Automobile tourism in Argentina (1920-1950)

Abstract

Between the two World Wars Argentina became the Latin American country with the largest number of automobiles. The pleasure trip by car played a leading role in the early auto-mobility, but its characteristics were transformed from the late 1920s and early 1930s, when it was adopted by the middle sectors and became a more predictable and commercialized activity. The spread of motoring in Argentina was almost simultaneous with the development of “national tourism”. The long-term automobile journey was in the beginning a matter of pioneers, generally members of the elite. The novelty of the 1930s and 1940s was that the imperative of knowing the deep Homeland was addressed to the middle sectors and merged with the process of commodification of tourist places. Automobile tourism served both as a vector for the appropriation of key national landscapes, and thus the strengthening of national identity, and as means of reinforcing social and cultural hierarchies.

Keywords:
Auto-mobility; Middle sectors; Tourism automobile