Before NASCAR: The corporate and civic promotion of automobile racing in the American South, 1903-1927

Journal of Southern History

Volumn 68, Issue 3, 2002, Pages 629-668

  Hall, Randal L ^a  

^a WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 21044452518     PISSN: 00224642     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3070161     Document Type: Review

References (115)

1. Rhys Isaac, The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790 (Chapel Hill and London, 1982), 94-104
2. Kenneth S. Greenberg, Honor and Slavery (Princeton, 1996), chap. 5
3. Russell J. Henderson, "The 1963 Mississippi State University Basketball Controversy and the Repeal of the Unwritten Law: 'Something more than the game will be lost,'" Journal of Southern History, 63 (November 1997), 827-54
4. Mary Lou LeCompte and William H. Beezley, "Any Sunday in April: The Rise of Sport in San Antonio and the Hispanic Borderlands," Journal of Sport History, 13 (Summer 1986), 128-46
5. Nancy L. Struna, "The Formalizing of Sport and the Formation of an Elite: The Chesapeake Gentry, 1650-1720s," Journal of Sport History, 13 (Winter 1986), 212-34
6. Pamela Grundy, "Bloomers and Beyond: North Carolina Women's Basketball Uniforms, 1901-1997," Southern Cultures, 3 (Fall 1997), 52-67
7. Andrew Doyle, "Turning the Tide: College Football and Southern Progressivism," Southern Cultures, 3 (Fall 1997), 28-51
8. The author thanks the staffs of the libraries at which he did research for this article, including facilities at Rice University, Wake Forest University, Louisiana State University, Northwestern Louisiana State University, the Fort Worth Public Library, and the Birmingham Public Library. Michele Gillespie, Howell Smith, Pete Daniel, Walter Beeker, and the anonymous referees for the Journal of Southern History generously and helpfully critiqued drafts of this article
9. Jerry Bledsoe, The World's Number One, Flat-Out, All-Time Great, Stock Car Racing Book (Garden City, N.Y., 1975), 49-50
10. New York Times, May 21, 2000, sec. 4, p. 6
11. See also Los Angeles Times, April 29, 1998, Sports, p. 8, for similar comments. In the flurry of expanded news coverage following racer Dale Earnhardt's much-publicized death on the track in February 2001, many writers reiterated the claim that stock-car racing originated with moonshiners
12. See also Samuel C. Hyde Jr., "Introduction: Perspectives on the Common South," in Hyde, ed., Plain Folk of the South Revisited (Baton Rouge and London, 1997), 1-17
13. and Robert G. Hagstrom, The NASCAR Way: The Business That Drives the Sport (New York and other cities, 1998). Neither Chapin nor Hagstrom departs from the belief that stock-car racing, as Hagstrom puts it, "was born in the South, the boisterous legacy of the daredevil moonshine drivers who tore up and down the back roads of Appalachia during the 1930s and 1940s" (p. 21). Hagstrom does offer good insights into the history and present state of NASCAR's business methods, showing a sport driven by "the throb of pure uninhibited capitalism that guarantees to pay only for performance" (p. 17)
14. Dan Pierce draws parallels between Bill France's anti-union vigilance in NASCAR and the leadership style of southern mill owners. Pierce, "The Most Southern Sport on Earth: NASCAR and the Unions," Southern Cultures, 7 (Summer 2001), 8-33
15. One brief academic article in the Journal of Geography in 1974 also acknowledged that "it seems questionable that moonshining has been a significant force in the development of stock car racing . . . ." Richard Pillsbury, "Carolina Thunder: A Geography of Southern Stock Car Racing," reprinted in George O. Carney, ed., Fast Food, Stock Cars, and Rock 'n' Roll: Place and Space in American Pop Culture (Lanham, Md., 1995), 229-38 (quotation on p. 234)
16. See also Pillsbury's 1989 article, "A Mythology at the Brink: Stock Car Racing in the American South," from Sport Place: An International Journal of Sports Geography, also reprinted in Carney, ed., Fast Food, Stock Cars, and Rock 'n' Roll, 239-48
17. David M. Johnson, "Stock Car Racing," in Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris, eds., Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (Chapel Hill and London, 1989), 1241. For a popular book on NASCAR's history that emphasizes moonshiner connections and lower-class appeal in the organization's early years see Bledsoe, World's Number One, Flat-Out, All-Time Great, Stock Car Racing Book
18. See also Sylvia Wilkinson, "Red-Necks on Wheels: The Stock Car Culture," in Louis D. Rubin Jr., ed., The American South: Portrait of a Culture (Baton Rouge and London, 1980), 129-39
