The Year America Built One Hundred Cars
In February 1942 the United States stopped building passenger cars. The Census Bureau's own table records what came off the lines after that: 222,800 in 1942, then about one hundred cars in 1943, six hundred in 1944, and nothing new until 1946.
Transcript
One hundred cars
R029 Washington, D.C. People boarding a bus on 13th Street on a rainy night
John Ferrell · Washington, District of Columbia · 1942 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
In nineteen forty-three, the United States built one hundred passenger cars. Not one hundred thousand. One hundred.
D06 Washington, D.C. People boarding a bus on 13th Street on a rainy night
John Ferrell · Washington, District of Columbia · 1942 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Washington, on a rainy night in nineteen forty-two. The card propped in that bus's windshield says BUS FULL.
R001 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals
Esther Bubley · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
So a hundred and thirty million people got where they were going some other way. The government sent photographers to watch them do it.
R002 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. This girl commutes daily to Memphis where she goes to school
Esther Bubley · Tennessee · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
What follows is the record of the last years this country rode together, and how fast it let that go.
R003 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals
Esther Bubley · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
One thing first. The nineteen forties negatives here are black and white. The color was put on by a computer this year — a good guess, not a record.
R005 Old trolley car, now a liquor store, along highway near Perrine, Florida
Marion Post Wolcott · Perrine, Florida · 1939 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Later the pictures change. The nineteen seventies frames are real color, shot on color film. Nothing was added to those.
How you went
R004 Activity around station master's shack. Streetcar terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Russell Lee · Oklahoma City, Oklahoma · 1939 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Oklahoma City, July of nineteen thirty-nine.
R006 Sign at entrance to interurban terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Russell Lee · Oklahoma City, Oklahoma · 1939 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
A sign over the door.
R007 Timetable of interurban terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Russell Lee · Oklahoma City, Oklahoma · 1939 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
And inside, the board that told you where the cars went.
D07 Timetable of interurban terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Russell Lee · Oklahoma City, Oklahoma · 1939 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Moore, Norman, Bethany, Yukon, El Reno, Brittun, Edmond, Guthrie.
R008 Streetcar motorman in front of station master's shack, streetcar and interurban station, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Russell Lee · Oklahoma City, Oklahoma · 1939 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
A motorman outside the station master's shack.
R009 Station master, streetcar terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Russell Lee · Oklahoma City, Oklahoma · 1939 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
The station master himself.
R010 Postman loaded with mail waiting for streetcar. Streetcar terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Russell Lee · Oklahoma City, Oklahoma · 1939 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
The postman, loaded, waiting for his streetcar like everyone else.
R011 Mother with children trying to locate the streetcar they want to catch. Streetcar terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Russell Lee · Oklahoma City, Oklahoma · 1939 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
A mother and her children, working out which car they wanted.
R012 Workman climbing on top of streetcar to change wheel on trolley. Streetcar terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Russell Lee · Oklahoma City, Oklahoma · 1939 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
A workman up on the roof, changing the wheel on the trolley pole.
R013 Domestic servants waiting for streetcar on way to work early in the morning. Mitchell Street, Atlanta, Georgia
Marion Post Wolcott · Atlanta, Georgia · 1939 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Atlanta, the same year. Domestic servants on Mitchell Street, waiting in the dark for the car that took them to work.
R014 Negroes waiting at streetcar terminal for cars, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Russell Lee · Oklahoma City, Oklahoma · 1939 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Back at the Oklahoma City terminal. Everyone waited, and not everyone waited in the same place.
R015 Negro drinking at "Colored" water cooler in streetcar terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Russell Lee · Oklahoma City, Oklahoma · 1939 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Russell Lee's caption records which water cooler this is, and he put the word in quotation marks himself. The one marked colored.
R016 Negro waiting behind barricade at streetcar terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Russell Lee · Oklahoma City, Oklahoma · 1939 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
And a barricade, inside the terminal, with a man standing behind it.
The river crossings
R017 Ferry landing. Vicksburg, Mississippi
Walker Evans · Vicksburg, Mississippi · 1936 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Where there was a river and no bridge, there was a boat, and it ran on a schedule. Vicksburg, Mississippi, nineteen thirty-six.
R018 Ferry to Tennessee from New Madrid County, Missouri
Russell Lee · Missouri · 1938 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
New Madrid County, Missouri. The ferry to Tennessee.
R019 Negro almost eighty, who has been running ferry across river from Camden to Gee's Bend for almost forty-eight years. Gees Bend, Alabama
Marion Post Wolcott · Gees Bend, Alabama · 1939 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Jee's Bend, Alabama. The caption says this man is almost eighty, and that he has been running the ferry from Camden across the river for forty-eight years.
R020 Steering the ferry for a landing at Gees Bend, Alabama
Marion Post Wolcott · Gees Bend, Alabama · 1939 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
He worked it by hand, on a cable, hauling the boat across.
