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WOMEN HAVE LONG CONSIDERED THE AUTOMOBILE A STEPPING stone to independence and mobility. As women challenged the gendered limits of the public sphere by owning, driving, and delighting in the freedom of the automobile, they asserted at the same time their influence in the masculine domain of automobile technology and culture through consumerism. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, increasing numbers of women purchased automobiles, and expanded not only their geographical and social mobility but also their technological knowledge as they became informed consumers of the products marketed by companies such as Standard oil, Sunoco, Texaco, and Shell. These companies were quick to capitalize on this new market. Catering to the demands of women, oil companies and service station owners retailored their buildings, products, and management techniques to accommodate this growing demand, legitimizing women as key consumers in automobile culture.
No group was more influential than women in transforming service stations from simple refueling posts to expressions of domestic distinction. From decidedly feminine displays of tires, batteries, and accessories in curtained shop windows to ornate flower gardens and restrooms that reflected the gospel of cleanliness, service station owners responded to the growing number of women drivers by changing the way that they approached their operation and presentation (Mainpa, "Five" 26). Advertising campaigns, industry journals, and architectural blueprints suggest the influence women held on the male sphere of automobility. Journalist and political philosopher Samuel Strauss, writing in the 1930s, stated in his essay on "Consumptionism" that "the problem before us today is not how to produce the goods, but how to produce the customers" (Leach 268). oil companies and service station owners answered the demands of the woman driver, creating a new consumer who was informed and educated to the needs of her automobile. In this reciprocal relationship, oil companies and service stations profited from the increased sales and consumption of gasoline and automobile accessories, and women, as consumers of these goods, benefited from buying power and authority within the public space that automobility offered.
The advent of the automobile at the turn of the century gave women the means to move outside the confines of the home and into the boundless countryside (Scharff 13). The opportunity to drive came first to women of wealth and status....