Late modern time-space compression - Time-Space Compression: Historical Geographies - page 147

commercial dirigible industry carried a total of 42,000 passengers before
1914 without a single fatality (Cardwell 1995). By the 1920s, the Germans
designed zeppelins with cruising speeds of 78 mph, as well as passenger ships
(e.g., the Hindenburg ) capable of carrying 1,000 people across the Atlantic.
The rise of modern aviation, of course, owes its origins to the Wright
brothers and their famous flight of December 17, 1903, which covered 120

feet; by 1905, they expanded this distance to 24 miles. Since air travel o

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ered
greater advantages over the oceans than it did compared to railroads, early
expectations centered on aviation's maritime applications. In the 1920s, barn-
stormers made

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flight over land a popular culture phenomenon, introducing
the novelty to masses as yet largely unacquainted with it.
Central to industrial modernity was the quest for speed, indicative of a
culture that sought to push the limits of machine-based transportation. The
glori

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cation of speed—in the railroad, steamboat, automobile, and then air-
plane—re

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ected much more than just a practical need to conquer distance, it
included a constellation of cultural and ideological issues that equated rising
speed with power, progress, status, and wealth. From its invention through
WWI, the airplane became the world's dominant symbol of speed. The aver-
age cruising speeds of airplanes rose steadily, from 45 mph in 1910 to 75 in
1920, 145 in 1930, 220 in 1940, and 500 in 1950 (Ogburn 1946; Sealy 1957). In
addition to mounting speed, airplanes exhibited a steady rise in stage, or
distance traveled without stopping (Table 4.4). In the 1930s, it took a plane
between 15 and 17 hours to

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fly the United States from coast to coast; modern
jets now cross the continent in about

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five hours. Yet air accessibility was as
much a political as technological achievement. For example, the International

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Table 4.4 Maximum aircraft cruising speeds
and distances, 1906-1932

Cruising speed
(mph)

Flight distance
(miles)

1906 23 50

1908 40 100

1910 67 362

1912 67 627

1914 108 880

1916 126 1,890

1918 142 1,890

1920 205 2,734

1922 223 2,734

1924 234 2,734

1926 278 3,313

1928 297 3,911

1930 319 4,900

1932 358 5,100

Source: Navy League Sea and Air Map . 1932. London
Geographical Institute.