Prices at the Dawn of the Gasoline Age, Dusk of the Equine

[Pat Holscher]

Somewhat off topic here, but I'm incapable of resisting it.

This is a photograph of locally legendary photographer, Stimson, who photographed Wyoming in this transitional state. He was an excellent photographer, and many fine photos of the state, including its people, and the sort of thing we've been discussing here, were taken by him.

This is a self portrait he took in his car:

http://wyoarchives.state.wy.us/images/S ... thpipe.jpg

Pretty neat image.

Note the boots. This photgraph was taken well before WWI, but the footgear recalls the M1943 boot of WWII (or for that matter, a similiar Canadian pattern that is nicknamed "Invasion boots", or something like that). This shows that type of boot was around for a long time. The same design shows up in some late Russel paintings, and in early Remington firearms advertisement paintings.

[selewis]

Somewhat off topic here, but I'm incapable of resisting it.

This is a photograph of locally legendary photographer, Stimson, who photographed Wyoming in this transitional state. He was an excellent photographer, and many fine photos of the state, including its people, and the sort of thing we've been discussing here, were taken by him.

This is a self portrait he took in his car:

http://wyoarchives.state.wy.us/images/S ... thpipe.jpg

Pretty neat image.

Note the boots. This photgraph was taken well before WWI, but the footgear recalls the M1943 boot of WWII (or for that matter, a similiar Canadian pattern that is nicknamed "Invasion boots", or something like that). This shows that type of boot was around for a long time. The same design shows up in some late Russel paintings, and in early Remington firearms advertisement paintings.

Thanks Pat. That IS a neat photo. Great portrait. Lots of detail. One doesn't much see desert bags slung on vehicles anymore, though I did run across some new ones in a supply store not too many years ago. I bought one for my jeep but it wandered away. Can anyone provide some explanation about the HORSEless carriage (had to work a bit to get that word in) and its workings? Is that a shifter? spark advance? throttle lever? on the steering column? In a vehicle of this vintage its easy to see the direct heritage from carriage technology.

[JV Puleo]

These are just guesses but I'd say its an 08, 09 or 10 Model T Ford. The three pedals mean it has a planetery transmission. All of the shifting was done with feet. The standing lever is the handbrake and the lever on the steering column is the spark advance. The real giveaway is that its early to have the steering on the left. The Model T had it thus in 1908, REO just about the same time but before 1912 most American cars had their steering on the right as the British do now. Some big cars like Pierce-Arrow and the American Rolls-Royce didn't get left-hand drive until the 20s.

Or... it could be any number of other cars likes such as Cadillac, as early as 1906. I'm going back and look for more clues.

Joe P

[edit] I've gone back and played with the picture. I think its printed backwards and its a right-hand drive car. There's nothing unusual about that but it probably isn't a Ford either. A medium size, about 30HP, car with a planetary transmission. There were literally dozens of makes and it would take a greater expert than I am to figure out exactly which it is.

[selewis]

These are just guesses but I'd say its an 08, 09 or 10 Model T Ford. The three pedals mean it has a planetery transmission. All of the shifting was done with feet. The standing lever is the handbrake and the lever on the steering column is the spark advance. The real giveaway is that its early to have the steering on the left. The Model T had it thus in 1908, REO just about the same time but before 1912 most American cars had their steering on the right as the British do now. Some big cars like Pierce-Arrow and the American Rolls-Royce didn't get left-hand drive until the 20s.

Or... it could be any number of other cars likes such as Cadillac, as early as 1906. I'm going back and look for more clues.

Joe P

[edit] I've gone back and played with the picture. I think its printed backwards and its a right-hand drive car. There's nothing unusual about that but it probably isn't a Ford either. A medium size, about 30HP, car with a planetary transmission. There were literally dozens of makes and it would take a greater expert than I am to figure out exactly which it is.

Thanks Joe. I figured if anybody here could glean some clues from the photo it would be you. Shifting with foot pedal- I'd never even heard of that. Not conclusive to the contrary, but if the photo is indeed flipped it would mean that he is wearing what appears to be a wedding band on his right hand. Of course it may not be a wedding ring and the custom of wearing it on the left is not universal.

Sandy

PS By the way, speaking of old things, did anyone happen to catch William Wellman's 'Wings' on one of the Turner channels last week. I saw it about 30 years ago in an art house theatre (big screen, great!) and tuned in to see if it was as good as I remember it as being. It was. I was just as impressed at the flying and photography as the first time, maybe more so because I paid more attention to the making of the movie this time through. Lots of great old vehicles and airplanes-and quite a few less by the time they finished all the stunts, many of which appeared like the only way they could have been done was by getting some guy to purposely crash in front of the camera.

