New applied science can declare oneself grotesque opportunities for humanity . They can help us become more mobile , more connected , and more secure from living ’s unremarkable danger . But along with all of the benefits , technology often also provides fresh , more accessible way for us to off ourselves . And in the 1920s , the automobile proffer that in spades .
The rise of the automobile in the 1920s was howling . At the start of the decade there were 6.6 million registered cars on American roads . By 1929 , that identification number had rocket to 23 million . Your average American had more income ( not to mention more credit ) , which facilitate the car become the hottest new transportation tech of the 1920s .
It was have a go at it as theRoaring Twentiesand times were comparatively expert . That is , if you compare it with what came before the 1920s ( World War I , where over 9 million people die ) and what came after the 1920s ( the Great Depression , where unemployment hovered around 25 percent ) . But despite the 1920s ’ repute in democratic media for jolly times and carefree admirableness , people still had problems . And perhaps more to the point , many people still shin terribly with mental illness .
In his captivating 1989 bookThe Great Car Craze , which explores the salary increase of the machine in Southern California , Ashleigh Brilliant explain that despite everything the auto did to help make humans more mobile , it unhappily provided a new ( disturbingly efficient ) means to the ultimate remnant :
By 1929 , “ jumping in front of fomite ” had become sufficiently mutual as a way of felo-de-se to be given a separate listing in the one-year [ Los Angeles ] City Police statistics . At least as early as 1923 it had been get word that automobile exhaust gas , when directed into gopher holes , was an effective agency of ruin their denizen . Car proprietor who tired of the struggle were soon employing the same method upon themselves , though it was still sufficiently unfamiliar in 1931 to require special explanation in John O’Hara ’s fresh Appointment in Samarra .
And it was n’t just the cars themselves . The new infrastructure being built for these machine was also being apply for macabre means .
Later the capital structures built for get the new vehicles smoothly over mysterious obstacle , especially the graceful Colorado Street Bridge , would act like magnets for would - be suicides .
Suicide exist long before the auto arrived . But every piece of technology is simply a tool that has no opinion of its own . How we choose to employ them is obviously up to us .
Needless to say , if you fight with self-destructive thoughts you should talk with someone about them by calling the National Suicide Prevention Hotline : 1 - 800 - 273 - 8255 .
paradigm : Car crash circa 1920 from theLibrary of Congress
Carspaleofuture
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