20th century
A01=Gary S. Cross
adulthood
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_Gary S. Cross
auto repair
automatic-update
car culture
cars
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HBJK
Category=HBLW
Category=HBTB
Category=NHK
Category=NHTB
Category=WGCB
coming of age
COP=United States
courtship
cruising
dating
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
digital engines
drivers license
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
ethnicity
exclusion
fast furious
Format=BC
Format_Paperback
freedom
friendship
gender
greasers
history
hot rod
independence
Language_English
latino
masculinity
maturity
mechanics
mobility
nonfiction
nostalgia
PA=Available
parking
premolded body construction
Price_€20 to €50
pride
privacy
PS=Active
race
racing
rite passage
ritual
road safety
sociology
softlaunch
souping up
spontaneity
subcultures
technology
teen life
teenager
tinkering
youth
Product details
- ISBN 9780226551135
- Format: Paperback
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 27 Apr 2018
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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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.
Gary S. Cross is distinguished professor of modern history at Pennsylvania State University and the author or coauthor of many books, including most recently Packaged Pleasures: How Technology and Marketing Revolutionized Desire, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