[Pat Holscher]

Here's another Stimson self portrait.

http://wyoarchives.state.wy.us/images/S ... tsCamp.JPG

The tent is a Sheepherders teepee. These fell out of disfavor as sheepwagons came in, but some old time sheepherders never adjusted to them and continued to tent in these. At least as recently as 20 years ago or so, a local manufacturer, which also made sheepwagon covers, still made these. I spent a few nights sleeping in one elk hunting several years back.

An automotive subject:

http://wyoarchives.state.wy.us/images/N ... isRace.JPG

Wheatland Wyoming in this transitional age:

http://wyoarchives.state.wy.us/images/S ... andWyo.JPG

[Couvi]

Joe,

These are just guesses but I'd say its an 08, 09 or 10 Model T Ford. The three pedals mean it has a planetery transmission. All of the shifting was done with feet. The standing lever is the handbrake and the lever on the steering column is the spark advance. The real giveaway is that its early to have the steering on the left. The Model T had it thus in 1908, REO just about the same time but before 1912 most American cars had their steering on the right as the British do now. Some big cars like Pierce-Arrow and the American Rolls-Royce didn't get left-hand drive until the 20s.

Or... it could be any number of other cars likes such as Cadillac, as early as 1906. I'm going back and look for more clues.

Joe P

[edit] I've gone back and played with the picture. I think its printed backwards and its a right-hand drive car. There's nothing unusual about that but it probably isn't a Ford either. A medium size, about 30HP, car with a planetary transmission. There were literally dozens of makes and it would take a greater expert than I am to figure out exactly which it is.

Why do we drive on the left side of the vehicle, but the Brits, and a few Colonials, drive on the right? Horse or mule drawn vehicles are driven on the right, it would make sense to continue that process with automobiles.

[selewis]

Joe,

These are just guesses but I'd say its an 08, 09 or 10 Model T Ford. The three pedals mean it has a planetery transmission. All of the shifting was done with feet. The standing lever is the handbrake and the lever on the steering column is the spark advance. The real giveaway is that its early to have the steering on the left. The Model T had it thus in 1908, REO just about the same time but before 1912 most American cars had their steering on the right as the British do now. Some big cars like Pierce-Arrow and the American Rolls-Royce didn't get left-hand drive until the 20s.

Or... it could be any number of other cars likes such as Cadillac, as early as 1906. I'm going back and look for more clues.

Joe P

[edit] I've gone back and played with the picture. I think its printed backwards and its a right-hand drive car. There's nothing unusual about that but it probably isn't a Ford either. A medium size, about 30HP, car with a planetary transmission. There were literally dozens of makes and it would take a greater expert than I am to figure out exactly which it is.

Why do we drive on the left side of the vehicle, but the Brits, and a few Colonials, drive on the right? Horse or mule drawn vehicles are driven on the right, it would make sense to continue that process with automobiles.

Good question, that tickled my curiosity. Interesting stuff here going all the way back to the 1790's and The Committee for Public Safety:

http://users.pandora.be/worldstandards/ ... tm#history

[Trooper]

This right hand driving stuff is just a fad and will pass, after all who wants to get their sword scabbards tangled ...

[Couvi]

Joe,

These are just guesses but I'd say its an 08, 09 or 10 Model T Ford. The three pedals mean it has a planetery transmission. All of the shifting was done with feet. The standing lever is the handbrake and the lever on the steering column is the spark advance. The real giveaway is that its early to have the steering on the left. The Model T had it thus in 1908, REO just about the same time but before 1912 most American cars had their steering on the right as the British do now. Some big cars like Pierce-Arrow and the American Rolls-Royce didn't get left-hand drive until the 20s.

Or... it could be any number of other cars likes such as Cadillac, as early as 1906. I'm going back and look for more clues.

Joe P

[edit] I've gone back and played with the picture. I think its printed backwards and its a right-hand drive car. There's nothing unusual about that but it probably isn't a Ford either. A medium size, about 30HP, car with a planetary transmission. There were literally dozens of makes and it would take a greater expert than I am to figure out exactly which it is.

Why do we drive on the left side of the vehicle, but the Brits, and a few Colonials, drive on the right? Horse or mule drawn vehicles are driven on the right, it would make sense to continue that process with automobiles.

