5 Machines That Liberated Women

3. Car

The origin of the automobile is indefinite. However, the Library of Congress says that the first car created in the United States was built by George Baldwin Selden around 1876. It ran on gasoline and had a combined internal combustion engine with a carriage.

Robert S. and Helen M. Lynd’s studied the Midwestern community of Muncie, Indiana, and published their work in a book titled Middletown (1929). In the novel, one farm woman is noted as telling an inspector from the United States that the reason her family had chosen to buy a car instead of indoor plumbing is because “You can’t go to town in a bathtub.”

In a survey conducted of rural young people in Missouri in 1937, 35% of farm girls drove cars in comparison to 72% of farm boys, but another 37% of farm girls wanted to learn how to drive.

But then in 1929, General Motors launched a new public relations campaign that encouraged a “two car household,” and that’s when women began to mobilize on their own. The automobile allowed for more time to attend events, made grocery shopping quicker and more efficient, and presented women with the first opportunity to be independently mobile.