SSR on Justine Greenwood’s article Driving Through History

By Phoebe Hamilton

Complete citation:

Greenwood, Justine. (2011). Driving Through History: the car, The Open Road, and the making of history tourism in Australia, 1920-1940. Journal of Tourism History, 3(1), 21-37. doi: 10.1080/1755182X.2011.575954

Image Credit: http://bluemountainsheritage.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Heritage-Newsletter-Iss.-67-Mar-Apr-2020.pdf, accessed 27 October 2020

Key Words: Car tourism; Motorists; Australia, The Open Road; heritage; travel

Brief Overview: This article looks at the rise of motorist tourism in Australia during the interwar period. It discusses the popularity of the National Roads and Motorists Association (NRMA) and their journal The Open Road.

Summary of key points:

·         The car provided a means of travel across Australia in the early 20^th century. Its popularity grew during the interwar period as travelers sought to discover the landscapes and history of early colonial Australia.

·         The Open Road, a journal published by the NRMA, encouraged the exploration of Australia via automobile. It provided a platform for motor enthusiasts to share stories, maps, and advice.

·         As opposed to train travel, which became seen as unromantic, the automobile was the embodiment of modernity while still connecting travelers to history.

·         Motor tourism was about more than just the car as a mode of transport, it was the reimagined ‘horse and buggy’ of early colonial Australia and allowed the reimagination of the Australian outback in a way that the railway could not. Motorists were able to find a connection with early Australian history and ‘untouched’ areas of Australia.

Important Quotations:

“From the late nineteenth century, newspapers published articles encouraging readers to appreciate the historic points of interest their cities and towns had to offer, growing numbers of tourists sought out the relics and buildings of Australia’s convict past, and historical societies took their members on excursions in search of ‘old historic towns’”. (22)

“In the first half of the twentieth century the car was most commonly envisaged as representing the future the ultimate symbol of progress and modernity. However, for motor tourists in Australia in the 1920s and 1930s, like Canon Stretch, the car came to offer not only a promise of the future but also a way to access the past”. (22)

“With much Australian tourism in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, it was nature rather than culture that proved to be the main attraction for motor tourists”. (24) 

“Much of the NRMA’s touring advice was disseminated through The Open Road. Each fortnightly issue dedicated several pages to descriptions of possible motor touring routes and destinations”. (25)

“Although true democratisation of car ownership in Australia was not to develop until the 1950s, by the mid-1920s the reduction in prices due to the development of mass production methods, combined with Australia’s comparatively high standard of living, meant that owning a car was an attainable prospect for many of the middle class”. (27)

“Where the train had delivered the tourist straight to the attraction, the motorist was not bound by a single destination”. (28)

“Road building in the 1920s and 1930s often opened areas that had been bypassed by the railways. Motor tourists headed into the countryside and discovered towns that seemed to have remained untouched by the modern world”. (32)

“Australia could increasingly be imagined not as a dauntingly inaccessible landscape but rather one that was waiting to be explored by the tourist in his or her car”. (33) 

“By 1935 contributors to The Open Road were mourning the end of the days when driving was an adventure rather than just another form of ‘the beaten track’”. (34) 

“Les Worrall, contributor to The Open Road, summed up the feelings of many motorists when he commented, ‘railways are all right, but they are unromantic things’”. (35) 

Usefulness to our group topic or individual project:

This article is helpful for understanding the use and popularity of automobiles in Australia during the interwar period. It references a popular motor journal of the time, The Open Road, and gives information about its readers and content. It is useful for looking at modes of travel and travel destinations within Australia.