Good question, that tickled my curiosity. Interesting stuff here going all the way back to the 1790's and The Committee for Public Safety:

http://users.pandora.be/worldstandards/ ... tm#history

I had heard that wagon drivers drove from the right side of the seat so that when approaching another wagon they could reach out and shake hands with the other driver.

[JV Puleo]

Without going into how it came to be that way, by the time automobiles came about, American driving was on the right. However, most drivers drove in the middle of the road and only moved to the right when passing another vehicle. Most roads had a crown. I don't know how it would work with a horse-drawn vehicle but its quite difficult to keep an automobile going in a straight line on a crowned road unless you're in the middle. If you're going to pass on the right-hand side, its much easier to gauge your distance from the oncoming vehicle if you are close to it...so having the driver on the left of the vehicle makes sense. Until there were enough automobiles on the road for there to be a "traffic" problem this issue apparently never even came up. Driving a British-style right-drive car in America takes more getting used to than driving one in Britain does although it was done for a long time. With some practice it isn't difficult.

Joe P

[selewis]

Without going into how it came to be that way, by the time automobiles came about, American driving was on the right. However, most drivers drove in the middle of the road and only moved to the right when passing another vehicle. Most roads had a crown. I don't know how it would work with a horse-drawn vehicle but its quite difficult to keep an automobile going in a straight line on a crowned road unless you're in the middle. If you're going to pass on the right-hand side, its much easier to gauge your distance from the oncoming vehicle if you are close to it...so having the driver on the left of the vehicle makes sense. Until there were enough automobiles on the road for there to be a "traffic" problem this issue apparently never even came up. Driving a British-style right-drive car in America takes more getting used to than driving one in Britain does although it was done for a long time. With some practice it isn't difficult.

Joe P

I had a right hand International mail van for a time- not the little style you see on routes today but a larger model- and it does take some getting used to. It is particularly troublesome when trying to pass because you can't peek around the vehicle in front of you. It's can also be disconcerting for the passenger who's sort of stuck out there closest to oncoming traffic with no control over his fate. I frequently got comments to the effect: ' Must you hug the middle of the road so?!'

Sandy

[Pat Holscher]

Somewhat related to this topic, and something I've sort of touched on before here, shows up in the most recent issue of the political journal The New Republic.

TNR actually has two articles sort of touching on this, but the one that recalled this thread is an article by some fellow who is foreseeing an urban area renaissance. That is, he's reporting on the inner city being revivied by people moving back into them for one reason or another, gas prices included.

Anyhow, something interesting he mentioned, and we've sort of touched on here in another fashion, in the density of 19th Century urban areas. That is, they were more dense in population. They had to be. Automobiles changed that.

The author isn't predicting a return to 19th Century population densities in cities, but he mentioned it. He also mentioned that the urban core of cities, in the 19th Century, was nasty due to in part urban pollution, and other conditions, such as horse flop.

We've touched on that too, but it's worth mentioning. The old cities were, well, smelly.

[Pat Holscher]

Sort of an interesting illustration of things late in this era.

[Pat Holscher]

Interesting examples of where the horse still prevailed, just prior to WWI:





Firemen, 1912 and 1911.

[Pat Holscher]

Concerning the rise of automobiles in American life, when did the average American family first actually own a vehicle?

[Pat Holscher]

Now also bumped up due to the Horses Between the Wars thread bump up.

[JV Puleo]

I suppose it depends on what we think of as average which makes it a very hard question to answer. Certainly the rural and urban poor of 1920 had a much lower standard of living than virtually any "poor" people in America today and they wouldn't have had automobiles. There were also many more of them. Probably most of what we would think of as the "middle class" did have cars by 1920 although in purchasing power they would be closer to the "upper middle class" today. The well-to-do who wanted to own automobiles probably all had them by 1910 but in most cases the cars they bought implied the need of servants to operate them. At that level car ownership was purely a matter of desire rather than need or aspiration.