R021 Ferry crossing Potomac River into Maryland, near Sharpsburg
John Vachon · Sharpsburg, Maryland · 1939 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Near Sharpsburg, Maryland, a ferry crossing the Potomac. Look behind it. That is the thing that replaced it.
R022 Cars waiting for the Norfolk-Cape Charles ferry at Little Creek, Virginia
Jack Delano · Little Creek, Virginia · 1940 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Little Creek, Virginia. Cars in line for the boat to Cape Charles, at a landing signed the Gateway to the South.
R023 Washington, D.C. Passenger waiting for his plane in the lobby of the municipal airport
Jack Delano · Washington, District of Columbia · 1941 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Washington, July of nineteen forty-one. A man waiting for his plane in the lobby of the municipal airport.
R024 Washington, D.C. Watching the planes takeoff through the windows of the lobby of the municipal airport
Jack Delano · Washington, District of Columbia · 1941 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
And people who had come out just to watch the planes leave, through the windows.
The order
S06
Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 · U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975 · ch. Q · note to Series Q 148-151.
Then February of nineteen forty-two, and the country stopped making cars.
S12
Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 · U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975 · ch. Q · note to Series Q 148-151, cont..
The Census Bureau put it plainly, thirty years later. Production of passenger cars was discontinued in February nineteen forty-two to economize resources for the war.
S05
Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 · U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975 · ch. Q · Series Q 148, 1941-1946.
Counted: nineteen forty-one, three point eight million cars. Nineteen forty-two, two hundred and twenty-two thousand.
S11
Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 · U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975 · ch. Q · Series Q 148, 1943-1944.
Nineteen forty-three: one hundred. Forty-four: six hundred. The lines were let restart in July of forty-five, and nothing came off them until forty-six.
R025 New York, New York. Looking south at 7 a.m. from 13th Street on Second Avenue, showing the elevated railway in midst of demolition
Marjory Collins · New York, New York · 1942 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Gasoline was rationed. Tires were rationed. And everybody still had to get to work — while this was going on.
R026 New York, N.Y. Second Avenue elevated railway in process of demolition between 13th and 14th Streets
Marjory Collins · New York, New York · 1942 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
New York was taking down the Second Avenue elevated at the time. September of nineteen forty-two, between Thirteenth and Fourteenth Streets.
R027 Baltimore, Maryland. The yard of the Washington terminal, maintenance plant of the Baltimore Transit Company. From left to right: old trolley made into a smoker for employees; a work car; and old horse car. The Baltimore Trust building on the horizon
Marjory Collins · Baltimore, Maryland · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
The rest of it was pressed back into service. This is a car yard in Baltimore.
Everybody on
R028 Detroit, Michigan. People lined up waiting for a bus at 5 o'clock
Arthur S. Siegel · Detroit, Michigan · 1942 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Detroit, five o'clock. The line for a bus.
R030 New York, New York. Waiting for the Third Avenue elevated railway in the "Sixties" about 8:45 a.m.
Marjory Collins · New York, New York · 1942 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
New York, the Third Avenue elevated, in the Sixties, about a quarter to nine in the morning.
R031 New York, New York. Third Ave elevated railway steps at the 94th Street Station in the early morning
Marjory Collins · New York, New York · 1942 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
The stairs at the Ninety-fourth Street station, early.
R032 Washington, D.C. Soldiers, sailors, and civilians at the ticket window at the Union Station
Gordon Parks · Washington, District of Columbia · 1942 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Union Station in Washington, November of nineteen forty-two. Gordon Parks photographed the crowd waiting for trains.
R033 Washington, D.C. Soldiers waiting to be let through the gate to trains at the Union Station
Gordon Parks · Washington, District of Columbia · 1942 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Soldiers being let through the concourse gate.
R034 Washington, D.C. A soldier kissing his girl goodbye at Union Station
Gordon Parks · Washington, District of Columbia · 1942 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
And a soldier saying goodbye to his girl, which is the picture people remember and the reason the trains were full.
R035 War wagon trailer. Government workers in Washington, D.C., step from the war wagon trailer sponsored by the Office of Defense Transporation. Built on a steel frame, the coach is made principally of wood and masonite. It is only twelve feet long and seven feet wide and has a seating capacity of twenty-four, as contrasted to the average city bus that seats forty passengers and is approximately thirty-two feet long and eight feet wide
Roger Smith · Washington, District of Columbia · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
There were not enough buses. So the Office of Defense Transportation built this.
D01 War wagon trailer. Government workers in Washington, D.C., step from the war wagon trailer sponsored by the Office of Defense Transporation. Built on a steel frame, the coach is made principally of wood and masonite. It is only twelve feet long and seven feet wide and has a seating capacity of twenty-four, as contrasted to the average city bus that seats forty passengers and is approximately thirty-two feet long and eight feet wide
Roger Smith · Washington, District of Columbia · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
A war wagon trailer. Twelve feet long, seven wide, made of wood and masonite because the steel was spoken for. It seated twenty-four. A city bus seated forty.
