The Social Side of the Automobile

As people used automobiles for transportation, their way of life began to change. They traveled longer distances and took more trips than in the past. Social life began to include many more activities. Shopping habits changed. Education and health care improved.

On the Road

Good roads or bad, Iowans took to the highway venturing far from home in their automobiles. One family traveled to see relatives in New Hampshire; another went to visit a brother in South Dakota. Carloads of summer vacationers headed for Lake Okoboji and even to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, camping along the way and cooking their meals by the roadside. Most people had lived their whole lives within a few square miles, acquainted only with a few neighbors and those in the nearby town. These same people could now travel to visit faraway relatives. They could also travel to other areas of the country to see firsthand how others lived.

The choices seemed to end only at the ocean's shore. By the 1920s motor outings and vacations had become a national activity, and Iowans jumped into their autos right along with the other travelers.