An example: One of my grandfathers never owned a car. He was a successful small businessman, owning considerable property in the Providence area. But, it was an urban environment and the street car and train ran everywhere he wanted to go. He died in 1936.
My other grandfather was a postman. He owned his own home, which was unusual, but had very little extra money. He finally bought a used Chevrolet around 1930 and owned only one other car, another used Chevy. It was put up on blocks in the back yard when the war began and eventually one of my uncles drove it the Carolinas where he was stationed. It was left behind when my uncle went overseas. My grandfather died in 1941 and those were the only two cars he owned. Both men would have fallen into the "average" category today but both lived in urban environments and grew up before the widespread ownership of automobiles so their habits were formed long before they could aspire to owning one.
I also had relatives that did own cars but in every case it was because they wanted them, not because anyone felt they needed them. In a reasonably urban setting I suspect that automobile ownership was discretionary well into the 30s and maybe until WWII.

Someone else would have to answer for more rural settings but in those, of course, animal transport was often still available so I wonder if the move to the automobile was much faster.

[Trooper]

From the Leather Worker's Journal January 1917
""Back to the Horse and Carriage."

The following straw, showing how the wind is blowing, was taken from the Baltimore Sun:
"If the reports of horse dealers are correct, there has been such a return to horses and carriages that the sale of automobiles may have materially decreased.
Many persons unable to purchase or maintain their cars on account of the high price of gasoline, are either buying horses and vehicles at the start or are selling their cars. Horse dealers say that they have sold more animals for carriage use this summer than at any time in the last five years." "

[Pat Holscher]

From the Leather Worker's Journal January 1917
""Back to the Horse and Carriage."

The following straw, showing how the wind is blowing, was taken from the Baltimore Sun:
"If the reports of horse dealers are correct, there has been such a return to horses and carriages that the sale of automobiles may have materially decreased.
Many persons unable to purchase or maintain their cars on account of the high price of gasoline, are either buying horses and vehicles at the start or are selling their cars. Horse dealers say that they have sold more animals for carriage use this summer than at any time in the last five years." "

That's a very interesting quote.

Not too many folks realize that World War One caused an oil boom and a horse boom, probably the last, or maybe only, time those economic blips happened at the same time. Horse sales increased dramatically in World War One, due to Allied demands, but oil sales also did.

Locally, that had an enormous impact on the economy. Indeed, in those far off distant days, the US was an oil exporting nation, and this state was in the thick of it. So much so that Gov. B. B. Brooks, when he wrote his memoirs after World War one, repeatedly lamented that there was some sort of official restriction, he claimed, on the release of the information on the contribution of the state to the supply of oil. I have no idea what he was referring to, but he, in more than one place in those memoirs, insisted that when the full story was known, we'd bask in the glory of our local contribution to the war effort in terms of the state's contribution of oil.

Well, Gov. Brooks may have been a bit prejudiced in his view, but the local economy was dramatically impacted. The building I work in today was actually built by the company that Brook's and his associates founded. The boom was followed by a bust, to be sure, but no doubt the price and supply of oil was dramatically impacted during the war. I wouldn't doubt, as the Baltimore Sun reported, that horses began to look good again as a result.

[Pat Holscher]

I suppose it depends on what we think of as average which makes it a very hard question to answer. Certainly the rural and urban poor of 1920 had a much lower standard of living than virtually any "poor" people in America today and they wouldn't have had automobiles. There were also many more of them. Probably most of what we would think of as the "middle class" did have cars by 1920 although in purchasing power they would be closer to the "upper middle class" today. The well-to-do who wanted to own automobiles probably all had them by 1910 but in most cases the cars they bought implied the need of servants to operate them. At that level car ownership was purely a matter of desire rather than need or aspiration.

An example: One of my grandfathers never owned a car. He was a successful small businessman, owning considerable property in the Providence area. But, it was an urban environment and the street car and train ran everywhere he wanted to go. He died in 1936.
My other grandfather was a postman. He owned his own home, which was unusual, but had very little extra money. He finally bought a used Chevrolet around 1930 and owned only one other car, another used Chevy. It was put up on blocks in the back yard when the war began and eventually one of my uncles drove it the Carolinas where he was stationed. It was left behind when my uncle went overseas. My grandfather died in 1941 and those were the only two cars he owned. Both men would have fallen into the "average" category today but both lived in urban environments and grew up before the widespread ownership of automobiles so their habits were formed long before they could aspire to owning one.
I also had relatives that did own cars but in every case it was because they wanted them, not because anyone felt they needed them. In a reasonably urban setting I suspect that automobile ownership was discretionary well into the 30s and maybe until WWII.

Someone else would have to answer for more rural settings but in those, of course, animal transport was often still available so I wonder if the move to the automobile was much faster.

Very insightful reply, as usual. In considering it, I think I'll post more than one reply, in order to address the many interesting points that you raise.