Themes in American History

As a growing industrial center, New York City required increasingly more advanced modes of transportation to accommodate the massive population and demand for goods and services. The Museum of the City of New York exhibits the variety of transportation vehicles, developed in a period of over a century, in the form of toy models. It includes everything from animal-pulled carts to modern automobiles.

Before the days of the Model T Ford, horses operated most wheeled vehicles. Horse carriages served as a leisure way of traveling the city, but a similar carriage also operated as an emergency fire truck. The Museum displays models of early fire “trucks” fully equipped with hoses, hooks, and ladders, all necessary items to put out fires. At first, it required lots of effort from many volunteers at the scene in order to successfully extinguish flame; they all needed to manually pump water from the truck. Eventually, this tough work evolved into a fire department in 1865, consisting of paid workers.

Though not as common as horse-drawn wagons, dog carts were also used to get around. Horse-drawn wagons typically can transport about three people at once and were efficient in delivering goods through long distance. By contrast, dog carts were useful to transport children shorter distances and assist peddlers by lugging around the goods for sale.

By the 1930s, horse-drawn carriages were replaced by larger vehicles that were powered by engines. The Bell Telephone Company Truck was one of the first company trucks to help expand a business. The company was now able to easily navigate the city and repair any damaged telephone wires. In addition, this also helped the planting of underground telephone wires, which were more likely to avoid damage due to weather.

Also around the same time, in 1927, news of Charles A. Lindbergh’s unprecedented flight across the Atlantic Ocean, from New York to Paris, marked a bright future of aircraft. Lindbergh’s plane used in his legendary flight was nicknamed The Spirit of St. Louis to honor his hometown. As his trip demonstrated, cities that are miles apart could suddenly communicate and exchange goods without very long waits. Pretty soon, more airplanes were being built globally, and airports emerged as well.

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