J.W. Burleson photo / Boquillas del Carmen, Coah.

PHB

My photo
Brooklin, Maine, United States
We own a 1975 GMC Sierra Grande 15 in Maine and a 1986 Chevrolet Custom Deluxe 10 in West Texas. Also a pair of 1997 Volvo 850 wagons. Average age in the fleet is 28 years--we're recycling. I've published 3 novels: THE LAW OF DREAMS (2006), THE O'BRIENS (2012), and CARRY ME (2016). Also 2 short story collections: NIGHT DRIVING(1987) and TRAVELLING LIGHT (2013). More of my literary life is at www.peterbehrens.org I was a Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study for 2012-13. I'm an adjunct professor at Colorado College and in the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte. In 2015-16 I was a Fellow at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. The Autoliterate office is in Car Talk Plaza in Harvard Square, 2 floors above Dewey Cheatem & Howe. SUBSCRIBE TO THE AUTOLITERATE DAILY EMAIL by hitting the button to the right.

Thursday, January 29, 2015

As American as George Washington eating apple pie in a suburban McMansion financed with a subprime mortgage.



(Thanks to Matt Dallet for the heads-up on this post from The Atlantic's Citylab blog)


"One historian calls it a "masterstroke of public relations" made possible by a single 1961 television special...A love of cars seems as fundamentally American as George Washington eating apple pie in a suburban McMansion financed with a subprime mortgage. But the chart below, which tracks the phrase "love affair with the automobile" in books across the 20th century, makes us wonder if this love was ever truly timeless. Though Americans drove and owned cars for the entirety of this period, there's no mention of a "love affair" in the public discourse until roughly 1960..."


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