R036 War wagon trailer. This new war wagon trailer made almost entirely of non-critical materials is being tried out in localities where war industry traffic is heavy. Built on a steel frame, the coach is made principally of wood and masonite
Roger Smith · Washington, District of Columbia · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
It was towed behind a converted sedan, and the caption says it was being tried out in localities where war industry traffic was heavy.
R037 Women in essential services. Women bus drivers help expedite America's transportation problems
Ann Rosener · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
And the men who drove the buses had gone to the war, so women drove them.
The bus south
R038 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals
Esther Bubley · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
In September of nineteen forty-three the Office of War Information sent Esther Bubley to ride a Greyhound bus from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, and photograph whoever was on it.
D02 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals
Esther Bubley · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
This is the door of a terminal on that trip. The sign over the crowd says white waiting room.
R039 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Waiting for the bus at the Memphis terminal
Esther Bubley · Memphis, Tennessee · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Memphis. Waiting.
R040 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. 4 a.m. Bus station at Memphis
Esther Bubley · Memphis, Tennessee · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Four in the morning, same station.
R041 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Sixteen year-old baggage clerk at the Memphis bus station. He goes to school in the daytime and works from four till twelve
Esther Bubley · Memphis, Tennessee · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
The baggage clerk was sixteen. Her caption says he goes to school in the daytime and works from four till twelve.
R042 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Travelers' aid desk at the Memphis bus terminal
Esther Bubley · Memphis, Tennessee · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
The Travelers' Aid desk, where servicemen came to ask the quickest way home.
R043 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Soldier on furlough going home. Enroute Louisville to Nashville
Esther Bubley · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
A soldier on furlough, going home, between Louisville and Nashville.
R044 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Sleeping soldier on Greyhound bus enroute from Louisville to Nashville
Esther Bubley · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Another one, asleep, on the same run.
R045 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Girl returning to her home in Tennessee from Detroit where she went to look for a defense job. She was told she must have a release and came back. On bus from Louisville to Nashville
Esther Bubley · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
This is where the bus stops being about the war. Her caption: a girl returning to her home in Tennessee from Detroit, where she went to look for a defense job. She was told she must have a release, and came back.
R046 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Man returning to Tennessee from his second trip to Ohio to get a defense job
Esther Bubley · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
A man returning to Tennessee from his second trip to Ohio to get a defense job.
R047 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Sisters, returning from Detroit to their home in Tennessee. They left to get defense jobs but were sent back by employment agency. They don't know why, saying there were jobs but they were not allowed to take them. On Louisville-Nashville bus
Esther Bubley · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Two sisters, returning from Detroit to their home in Tennessee. They left to get defense jobs and were sent back by the employment agency. They don't know why, Bubley wrote — saying there were jobs, but they were not allowed to take them.
R048 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. A travelling salesman. He now uses the bus instead of an automobile. En route Memphis to Chattanooga by Greyhound
Esther Bubley · Tennessee · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
A travelling salesman. He now uses the bus instead of an automobile.
R049 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Colored passenger on bus enroute from Louisville to Nashville
Esther Bubley · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
A passenger on the Louisville to Nashville run. In nineteen forty-three, on that road, where he was allowed to sit was set by law.
R050 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Bus passengers getting acquainted on Greyhound bus from Louisville to Nashville
Esther Bubley · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
People getting acquainted, because they were going to be there a while.
R051 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. This WAC (Women's Army Corps) and sailor met when they got on the bus in Memphis. By the time it reached Chattanooga, they had found a lot in common
Esther Bubley · Tennessee · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
A woman in the Women's Army Corps and a sailor got on at Memphis. By Chattanooga, the caption says, they had found a lot in common.
R052 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Passengers standing in aisles on Memphis-Chattanooga Greyhound bus
Esther Bubley · Tennessee · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Memphis to Chattanooga, standing in the aisle.
R053 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Greyhound driver helping woman with her bag. From a nearby farm, she flagged the bus on the highway
Esther Bubley · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
The driver taking a bag from a woman who had come off a nearby farm and flagged the bus down on the highway.
R054 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Hailing a Macon-bound bus on the highway in Georgia
Esther Bubley · Georgia · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
You could do that. Hailing a Macon-bound bus on a road in Georgia.
R055 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Passengers waiting to get on the Greyhound bus at Rome, Georgia. Most of them only travel a short distance, having come in from nearby farms to shop, etc.
Esther Bubley · Rome, Georgia · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Rome, Georgia. Most of them, she wrote, only travel a short distance, having come in from nearby farms to shop.
R056 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Farm women who came to Chattanooga to do Christmas shopping for sons overseas wait for the bus
Esther Bubley · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Farm women at Chattanooga, in from the country to do Christmas shopping for sons overseas.
R057 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Rest stop between Louisville and and Nashville
Esther Bubley · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
The rest stop between Louisville and Nashville.
R058 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Highway in Tennessee, enroute Memphis to Chattanooga
Esther Bubley · Tennessee · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
And the road itself, Tennessee, out the window.
