The Railroad Nation

America in 1949

The Railroad Nation

We tend to forget that the United States was not always a car-centric nation.

From Summer of ‘49:

Page 20

This is actually easily evident if you spend time reading the various magazines of 1949. For example, take this two page photo spread in the June 20, 1949 issue of Newsweek:

Pages 66 and 67. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to a full color edition of the magazine at the moment.

That’s not to say that the automobile wasn’t a feature in American life, of course. In fact, contemporary publications are filled with ads like this one:

From Life, June 20, 1949, page 7

Of course, you probably want to look at pictures of that bizarrely designed 1949 Ford Dream Wagon before you decide to buy one. This site has a good explanation of the history, including pictures of that bizarre half-wood car.

Air travel was a thing as well, though it was still in its infacy. So far, I’ve really only been able to find advertisements for travel by air in highbrow publications like The New Yorker:

From The New Yorker, June 18, 1949, page 53

Of course, if you wanted to explore Asia, you had to be ready for a muc longer flight:

From The New Yorker, June 18, 1949, page 74

In contrast, I took a flight from Beijing to Washington D.C. back in 2018 that took a little over 12 hours.

We’ve come a long way.