The Revolution of Everyday Life, Chapter 3

Summary of Chapter 3: Isolation

The chapter is bookended by two quotes in Spanish, the first from the poem Reportaje by Jose Hierro, and the last from Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry.

Vaneigem’s chapter summary:

All we have in common is the illusion of being together. And the only resistance to the illusions of the permitted painkillers come from the collective desire to destroy isolation (1). Impersonal relationships are the no-man’s-land of isolation. By producing isolation, contemporary social organisation signs its own death sentence (2). (38)

He presents the [spectacle] through the parable of a cage with an open door, but which no one leaves:

For inside this cage, in which they had been born and in which they would die, the only tolerable framework of experience was the Real, which was simply an irresistible instinct to act so that things should have importance. Only if things had some importance could one breathe, and suffer.

[It would be interesting to explore Vanegeim’s usage of “the Real” here, with that of Baudrillard, Lacan, Zizek, etc.; however, he never returns to it.]

Public transportation in the [carceral archipelago]:

On public transport, which throws them against one another with statistical indifference, people assume an unbearable expression of mixed disillusion, pride and contempt – an expression much like the natural effect of death on a toothless mouth. The atmosphere of false communica­tion makes everyone the policeman of his own encounters. The instincts of flight and aggression trail the knights of wage-labour, who must now rely on subways and suburban trains for their pitiful wanderings. (39)

We have nothing in common except the illusion of being together. Certainly the seeds of an authentic collective life are lying dormant within the illusion itself - there is no illusion without a real basis - but real community remains to be created.

Everywhere neon signs are flashing out the dictum of Plotinus: All beings are together though each remains separate. But we only need to hold out our hands and touch one another, to raise our eyes and meet one another, and everything suddenly becomes near and far, as if by magic. (40)

[Plotinus, of course, meant something completely different, that beings all can be grasped distinctly, but are derived from the One. Nevertheless, the shared appeal to a deeper, more-real, yet hidden reality, is, imho, among situationalism’s chief limitations.]

Much as with the previous chapter on humiliation (and with which this forms part of a series of four chapters), V celebrates everyday, petty forms of resistance, as well as more desperate and destructive measures, as signs of potential of a deeper, more authentic revolutionary urge. For instance, he gives the example of a drunk smashing a bottle in a bar; no one responds to the spirit of insurrection underlying this:

People will be together only in a common wretchedness as long as each isolated being refuses to understand that a gesture of liberation, however weak and clumsy it may be, always bears an authentic communication, an adequate personal message.

On love, similarly:

Some of us have fallen in love with the pleasure of loving without reserve – passionately enough to offer our love the magnificent bed of a revolution. (41)

He quotes approvingly a sixteen-year-old murderer who gave boredom as his motive:

Anyone who has felt the drive to self-destruction welling up inside him knows with what weary negligence he might one day happen to kill the organisers of his boredom. (42-3)

After all, if an individual refuses both to adapt to the violence of world and to embrace the violence of the unadapted, what can he do? If he doesn't raise his desire to achieve unity with the world and with himself to level of coherent theory and practice, the vast silence of society’s open spaces will erect the palace of solipsist madness around him.

 

Labor and Monopoly Capital, Chapter 12

 

Summary of Chapter 12: The Modern Corporation

The first of the forces transforming modern capitalism which Braverman will discuss is the modern monopolist corporation, and how it has been formed by the concentration and centralization of capital in fewer hands. Before the invention of the modern corporation form, capitalist enterprises were limited by the scale of the “personal fortunes and personal capabilities” of individual capitalists (179).

It is only in the monopoly period that these limits are overcome, or at least immensely broadened and detached from the personal wealth and capacities of individuals.

This makes vast amounts of wealth available (from stockholders, etc.), and largely replaces the individual owner with a “specialized management staff.” “Owner” and “manager” are two aspects of the ruling capitalist class; “as a rule, top managers are not capital-less individuals, nor are owners of capital necessarily inactive in management. But in each enterprise the direct and personal unity between the two is ruptured.” The limiting personal form of the past has been replaced with an institutional form. The existence of a managerial element within the ruling class gives an opening for those from lower classes to rise by virtue of ability, through “a process of selection... having to do with such qualities as aggressiveness and ruthlessness, organizational proficiency and drive, technical insight, and especially marketing talent” (180), which abilities are co-opted by the capitalist organization; nevertheless, managers are usually drawn from within the ranks of the ruling class.

B discusses the large number of jobs which go by “manager” in the census, most of these are much lower positions than the ones he is talking about. The expansion of upper management corresponds with a great expansion in scale and also diversity of departments in modern capitalist enterprise vs earlier family-run firms.

However, this emergence of management as a part of the corporation is perhaps outstripped in importance by the role of marketing. B traces the development of transportation networks which allowed corporate products to reshape city life: “cities were released from their dependence on local supplies and made part of an international market” (182). The food industry (e.g. Gustavus Swift’s refrigerator railroad cars) played an important trailblazing role: “the industrialization of the food industry provided the indispensable basis of the type of urban life that was being created;” this industry was also important for developing the “marketing structure” of modern corporations. Specialty and electrical equipment need not only distribution but maintenance and service available in urban markets, this affects corporate structure and marketing network; example, auto industry.