19. and Joe Menzer, The Wildest Ride: A History of NASCAR (or How a Bunch of Good Ol' Boys Built a Billion-Dollar Industry out of Wrecking Cars) (New York and other cities, 2001), chap. 2
20. Mark D. Howell, From Moonshine to Madison Avenue: A Cultural History of the NASCAR Winston Cup Series (Bowling Green, Ohio, 1997), esp. chaps. 2, 3, and 6. Howell briefly discusses early race driver Barney Oldfield but mentions the early years of automobile racing in the South only in passing (pp. 83-86). Howell also offers thought-provoking speculations about the role of America's mythology of the West in constructing the image of racers as so-called outlaws
21. Also see Peter Golenbock, American Zoom: Stock Car Racing - from the Dirt Tracks to Daytona (New York and other cities, 1993) for a popular history of NASCAR that balances well the true aspects of the moonshiner, good-old-boy image with the business aspects of the sport
22. Golenbock only begins his coverage with the 1930s, however. More recently, Golenbock acknowledges in passing that cars ran at Daytona early in the century. See Golenbock, The Last Lap: The Life and Times of NASCAR's Legendary Heroes (New York, 1998), 2-3
23. Sports Illustrated Presents 50 Years of NASCAR, 70 (first quotation)
24. Sylvia Wilkinson, Dirt Tracks to Glory: The Early Days of Stock Car Racing as told by the Participants (Chapel Hill, 1983), 21-26 (second quotation on p. 20; third quotation on p. 21)
25. Peter Applebome, Dixie Rising: How the South Is Shaping American Values, Politics, and Culture (New York, 1996)
26. On the idea of the South as a "colonial economy" of the North see C. Vann Woodward, Origins of the New South, 1877-1913 (Baton Rouge, 1951), chap. 11
27. and Howard N. Rabinowitz, The First New South, 1865-1920 (Arlington Heights, Ill., 1992), chap. 1
28. On the reconciliation of the regions at the end of the nineteenth century and the importance of contacts between northerners and southerners during the period, see Gaines M. Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy: Defeat, the Lost Cause, and the Emergence of the New South, 1865 to 1913 (New York and Oxford, 1987), esp. Part Three
29. Dewey W. Grantham, The South in Modern America: A Region at Odds (New York, 1994), chap. 2
30. and Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The "Objectivity Question" and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge, Eng., and other cities, 1988), 72-80
31. David R. Goldfield also contrasts the lackluster postbellum fate of port cities with the growth of Atlanta and other newer towns in Cotton Fields and Skyscrapers: Southern City and Region, 1607-1980 (Baton Rouge and London, 1982), chap. 3. Goldfield touches on regional interaction as well
32. See also Elizabeth Hayes Turner, Women, Culture, and Community: Religion and Reform in Galveston, 1880-1920 (New York and Oxford, 1997), 5-9, for a discussion of Galveston in the context of Doyle's argument
33. On country music's mix of commercial and "folk" sources see Bill C. Malone, Singing Cowboys and Musical Mountaineers: Southern Culture and the Roots of Country Music (Athens, Ga., and London, 1993)
34. This point is particularly important to note since Pete Daniel follows other writers in portraying country music as part of an outlaw culture as well. Daniel argues that "[b]lack and white musicians, stock car drivers, and their fans were on the cutting edge of wildness," yet Malone identifies at least some of country music's roots in tamer soils. Daniel, Lost Revolutions, 93
35. Malone, Singing Cowboys and Musical Mountaineers, chap. 2
36. Dick Punnett, Racing on the Rim: A History of the Annual Automobile Racing Tournaments Held on the Sands of the Ormond-Daytona Beach, Florida, 1903-1910 (Ormond Beach, Fla., 1997), vi-7
37. Automobile, February 7, 1903, pp. 180-81
38. Punnett, Racing on the Rim, 8-14
39. Howard Lawrence Preston, Dirt Roads to Dixie: Accessibility and Modernization in the South, 1885-1935 (Knoxville, 1991), 97
40. Preston, "Tourism, Automobile," in Wilson and Ferris, eds., Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, 1245-47
41. Paul M. Gaston, The New South Creed: A Study in Southern Mythmaking (New York, 1970), chap. 3
42. Akin, Flagler, 200
43. Automobile, February 4, 1905, pp. 208-9
44. Punnett, Racing on the Rim, 72, 100
45. For AAA racing rules see American Automobile Association Contest Board, Official Competition Rules . . . ([New York, 1906]), 6-15
46. New York Times, January 29, 1904, p. 1
47. On the complexities of the good roads movement as part of southern Progressivism see Howard L. Preston, "Good Roads Movement," in Wilson and Ferris, eds., Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, 22-23
48. Preston, Dirt Roads to Dixie, chaps. 1 and 2
