For American teenagers, getting a driver’s license has long been
a watershed moment, separating teens from their childish pasts as
they accelerate toward the sweet, sweet freedom of their futures.
With driver’s license in hand, teens are on the road to buying
and driving(and maybe even crashing) their first car, a machine
which is home to many a teenage ritual—being picked up for a
first date, “parking” at a scenic overlook, or blasting the
radio with a gaggle of friends in tow. So important is this car
ride into adulthood that automobile culture has become a stand-in,
a shortcut to what millions of Americans remember about their
coming of age. Machines of Youth traces the rise, and more recently
the fall, of car culture among American teens. In this book, Gary
S. Cross details how an automobile obsession drove teen peer
culture from the 1920s to the 1980s, seducing budding adults with
privacy, freedom, mobility, and spontaneity. Cross shows how the
automobile redefined relationships between parents and teenage
children, becoming a rite of passage, producing new courtship
rituals, and fueling the growth of numerous car subcultures. Yet
for teenagers today the lure of the automobile as a transition to
adulthood is in decline.Tinkerers are now sidelined by the advent
of digital engine technology and premolded body construction, while
the attention of teenagers has been captured by iPhones, video
games, and other digital technology. And adults have become less
tolerant of teens on the road, restricting both cruising and access
to drivers’ licenses. Cars are certainly not going out of style,
Cross acknowledges, but how upcoming generations use them may be
changing. He finds that while vibrant enthusiasm for them lives on,
cars may no longer be at the center of how American youth define
themselves. But, for generations of Americans, the modern teen
experience was inextricably linked to this particularly American
icon.
General
Imprint: |
University of Chicago Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
April 2018 |
Authors: |
Gary S Cross
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152 x 18mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback
|
Pages: |
256 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-226-55113-5 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
0-226-55113-X |
Barcode: |
9780226551135 |
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