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Though it was railroads that joined the eastern and western United States into one country, it was the automobile — as much as anything — that gave the nation a common culture in which freedom and independence seemed to take a place behind every steering wheel.
Americans are drawn to events like the Chicago Auto Show, pictured here, which celebrate their car culture and display the newest vehicles in which to search, increasingly futilely, for the road less taken. Visitors inhale the exhilarating new-car smell, feel comforted by the solid-sounding slam of doors and sense the shared, auto-related aspirations and memories of this nation of strivers and drivers.