• if you live on a farm today, do you see that as a choice?
• do you look to technology to make your life easier (or is it what you are trying to get away from)
• in the period of this book most people on farms hadn't chosen it, didn't think they had other choices
  

• before 1905 there were no registration and speed laws
• frightened horses and ran over animals
• raised a lot of dust on dirt roads and damaged early macadamized roads (gravel bound with dirt instead of the later coal tar binder)
  
• got in the way of the legitimate use of the roads, which were usually maintained by local labor for local use until the 1920s
  
• where they improved roads it was for mail delivery--still local use, not for the benefit of outsiders
  
• farmers organized anti-automobile clubs

around 1908 farmers began to adopt cars

• the Ford Model T introduced in 1908 was intended to be a practical car, not a toy of the wealthy
• in the Midwest farmers bought cars in large numbers, less so in the south (see 1920 figures on p. 65)
• the main competition was local electric railway systems linking towns (interurbans)
• but a car could be used as a power source or tractor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30bygLsPSr8
• film showing the different uses of a tractor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7kr9g_064c
• farmer men were already good at fixing machines
• p. 79 survey of prosperous farms in Minnesota in 1929
• 90 percent had autos
• 2/3 had stationary gasoline engines
• 1/2 had tractors
• 1/3 had trucks
• farmers traveled more but not necessarily farther, though gradually tight knit rural communities gave way to the ability to travel further

look at three issues for each technology

• what the promoters of the new technology claimed (the myth or foundation narrative)
  
• resistance
• creative misuse--adapting the technology to their own needs
• impact on society--how does it change rural life