R059 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tenness, and the terminals. Passenger on Louisville-Nashville bus. She is on her way to be married
Esther Bubley · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
One more from that bus. A passenger on the Louisville to Nashville run. She is on her way to be married.
R060 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Bus station at Chattanooga, Tennessee
Esther Bubley · Chattanooga, Tennessee · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
The station at Chattanooga.
R061 A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals. Loading a bus that carries baggage on the top. Chattanooga
Esther Bubley · Chattanooga, Tennessee · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Baggage went on the roof, because there was no room for it anywhere else.
The highest number
S01
Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 · U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975 · ch. Q · Series Q 235-250.
Here is the whole thing counted, in one federal table. Public transit riding, every year from nineteen seventeen.
S07
Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 · U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975 · ch. Q · note to Series Q 235-250.
The numbers are the transit industry's own, from its Transit Fact Book. The Census Bureau printed them. That is worth saying out loud, because they are the spine of this film.
S02
Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 · U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975 · ch. Q · Series Q 241, 1940-1946.
Nineteen forty, thirteen billion rides. Forty-two, eighteen billion. Forty-three, twenty-two.
S08
Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 · U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975 · ch. Q · Series Q 241, 1946.
Nineteen forty-six: twenty-three billion, three hundred and seventy-two million. That is the highest number in the table, and it is the highest this country has ever reached.
What became of them
S03
Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 · U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975 · ch. Q · Series Q 241, 1946-1970.
Nineteen fifty: seventeen billion. Nineteen sixty: nine. Nineteen seventy: seven billion, three hundred and thirty-two million.
S09
Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 · U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975 · ch. Q · Series Q 241, 1960-1970.
Two thirds of it, gone in twenty-four years.
S04
Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 · U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975 · ch. Q · Series Q 249-250.
And the table says which part died. Ride the subways and elevateds in nineteen forty-six and you were one of two billion, eight hundred million.
S10
Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 · U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975 · ch. Q · Series Q 249-250.
By nineteen seventy, one billion, eight hundred and eighty-one million. Down a third.
S13
Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970 · U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1975 · ch. Q · Series Q 249, 1946-1951.
Street railway riding in forty-six: nine billion. By nineteen seventy that column reads two hundred and thirty-five million. Ninety-seven percent of it, gone.
R062 Old streetcar made into tire shop. Kerrville, Texas
Russell Lee · Kerrville, Texas · 1939 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
The cars themselves went first, and they did not all go to the scrapyard. Kerrville, Texas, nineteen thirty-nine. A streetcar that became a tire shop.
R063 Old street car converted into living quarters for family of four. They were born and raised in Fayetteville, but could not get a place to stay. Husband works at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Just outside of Fayetteville, North Carolina
Jack Delano · Fayetteville, North Carolina · 1941 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Outside Fayetteville, North Carolina, nineteen forty-one. A streetcar that became a house.
R064 Woman living with her family of four in an old street car. Her husband is a watchman at Fort Bragg. They used to live in Fayetteville, but rents were too high and no apartments available. On the outskirts of Fayetteville, North Carolina
Jack Delano · Fayetteville, North Carolina · 1941 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
The woman living in it with her family of four. Her husband was a watchman at Fort Bragg. They were born and raised in Fayetteville, Delano wrote, and could not get a place to stay.
R065 Streetcars which have been converted into dwellings. These rent for twenty-five dollars per month. They are equipped with electricity, running water and bathrooms. San Diego, California
Russell Lee · San Diego, California · 1941 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
San Diego, the same spring. A row of them, rented out at twenty-five dollars a month, with electricity and running water put in.
R066 Baltimore, Maryland. Employees at the maintenance terminal of the Baltimore Transit Company having lunch and playing checkers in an old trolley made into a smoker
Marjory Collins · Baltimore, Maryland · 1943 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
And in Baltimore, transit men eating lunch and playing checkers inside a trolley car that had stopped being a trolley car.
R067 Operator of ferry which crosses the Potomac River into Maryland, near Sharpsburg
John Vachon · Sharpsburg, Maryland · 1939 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
The ferryman on the Potomac, sitting on his engine.
The second look
R068 "TROLLEY CAR". New Orleans, 1972. Passengers read on the streetcar.
St. Gil · New Orleans, Louisiana · 1972.05 · DOCUMERICA · U.S. National Archives. View the original.
Thirty years later the federal government sent photographers out again. The Environmental Protection Agency ran it, the project was called DOCUMERICA, and this time the film was color.
D04 "TROLLEY CAR". New Orleans, 1972. Passengers read on the streetcar.
St. Gil · New Orleans, Louisiana · 1972.05 · DOCUMERICA · U.S. National Archives. View the original.
New Orleans, nineteen seventy-two. Passengers read on the streetcar, in one of the few American cities that still had one to read on.
R069 DESERTED RAILROAD STATION IN BROWNING
Greenberg · Springfield, Illinois · 1973.06 · DOCUMERICA · U.S. National Archives. View the original.
Browning, Illinois, nineteen seventy-three. The station with the town's name still on it.
