Parking Cars in America, 1910–1945

With its decentralized urban areas, pollution, and mostly inadequate public transit systems, America pays a heavy price for its dependency on cars. This volume explores one of the more pressing aspects of the problem—storage—from 1910 to the end of World War II, contrasting the reality and perception of car parking as found in the pages of the popular newspapers and magazines.
From early bans on street parking to street widening efforts to the introduction of parking lots, garages, and parking meters, the book chronicles attempts to accommodate the ever-increasing number of cars. By failing to effect any meaningful regulations along the way, this work shows, Americans slowly ceded authority and dominance to the automobile, to the detriment of present-day society.

Cultural historian Kerry Segrave is the author of dozens of books on such diverse topics as drive-in theaters, lie detectors, jukeboxes, smoking, shoplifting and ticket-scalping. He lives in British Columbia.

Kerry Segrave
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 200
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2012
pISBN: 978-0-7864-7007-5
eISBN: 978-0-7864-9108-7
Imprint: McFarland

Preface      1

Introduction      2

1. Banning Begins      5

2. Other Measures      33

3. The General Problem and Solutions      45

4. Garages      85

5. Parking Lots      99

6. Other Facilities      108

7. Parking Meters, the First Two Years      117

8. Parking Meters, Part 2      134

9. The General Problem and Solutions, 1945–1950      156

10. Conclusion      165

Notes      173

Bibliography      182

Index      190

“a scholarly history on how U.S. municipalities tried to mitigate headaches on where to put cars as they exploded within American cities…deeply researched”—Hemmings Classic Car.