49. and Dewey W. Grantham, Southern Progressivism: The Reconciliation of Progress and Tradition (Knoxville, 1983), 307-10. Three of many more recent examples of linking politics and racing include President Ronald Reagan attending a 1984 race at Daytona, President George Bush attending in 1992, and presidential candidate George W. Bush attending a race there in 2000
50. Tom Higgins, NASCAR Greatest Races: The 25 Most Thrilling Races in NASCAR History (New York, 1999), 26-29
51. Tampa Tribune, July 2, 2000, Sports, p. 1
52. Automobile, February 1, 1906, pp. 271, 276
53. Punnett, Racing on the Rim, 53-54 (quotations on p. 53)
54. Doyle, "Turning the Tide," 38
55. For examples of the extensive literature discussing women in the Progressive movement see Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore, Gender and Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina, 1896-1920 (Chapel Hill and London, 1996)
56. Marjorie Spruill Wheeler, New Women of the New South: The Leaders of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the Southern States (New York and Oxford, 1993)
57. and John Patrick McDowell, The Social Gospel in the South: The Woman's Home Mission Movement in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 1886-1939 (Baton Rouge and London, 1982)
58. Punnett, Racing on the Rim, 7, 12, 28, and 35
59. New York Times, February 17, 1908, p. 5 (quotation)
60. Wagner, Saga of the Roaring Road, 91-98
61. Horseless Age, August 26, 1903, pp. 229-30
62. Punnett, Racing on the Rim, 18, 36 (quotation)
63. Edward L. Ayers has some discussion of the feelings generated by railroads in The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction (New York and Oxford, 1992), 10-13
64. On the Vanderbilt Cup races see also Chris Sinsabaugh, Who, Me? Forty Years of Automobile History (Detroit, 1940), chap. 14
65. Quattlebaum, Great Savannah Races, 11-17
66. On the use of convicts in building roads in Georgia see Alex Lichtenstein, "Good Roads and Chain Gangs in the Progressive South: The Negro Convict is a Slave,'" Journal of Southern History, 59 (February 1993), 85-110
67. On southerners, violence, and the military see Jack Temple Kirby, Darkness at the Dawning: Race and Reform in the Progressive South (Philadelphia, New York, and Toronto, 1972), 32-35
68. Woodward, Origins of the New South, 158-60
69. Ayers, Promise of the New South, 153-59
70. Rod Andrew Jr., "Soldiers, Christians, and Patriots: The Lost Cause and Southern Military Schools, 1865-1915," Journal of Southern History, 64 (November 1998), 677-710
71. and John Hawkins Napier III, "Military Tradition," 641-43
72. and Robert E. May, "Fighting South," 1107-8, both in Wilson and Ferris, eds., Encyclopedia of Southern Culture
73. Preston, Dirt Roads to Dixie, 97, 101
74. and Punnett, Racing on the Rim, and Quattlebaum, Great Savannah Races, for various photographs that provide glimpses of fans and grandstands
75. Quattlebaum, Great Savannah Races, details the names of many drivers and the makes of their automobiles. Robert Arthur Cutter and Bob Fendell, The Encyclopedia of Auto Racing Greats (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1973) is another good source of information on early drivers and their varied (and sometimes privileged) backgrounds
76. New Orleans Daily Picayune, February 5, 1910, p. 6
77. Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Honor and Violence in the Old South (New York and Oxford, 1986), 131-42
78. and Dale A. Somers, The Rise of Sports in New Orleans, 1850-1900 (Baton Rouge, 1972), 24-37, 91-114
79. Galveston Daily News, August 1, 1909, p. 16
80. On the rebuilding of Galveston and on the city during the Progressive era see Turner, Women, Culture, and Community
81. Patricia Bellis Bixel, "Working the Waterfront on Film: Commercial Photography and Community Studies" (Ph.D. dissertation, Rice University, 1997)
82. David E. Nye, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880-1940 (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1990)
83. Alan Trachtenberg, The Incorporation of America: Culture and Society in the Gilded Age (New York, 1982), esp. chap. 2
84. Thomas Parke Hughes, American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm, 1890-1970 (New York and other cities, 1989)
85. Galveston Daily News, August 4, 1910, p. 1. One day of the carnival's races also coincided with a special theme day for American Indians at the carnival. A Galveston paper reported condescendingly that Indians had come "in hundreds to the carnival of the paleface, anxious to exchange their strings of wampum for a ticket to the big carnival tepee, or for a good seat from which to see the devil wagons speed past."