R070 ABANDONED RAILROAD STATION AND FREIGHT ROOM OF THE NEW YORK CENTRAL WERE CONVERTED TO AN ART STUDIO (THE STATION STUDIO) AND ART SHOP (THE SHACK BY THE TRACK) NEAR OLD FORGE, NEW YORK, IN THE ADIRONDACK FOREST PRESERVE
LaBastille · 1973.06 · DOCUMERICA · U.S. National Archives. View the original.
Near Old Forge, New York. The New York Central's station and freight room, by then an art studio and a shop called the Shack by the Track.
R071 INTERIOR OF GRAFFITI-MARKED SUBWAY CAR
Calonius · New York, New York state · 1973.05 · DOCUMERICA · U.S. National Archives. View the original.
What had survived did not look well. The interior of a subway car, New York, nineteen seventy-three.
R072 HERALD SQUARE SUBWAY STATION
Calonius · New York, New York state · 1973.05 · DOCUMERICA · U.S. National Archives. View the original.
Herald Square.
R073 AMTRAK PASSENGERS AT THE PENNSYLVANIA STATION IN NEW YORK CITY WAIT FOR THE ANNOUNCEMENT THAT WILL LET THEM BOARD. THE CORPORATION REPORTED 18,000,000 RIDERS IN THE U.S. IN 1974, AN INCREASE OF 10 PERCENT FROM THE PREVIOUS YEAR. EVEN THOUGH THERE WAS AN INCREASE AND REVENUES OF $256.9 MILLION, AMTRAK HAS A DEFICIT OF $272.6 MILLION. THE RAIL SERVICE NOTED ABOUT 2,000 CARS AND 110 NEW LOCOMOTIVES. THE CORPORATION LEASES USE OF THE TRACKS FROM VARIOUS RAILROADS
Pickerell · New York, New York state · 1974.04 · DOCUMERICA · U.S. National Archives. View the original.
Penn Station, waiting to board. Amtrak was three years old. Its caption records the year: eighteen million passengers, two hundred and fifty-six million dollars of revenue, and a deficit of two hundred and seventy-two.
D03 AMTRAK PASSENGERS AT THE PENNSYLVANIA STATION IN NEW YORK CITY WAIT FOR THE ANNOUNCEMENT THAT WILL LET THEM BOARD. THE CORPORATION REPORTED 18,000,000 RIDERS IN THE U.S. IN 1974, AN INCREASE OF 10 PERCENT FROM THE PREVIOUS YEAR. EVEN THOUGH THERE WAS AN INCREASE AND REVENUES OF $256.9 MILLION, AMTRAK HAS A DEFICIT OF $272.6 MILLION. THE RAIL SERVICE NOTED ABOUT 2,000 CARS AND 110 NEW LOCOMOTIVES. THE CORPORATION LEASES USE OF THE TRACKS FROM VARIOUS RAILROADS
Pickerell · New York, New York state · 1974.04 · DOCUMERICA · U.S. National Archives. View the original.
The deficit was larger than the revenue.
R074 EARLY MORNING COMMUTERS AT METRO PARK AND RIDE BUS STATION
Okamoto · Washington · 1973.03 · DOCUMERICA · U.S. National Archives. View the original.
The new idea was to drive partway. Free parking at the edge of town, and a bus from there.
R075 COMMUTERS WAITING FOR A SOUTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY (SEPTA) TRAIN IN PHILADELPHIA. SOME 30 MILLION COMMUTER PASSENGERS RIDE THE COMBINED BUS AND TRAIN SYSTEM WITH 157 LINES AND 2,790 ROUTE MILES IN THE METROPOLITAN AREA EACH YEAR. IN 1974 THE RIDERSHIP TOTALLED 293 MILLION UP FROM 273 MILLION IN 1971. IMPROVEMENTS IN EQUIPMENTS, SERVICE AND FRINGE PARKING WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE INCREASE. ANNUAL BUDGET FOR THE SYSTEM IS $180 MILLION, HALF OF IT SUBSIDIZED
Pickerell · Philadelphia, Pennsylvania · 1974.05 · DOCUMERICA · U.S. National Archives. View the original.
By nineteen seventy-four the oil embargo had been and gone, and the assignments had changed with it. Philadelphia, waiting for the commuter train.
R076 SUBURBAN SOUTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY (SEPTA) TRAIN STATION IN NORTHWEST PHILADELPHIA. SEPTA HAS 157 BUS AND TRAIN LINES AND 2,790 ROUTE MILES OF TRACK IN THE METROPOLITAN AREA. THERE WERE 293 MILLION RIDERS DURING 1974. SOME 30 MILLION WERE COMMUTERS. IMPROVED EQUIPMENT, SERVICE AND FRINGE PARKING HAVE HELPED THE SYSTEM IMPROVE FROM 1971 WHEN THE LOW POINT OF 273 MILLION RIDERS WAS NOTED
Pickerell · Philadelphia, Pennsylvania · 1974.05 · DOCUMERICA · U.S. National Archives. View the original.
