The Impact of the Automobile on Society Research Paper

The Impact of the Automobile on Society - Research Paper Example From the discussion it is clear that in 1895, during a newspaper interview, Thomas Edison, an American inventor, stood at the edge of time and gazed into the horizon. They saw a future of unbounded potential in which the horseless carriage would reign. They added that it would only a question of time before their prophecy happened. At the time, many would have dismissed Edison as an idle dreamer. Carriages driven by horses were the main means of transportation then. As one would suspect, these were pricey and a preserve of the rich. Today, over a century after Thomas Edison pronounced their prophecy, the automobile is the dominant means of movement. This paper examines the impact of the automobile on society at a global scale. By the term "automobile" is meant widest scope to include public transit and heavy commercial vehicles.This paper declares that  the modern car was born in 1886 when Karl Benz, a German inventor, built the Benz Patent-Motorwagen. However, the car had to wait until the early 1900s to become widespread. Ford Motor Company’s Model T was one of the earliest cars to be produced en masse for the public. In the United States, cars rapidly replaced carriages and carts drawn by animals. Soon afterward, there were about ten thousand cars on American roads. It had taken much longer before cars were embraced in Europe and elsewhere in the world. The commencement of production of cars on a large scale by Henry Ford in 1914 ushered in an era of ever-increasing affordability for the automobile.