This Was Trucking

Until the early part of the twentieth century, hauling bulk goods locally was done by horse or ox cart. While they were sturdy and fairly dependable, an enormous amount of land was used for nothing other than raising fodder for the animals. Furthermore, they were slow, left residue in the streets, attracted an enormous number of flies and occasionally dropped dead in the streets. While motorized vehicles left a different kind of residue, they were much faster, broke down but did not tire, could pull enormous weights relative to live teams and millions of acres did not have to be reserved for growing their feed. To even the most simple of economists, it was obvious that the truck would replace the animal and in roughly two decades centuries of tradition was overthrown due to the increased efficiency. This book, using text and a large number of vintage photographs, describes this transition. While the text is interesting, the primary attraction is the large number of images of the early trucks, their handlers and their loads. To the modern eye, the designs are extremely primitive, yet it was a time of trial-and-error innovation, centuries of tradition cannot be overturned in a few months. Errors are a part of the adoption of new technologies and the trucks you see in these images were more efficient than they appear. This is an attractive book for people interested in the history of motor transport, the men and machines depicted here were tough, in many cases the men more than the machines. It was a time of enormous innovation and technical experimentation and the author captures it very well.

I bought this book for my BF, and its a cute book with images and fun facts about the trucking industry.