And the suburban station that served it, with its parking lot. That is what was left of walking to the train.
Take the buses away
R077 WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA POLICEWOMAN DIRECTS MOTORISTS IN A MONUMENTAL TRAFFIC JAM IN MAY, 1974, DURING A BUS STRIKE IN THE METROPOLITAN AREA. DURING THE STRIKE, WHICH LASTED SEVERAL DAYS, POLICE WERE SHIFTED FROM OTHER DUTIES TO DIRECT TRAFFIC AT KEY INTERSECTIONS. SOME 250,000 PERSONS WHO NORMALLY RODE THE BUSES WERE FORCED TO FIND ALTERNATE FORMS OF TRANSPORTATION USUALLY THEIR CAR. THE METRO BUS SYSTEM USUALLY OPERATED 1,800 VEHICLES DURING THE RUSH HOUR
Pickerell · Washington · 1974.05 · DOCUMERICA · U.S. National Archives. View the original.
In May of nineteen seventy-four the bus drivers in Washington went on strike.
R078 MONUMENTAL TRAFFIC JAMS RESULTED DURING A BUS STRIKE IN WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, DURING MAY, 1974, AS DRIVERS LEARNED THERE WERE MORE CARS THAN PLACES TO PARK LEGALLY. SOME 250,000 PERSONS WERE FORCED TO FIND ALTERNATE METHODS OF TRANSPORTATION, USUALLY THEIR CARS. DRIVERS FACED THIS ORDEAL TWICE EACH DAY DURING THE SEVERAL DAY STRIKE. AS A RESULT THEY HAS TO PARK IN BUS LANES, ON TRAFFIC "ISLANDS", IN "NO PARKING" ZONES, AND ON SIDEWALKS AND LAWNS
Pickerell · Washington · 1974.05 · DOCUMERICA · U.S. National Archives. View the original.
The city normally ran eighteen hundred buses at rush hour. The caption on this photograph says the strike forced two hundred and fifty thousand people to find another way, and that for most of them it was the car.
R079 BUS STRIKE IN WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, DURING MAY 1974, RESULTED IN 250,000 PEOPLE HAVING TO FIND ALTERNATE METHODS OF TRANSPORTATION, USUALLY THE AUTOMOBILE. MONUMENTAL TRAFFIC JAMS RESULTED THE POLICE DEPARTMENT ALLOWED MOTORISTS TO PARK IN AREAS NORMALLY RESTRICTED. MANY DRIVERS PARKED THEIR CARS IN NORMAL BUS LAMES, ON SIDEWALKS, NEAR FIREPLUGS AND ON THE GRASS. NORMALLY THE CITY HAS 1,800 BUSES ON THE STREET DURING THE MORNING AND EVENING RUSH HOURS
Pickerell · Washington · 1974.05 · DOCUMERICA · U.S. National Archives. View the original.
They parked on sidewalks, on grass, in bus lanes and at fire hydrants. The police stopped writing tickets because there was nowhere legal left to put a car.
Atlanta
R080 PASSENGERS IN ATLANTA, GEORGIA, WAITING FOR THEIR METROPOLITAN ATLANTA RAPID TRANSIT AUTHORITY (MARTA) BUS DURING RUSH HOUR. RIDERSHIP INCREASED 27 PERCENT FROM 1970 TO 1974 WHEN IT REACHED 73,727,000 PASSENGERS. THE INCREASE OCCURRED FOR A NUMBER OF REASONS, INCLUDING NEW BUSES, NEW ROUTES, NIGHT SERVICE 100-PASSENGER WAITING SHELTERS (SEE PHOTO), FRINGE PARKING AND A DECREASE IN FARE FROM 40 TO 15 CENTS
Pickerell · Atlanta · 1974.06 · DOCUMERICA · U.S. National Archives. View the original.
One southern city was going the other way that same year.
R081 METROPOLITAN ATLANTA RAPID TRANSIT AUTHORITY (MARTA) BUSES IN DOWNTOWN ATLANTA, GEORGIA. VOTERS HAVE AUTHORIZED A ONE PERCENT SALES TAX FOR IMPROVING THE TRANSIT SYSTEM. IN 1974 IT BROUGHT IN $53 MILLION. A $1.79 BILLION 53-MILE RAPID RAIL TRANSIT SYSTEM WAS SCHEDULED TO BEGIN CONSTRUCTION IN MAY, 1975, BUT WAS HELD UP BY LEGAL BATTLES. IN 1974 MARTA CARRIED 73,727,000 PASSENGERS, AN INCREASE OF 27 PERCENT FROM 1970 TO 1974
Pickerell · Atlanta · 1974.06 · DOCUMERICA · U.S. National Archives. View the original.
The caption on this one says how. Atlanta's voters had authorized a one percent sales tax for the transit system, and in nineteen seventy-four it brought in fifty-three million dollars.
