Margaret Walsh. Making Connections: The Long-distance Bus Industry in the USA. Aldershot, Hants, England and Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2000. xvii + 245 pp. $74.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-7546-0207-1.
Reviewed by John Singleton (School of Economics and Finance, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand)
Published on EH.Net (February, 2001)
Most of the chapters in Margaret Walsh's study of the US bus industry have appeared in print before, though in several cases they have done so in journals (such as Annals of Iowa) that may not fall into the hands of readers in the British Isles and Australasia. While there is considerable merit in bringing these papers together in book form, much unnecessary repetition could have been avoided if more time had been devoted to perfecting the final text. During the second decade of the twentieth centuries, some US taxi operators introduced regular services and acquired larger vehicles. This was the basis for the rapid growth of bus services in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1928, a Californian firm inaugurated the first transcontinental bus service from Los Angeles to New York. Greyhound, which would grow into the dominant long-distance bus operator, had its origins in the mid-West. Capital supplied by the Great Northern Railroad and mid-Western investment bankers facilitated the expansion of this network in Minnesota and neighbouring states. By the late 1920s, Greyhound was taking control of firms in other regions, and in the 1930s it developed a genuine national network. The Second World War brought new business to the bus companies, due to large movements of troops and restrictions on private motoring. However, the war also resulted in rising costs and deteriorating standards of service, as maintenance work was neglected and firms were forced to persevere with the operation of obsolete vehicles. Overcrowding and frequent breakdowns alienated the travelling public. The capping of fares by regulators, notwithstanding rising wage and other costs, made it difficult in the early post-war era for the bus companies to modernize their fleets and terminals. After the war, the middle classes deserted the buses in droves in favour of travel by private automobile, and, later, by airliner. By the 1960s and 1970s only the poor used scheduled long-distance bus services, though others still hired buses for special occasions.
Denied access to the central archives of the Greyhound corporation, Walsh shows considerable ingenuity in the employment of trade journals, the records of government enquiries, interviews, and smaller archival collections, several of which are held privately. There are chapters surveying the rise and fall of the bus industry, the history of the Greyhound corporation, and the course of legislation affecting the industry. In addition, accounts are given of the careers of Helen Schulze, the 'Iowa Bus Queen' of the twenties, and her more successful contemporary Edgar F. Zelle, the 'Mr Bus' of Minnesota. Chapters follow on the use of advertising, the neglected role of women in the bus industry, and bus photography in the 1940s. Finally, Walsh appends a brief bibliographical essay. The book is nicely illustrated with old posters as well as evocative photographs of buses, passengers, and bus stations in the mid-twentieth century.
Walsh's study of the bus industry is a blend of business and social history. The bus industry was not the master of its own destiny. It came into being through the diffusion of a new technology, the internal combustion engine. It went into decline when this technology became sufficiently cheap that most households were able to afford a reliable automobile, and to travel in privacy rather than among people who might, for one reason or another, be considered undesirable company. Air travel also provided an increasingly popular alternative to the bus, due to its speed, glamour, and social exclusivity. An investigation into the racial aspects of bus travel and bus operation would be interesting. Walsh indicates that in the mid-twentieth century blacks were expected to sit at the back of vehicles. Perhaps there is scope here for further research.
Walsh offers a serviceable introduction to the history of the US bus industry. Her book is clearly not meant to be definitive, and ought not to be judged on this basis. Many interesting avenues remain for exploration by other scholars of the bus industry.
John Singleton is Senior Lecturer in Economic History at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. His previous books are Lancashire on the Scrapheap: the Cotton Industry, 1945-70 (1991), The World Textile Industry (1997,) and jointly edited with R.M. Millward, The Political Economy of Nationalisation in Britain 1920-1950 (1995). He has just completed the typescript for a new book, co-authored with Paul Robertson, entitled Drifting Apart: Economic Relations between Britain and Australasia from the 1940s to the 1960s, which will be published by Palgrave.
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Citation:
John Singleton. Review of Walsh, Margaret, Making Connections: The Long-distance Bus Industry in the USA.
EH.Net, H-Net Reviews.
February, 2001.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=4907
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