Driving Women: Fiction and Automobile Culture in Twentieth-Century America

Acknowledgments

Many people have contributed to this book, so many, in fact, that I cannot hope to name them all. Numerous colleagues left material in my mailbox pertaining to the project, and the book is much richer for it. Even when I elected not to include something , the enthusiasm and interest reassured me about the worth of the project. People really are fascinated by car culture and gender. Students in various classes also offered valuable responses and information. A few shared extremely useful resources, particularly Melanie Monroe. Lauren Carnali helped to track down material on topics from homelessness to the United Farm Workers. I owe special thanks to my research assistant of several years, Kristin Jacobson , whose help was invaluable in finding material that I didn’t even know existed, checking out resources, and searching magazines for car advertisements. Her generosity and good spirits helped keep me going. Kate Brogan, Susan Harris, Carla Mulford, Marcy North, and Robin Schulze read drafts of chapters,offering important criticism and much valued support.Janet Lyon, Mark Morrisson, and Robin Schulze helped me to define my arguments and meet my writing goals. And to Sue Schweik, who read the entire manuscript with painstaking care, offering suggestions that were always just right, I owe more than I can ever articulate or repay. Cathleen R. Latendresse and Linda Skolarus at the Research Center of the Henry Ford Museum were extremely useful in helping me to track down archival material that related to women; their interest and aid were vital at an early stage of the project. With their support I discovered a wealth of material at The Henry Ford. In addition, I’d like to thank librarians at the Automobile History Collection of the Detroit Public Library, the Walter Reuther Archives at Wayne State University, and Yale University ’s Beinecke Library for valuable assistance. I’m grateful to Michael Lonegro of the Johns Hopkins University Press for his strong support of the project and appreciate all his efforts to make the process easier a c k n o w l e d g m e n t s and the book better.Penn State University provided sabbatical support as well as travel money for visits to Detroit, and I’m particularly thankful to the Penn State Institute for theArts and Humanities for a Resident Fellowship that procured for me additional writing time. An early draft of Chapter One appeared under the same title in Arizona Quarterly 59.4 (Winter 2003): 103–33; part of Chapter Four appeared as“Domesticating the Car: Women’s Road Trips” in Studies in American Fiction 32.1 (Spring 2004): 101–28; and a very small portion of Chapter Two is drawn from “William Faulkner and Henry Ford: Cars, Men, Bodies, and History as Bunk,”Faulkner and His Contemporaries , ed. Ann Abadie & Donald Kartiganer (Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2004), 93–112. Finally, I thank my husband, Phil Bolda, not only for his patience, his understanding , and his love but also for all the Web searches that turned up valuable information regarding the auto industry and other sundry topics. I know it wasn’t easy living with a book-obsessed spouse, but he managed it with grace and good humor, and, most important, knew enough not to ask how the book was coming. Phil, you have made my life—and my work—better. xii Acknowledgments Driving Women This page intentionally left blank ...