R082 COMMUTER FRAMED BY A WINDOW ABOARD A METROPOLITAN ATLANTA RAPID TRANSIT AUTHORITY (MARTA) BUS IN ATLANTA, GEORGIA. IN 1974 THE SYSTEM CARRIED 73,727,000 PASSENGERS, AN INCREASE OF 27 PERCENT FROM 1970. ALMOST 90 PERCENT OF THE INCREASE CAME FROM THE PEOPLE WHO HAD NOT RIDDEN THE BUS BEFORE. THEY WERE ATTRACTED BY A COMBINATION OF A FARE DECREASE FROM 40 TO 15 CENTS, NEW BUSES, NEW ROUTES, NIGHT SERVICE, PASSENGER WAITING SHELTERS AND FRINGE PARKING
Pickerell · Atlanta · 1974.06 · DOCUMERICA · U.S. National Archives. View the original.
They spent part of it cutting the fare from forty cents to fifteen.
R083 COMMUTERS ABOARD A METROPOLITAN ATLANTA RAPID TRANSIT AUTHORITY (MARTA) BUS IN ATLANTA, GEORGIA. IN 1974 THE SYSTEM CARRIED 73,727,000 PASSENGERS, AN INCREASE OF 27 PERCENT FROM 1970. ALMOST 90 PERCENT OF THE INCREASE CAME FROM THE SECTOR OF POPULATION WHO HAD NOT RIDDEN THE BUS BEFORE. THEY WERE ATTRACTED BY A COMBINATION OF A FARE DECREASE FROM 40 TO 15 CENTS, NEW BUSES, NEW ROUTES, NIGHT SERVICE, PASSENGER WAITING SHELTERS AND FRINGE PARKING
Pickerell · Atlanta · 1974.06 · DOCUMERICA · U.S. National Archives. View the original.
Ridership went up twenty-seven percent in four years, to seventy-three million, seven hundred and twenty-seven thousand.
R084 COMMUTER STANDS ABOARD A METROPOLITAN ATLANTA RAPID TRANSIT AUTHORITY (MARTA) BUS IN ATLANTA, GEORGIA. IN 1974 THE SYSTEM CARRIED 73,727,000 PASSENGERS, AN INCREASE OF 27 PERCENT FROM 1970 ALMOST 90 PERCENT OF THE INCREASE CAME FROM THE SECTOR OF POPULATION WHO HAD NOT RIDDEN THE BUS BEFORE. THEY WERE ATTRACTED BY A COMBINATION OF A FARE DECREASE FROM 40 TO 15 CENTS, NEW BUSES NEW ROUTES, NIGHT SERVICE, PASSENGER WAITING SHELTERS AND FRINGE PARKING
Pickerell · Atlanta · 1974.06 · DOCUMERICA · U.S. National Archives. View the original.
And the caption adds the part that matters. Almost ninety percent of that increase came from people who had not ridden the bus before.
R085 TIRED PASSENGER RIDING HOME AFTER WORK ON A METROPOLITAN ATLANTA RAPID TRANSIT AUTHORITY (MARTA) BUS IN ATLANTA, GEORGIA. SHE IS ONE OF 73,727,000 PASSENGERS CARRIED BY THE SYSTEM IN 1974, AN INCREASE OF 27 PERCENT FROM 1970. MANY OF THE NEW RIDERS HAD NOT RIDDEN BUSES BEFORE. THEY WERE ATTRACTED BY A FARE DECREASE FROM 40 TO 15 CENTS, NEW BUSES, NEW ROUTES, NIGHT SERVICE, PASSENGER WAITING SHELTERS AND FRINGE PARKING
Pickerell · Atlanta · 1974.06 · DOCUMERICA · U.S. National Archives. View the original.
They were not nostalgic. They were offered something cheap and frequent, and they took it.
R086 Sign at entrance to interurban terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Russell Lee · Oklahoma City, Oklahoma · 1939 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
Nothing in the record says the country decided to stop riding. It stopped being offered the ride, one line at a time, and the table counted what was left.
D05 Sign at entrance to interurban terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Russell Lee · Oklahoma City, Oklahoma · 1939 · Library of Congress · colorized 2026. View the original.
The rails are still under the asphalt on a lot of these streets. If yours has them, you already know.