86. Preston, Dirt Roads to Dixie, 45, 103
87. Preston, "Tourism, Automobile," 1246
88. Preston, "Good Roads Movement," 23
89. See also Karsten Hülsemann, "Greenfields in the Heart of Dixie: How the American Auto Industry Discovered the South," in Philip Scranton, ed., The Second Wave: Southern Industrialization from the 1940s to the 1970s (Athens, Ga., and London, 2001), 219-54
90. Charlotte Observer, November 12, 1909, p. 3 (first quotation)
91. On Atlanta's importance in the New South movement see Goldfield, Cotton Fields and Skyscrapers, 118-22
92. and Doyle, New Men, New Cities, New South, chap. 6
93. Lichtenstein, "Good Roads and Chain Gangs," 86-90
94. and George Brown Tindall, The Emergence of the New South, 1913-1945 (Baton Rouge, 1967), 254-58
95. Memphis Commercial Appeal, July 6, 1913, p. 16
96. Dick Wallen, Board Track: Guts, Gold and Glory (Nokomis, Fla., 1990), 48-60, 155-73, 300-306, 335-44, 363-67
97. Peter De Paolo, Wall Smacker: The Saga of the Speedway (Cleveland, Ohio, and Pittsburgh, Pa., 1935), 261 (first quotation), 148 (second quotation). For De Paolo's perspective on the various races at the three southern tracks see pp. 148-51, 157-58, 180-82, 186-87, 189-94, 196, 202-3, and 237
98. On his NASCAR involvement see Golenbock, Last Lap, 33-35 and 116-17
99. and Golenbock, American Zoom, 23
100. Wallen, Board Track, 300-306
101. Robert E. Ireland, Entering the Auto Age: The Early Automobile in North Carolina, 1900-1930 (Raleigh, N.C., 1990), 49-50
102. LeGette Blythe and Charles Raven Brockmann, Hornets' Nest: The Story of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County (Charlotte, N.C., 1961), 263, 300-301, 305, and 436
103. A feature on the original track can be found in the Charlotte Observer, May 23, 1992, pp. A1, A6
104. Also see Greg Fielden, Charlotte Motor Speedway (Osceola, Wisc., 2000), 15
105. Charlotte Observer, May 10, 1925, p. B2
106. Charlotte Observer, October 25, 1924, p. 7
107. Charlotte Observer, May 1, 1926, p. 5
108. For more on the importance of WBT see Pamela Grundy, "From Il Trovatore to the Crazy Mountaineers: The Rise and Fall of Elevated Culture on WBT-Charlotte, 1922-1930," Southern Cultures, 1 (Fall 1994), 51-73
109. and Grundy, "'We Always Tried to Be Good People': Respectability, Crazy Water Crystals, and Hillbilly Music on the Air, 1933-1935," Journal of American History, 81 (March 1995), 1591-620
110. De Paolo, Wall Smacker, 158
111. On broad cultural trends see Trachtenberg, Incorporation of America
112. and T. J. Jackson Lears, No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880-1920 (New York, 1981; reprint, Chicago and London, 1994), chap. 1 (quotations on p. 58)
113. On northern development of mass culture and its effect of bringing together disparate groups see, for example, Roy Rosenzweig, Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870-1920 (Cambridge, Eng., and other cities, 1983), esp. chap. 8
114. Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939 (Cambridge, Eng., and other cities, 1990), chap. 3
115. and Lewis A. Erenberg, Steppin' Out: New York Nightlife and the Transformation of American Culture, 1890-1930 (Westport, Conn., and London, 1981)