Book
Leonardi, Paul M.;
(2012)
Car Crashes without Cars: Lessons about Simulation Technology and Organizational Change from Automotive Design
(/isis/citation/CBB001451384/)
Article
Daniel J. Hicks;
(March 2018)
The Safety of Autonomous Vehicles: Lessons from Philosophy of Science
(/isis/citation/CBB781323903/)
Article
Zylstra, Geoff D.;
(2011)
Whiteness, Freedom, and Technology: The Racial Struggle over Philadelphia's Streetcars, 1859--1867
(/isis/citation/CBB001230757/)
Book
Thompson, Steven L.;
(2008)
Bodies in Motion: Evolution and Experience in Motorcycling
(/isis/citation/CBB000953863/)
Chapter
Lundin, Per;
(2008)
Mediators of Modernity: Planning Experts and the Making of the “Car-Friendly” City in Europe
(/isis/citation/CBB000820102/)
Book
Lee, Robert;
(2010)
Transport: An Australian History
(/isis/citation/CBB001033761/)
Article
Gunn, Simon;
(2011)
The Buchanan Report, Environment and the Problem of Traffic in 1960s Britain
(/isis/citation/CBB001230920/)
Book
Katherine J. Parkin;
(2017)
Women at the Wheel: A Century of Buying, Driving, and Fixing Cars
(/isis/citation/CBB324810072/)
Article
Pei-San, Shih;
(2013)
Watch Out for Cars: The Car Accident Discourse of Shenbao in Shanghai, 1921--1937
(/isis/citation/CBB001213702/)
Article
House, K.W.;
(Fall 2008)
Mr. Curtiss's Fabulous Aerocar
(/isis/citation/CBB377429944/)
Book
Isabel M. Córdova;
(2017)
Pushing in Silence: Modernizing Puerto Rico and the Medicalization of Childbirth
(/isis/citation/CBB871642225/)
Article
Lee Vinsel;
(2018)
“Safe Driving Depends on the Man at the Wheel”: Psychologists and the Subject of Auto Safety, 1920–55
(/isis/citation/CBB018375006/)
Article
Lavine, Matthew;
(2012)
The Early Clinical X-Ray in the United States: Patient Experiences and Public Perceptions
(/isis/citation/CBB001252189/)
Thesis
Harmon, David Leroy;
(2001)
American camp culture: A history of recreational vehicle development and leisure camping in the United States, 1890-1960
(/isis/citation/CBB001562608/)
Essay Review
Seiler, Cotten;
(2010)
Author Response: The Ends of Automobility
(/isis/citation/CBB001567127/)
Be the first to comment!