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of the Census, *Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970*, Bicentennial Edition (1975), Part 2, Chapter Q — Transportation. https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/1975/compendia/hist_stats_colonial-1970/hist_stats_colonial-1970p2-chQ.pdf - Series Q 148–162, *Motor-Vehicle Factory Sales and Registrations* — passenger cars sold from factories, thousands: 1941, 3,779.6 · 1942, 222.8 · 1943, 0.1 · 1944, 0.6 · 1945, 69.5 · 1946, 2,148.6. - The chapter's own note to Q 148–151: "Production of passenger cars was discontinued in February 1942 to economize resources for World War II purposes… The War Production Board authorized resumption of production as of July 1, 1945, but no new cars were actually produced until 1946." - Series Q 235–250, *Public Transit Mileage, Equipment, Passengers, and Passenger Revenue: 1917 to 1970* — total revenue and nonrevenue passengers, millions: 1940, 13,098 · 1941, 14,085 · 1942, 18,000 · 1943, 22,000 · 1944, 23,017 · 1945, 23,254 · 1946, 23,372 (the peak of the series) · 1950, 17,246 · 1960, 9,395 · 1970, 7,332. - Same table, passengers carried by railway, millions — surface: 1940, 5,943 · 1946, 9,027 · 1960, 463 · 1970, 235. Subway and elevated: 1940, 2,382 · 1946, 2,835 · 1970, 1,881. The surface figure falls 97 percent; the subway figure falls about a fifth. That contrast is the episode's argument and it is the table's, not ours. - ⚠️ Attribution matters here. The chapter's source note for Q 235–250 reads: "American Transit Association, *Transit Fact Book*, various annual issues (copyright); *The Transit Industry in the United States, Basic Data and Trends*, 1943 (copyright); mimeographed release on number of passengers, January 3, 1938." The numbers are the trade association's; the Census Bureau republished them. The film says so on screen (scene 69) rather than calling them a government count. - ⚠️ One figure in this table is unusable and is not used. Column 153 (automobile registrations) prints 36,009.0 for 1943, between 27,972.8 for 1942 and 25,566.4 for 1944 — a transposition in the source. Nothing in the film rests on it.
- Russell Lee, streetcar and interurban terminal, Oklahoma City, July 1939.
- Marion Post Wolcott, Mitchell Street, Atlanta, 1939; the Camden–Gee's Bend cable ferry, Alabama, May 1939.
- Walker Evans, ferry landing, Vicksburg, Mississippi, February 1936.
- John Vachon, the Potomac ferry near Sharpsburg, Maryland, May 1939.
- Dorothea Lange, ferry on the Columbia River, October 1939 — caption: "Toll bridges are replacing the ferries which are private enterprises and do not run on schedule."
- Jack Delano, Washington municipal airport, July 1941; the Norfolk–Cape Charles ferry at Little Creek, Virginia, July 1940; streetcars used as housing near Fort Bragg, North Carolina, March 1941.
- Marjory Collins, the Third Avenue elevated and the Second Avenue elevated under demolition, New York, September 1942; the Baltimore Transit Company yard, April 1943.
- Gordon Parks, Union Station, Washington, November 1942.
- Roger Smith, the Office of Defense Transportation's "war wagon trailer," January 1943 — the caption records its dimensions, its wood-and-masonite construction "of non-critical materials," its twenty-four seats against a city bus's forty, and the "stand-sit" seat.
- Esther Bubley, "A Greyhound bus trip from Louisville, Kentucky, to Memphis, Tennessee, and the terminals," September 1943 — the assignment that carries the middle of the film. Named and quoted captions: the sixteen-year-old baggage clerk at Memphis; the girl sent home from Detroit for want of a release; the man on his second trip to Ohio; the sisters who "don't know why" they were sent back; the travelling salesman who "now uses the bus instead of an automobile"; the WAC and the sailor between Memphis and Chattanooga; the farm women shopping at Chattanooga for sons overseas.
- Marc St. Gil, New Orleans streetcar, 1972.
- Erik Calonius, New York subway, May 1973.
- Jim Pickerell, Amtrak at Pennsylvania Station, April 1974 — the caption records Amtrak's 1974 figures: 18,000,000 passengers, up 10 percent; $256.9 million in revenue against a deficit of $272.6 million.
- Yoichi Okamoto, Metro park-and-ride, Springfield, Virginia, March 1973.
- Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, suburban Philadelphia, May 1974.
- The May 1974 Washington bus strike — the captions record 250,000 daily riders forced to find another way, a system that normally ran 1,800 buses at rush hour, and police declining to ticket illegal parking.
- Atlanta, June 1974 — MARTA. Caption figures used on screen: a one percent sales tax authorized by voters, which brought in $53 million in 1974; a fare cut from 40 cents to 15; 73,727,000 passengers carried in 1974, up 27 percent from 1970; and "almost 90 percent of the increase came from the sector of population who had not ridden the bus before." ⚠️ One frame in this assignment (NAID 556793) garbles the fare as "a decrease in the fare from 40 to 50 cents." Six other captions in the same assignment give 40 to 15, and that is the reading used. The garbled frame is not in the film.
- Every caption the narration quotes — ten of them — was checked individually against `loc.gov/pictures` and matched, including the war wagon trailer's dimensions, the sisters "not allowed to take them", the sixteen-year-old baggage clerk's hours, and Lange's toll-bridge sentence. The war wagon caption is quoted on screen almost verbatim.
- 36 of the 67 negatives in the film have had their full caption compared to LOC's record. Zero mismatches.
- The remaining 31 are captions the narration *paraphrases* rather than quotes. loc.gov rate-limits hard (`cf-mitigated: challenge` on sustained access) and the sweep did not finish. Nothing in the film rests on a caption that was not checked.
- All DOCUMERICA captions were pulled in full from the Commons file-page wikitext, not from the atlas's truncated `title` field, precisely because several of them carry the figure the scene turns on in the part that gets cut.