Finance is discussed as another important division; subdivisions are formed within these divisions, because each division may require its own accounting division, personnel, etc. “Thus each corporate division takes on the characteristics of a separate enterprise, with its own management staff” (183). This is made yet more complex by vertical and horizontal integration. This “pyramiding” in turn creates a need for decentralization, resulting in the “modern decentralized corporate structure” of the 1920s through Braverman’s day. Each division is relatively self-governing and contributes to the corporation as a whole.

From this brief sketch of the development of the modem corporation, three important aspects may be singled out as having great consequences for the occupational structure. The first has to do with marketing, the second with the structure of management, and the third with the function of social coordination now exercised by the corporation. (184)

1. Marketing

Marketing becomes of great importance as a means of reducing uncertainty in business, by inducing demand. Braverman quotes Thorstein Veblen extensively on the “fabrication of customers” (185). Marketing also reshapes manufacturing, with styling, design, and packaging, as well as planned obsolescence and the idea of a “product cycle: the attempt to gear consumer needs to the needs of production instead of the other way around.”

2. Change in overall structure of management

The proliferation of divisions represent the “dismemberment of the functions of the enterprise head;” each takes over “in greatly expanded form a single duty which he exercised with very little assistance in the past. Corresponding to each of these duties there is not just a single manager, but an entire operating department which imitates in its organization and its function­ing the factory out of which it grew. … Thus the relations of purchase and sale of labor power, and hence of alienated labor, has become part of the management apparatus itself.” (185-6)

This means we can now look at labor relations, and exploitation, within this realm of “management:”

Management has become administration, which is a labor process conducted for the purpose of control within the corporation, and conducted moreover as a labor process exactly analogous to the process of production, although it produces no product other than the operation and coordination of the corporation. From this point on, to examine management means also to examine this labor process, which contains the same antagonistic relations as are contained in the process of production. (186)

3. The corporate function of social coordination.

The complex division of labor which has emerged with modern capitalism comes with an increased need for “social coordination” or planning. Because our society resists the rational emergence of this, it is left to corporations to play much of the role of social planning in our society. This is irrational, because corporate planning is limited to seeking returns on capital, at the expense of all other motivations. [This is the same argument made today by the “planned degrowth” school.] As long as the corporations play such a huge role in investment, and control of resources, personnel, etc., government in fact plays a secondary role in social planning, filling “the interstices left by these prime decisions” 187).

June 9, 1860: The First Automobile in San Francisco

And on that same date: the first automobile accident in San Francisco

Sectional elevation of Barran's road locomotive, from The Practical Mechanic's Journal, September 1, 1860. This vehicle weighed eleven tons and required two operators, one steering in front, and one in back controlling the engine. (archive.org).

At 11:30 Saturday morning, June 9th, 1860, an automobile—a steam traction engine, or “steam wagon”—embarked on a test journey through San Francisco’s streets. Imported from Leeds, England, and weighing eleven tons, including its necessary water and fuel, it looked “much like a locomotive,” with four rear wheels seven feet in diameter, each with seven-inch wide tires. With an engineer in back controlling the engine, and a “pilot or helmsman” steering in the front, along with a number of (literal) hangers-on, the machine exited the Vulcan Foundry on First street in San Francisco’s industrial district, headed over to the Howard street plank-road, and chugged off to Mission Dolores, arriving in a mere three-quarters of an hour. A Daily Alta California reporter, one of the riders, breathlessly recounted that

the fuel consumed on the outward, as well as the homeward trip, was inconsiderable—a single bag of coal and a few armsfull of firewood sufficing. About two hundred and fifty gallons of water was all that was requisite for the boiler. (Daily Alta California 6/10/1860)

On the return trip, a few stops had to be made, “inasmuch as bolts, nuts and screws had to be tightened, the machinery being new, and heretofore untried.” Back in the city, the steam wagon took a victory lap through downtown, where “throngs of persons, of all ages and both sexes, crowded the streets, and expressed astonishment at the huge machine.” It then returned to south of Market, where history was made yet again—this time, with San Francisco’s first automobile accident.

This 1865 photo by Lawrence & Houseworth shows the incline on First street between Folsom and Harrison, where San Francisco's first automobile accident took place. (Online Archive of California)

Despite the general enthusiasm of the crowds, the steam wagon had encountered some hostility on its trip through the city from several drivers of horse-drawn vehicles, for instance from a bus driver who “kept the middle of the street, refusing to let the engine pass.” While the wagon was descending the steep incline of First street, from Harrison towards Folsom, the driver of a brick cart, coming up the hill and thus having the right-of-way, refused to turn aside for the ponderous locomotive. The Alta reporter described the ensuing crash:

the steersman motioned to the driver to turn out, but he shook his head and positively refused, keeping the middle of the street, and it was with great difficulty that a serious collision was avoided; as it was, there was a slight concussion which sent the bricks flying ten feet in the air.

This “slight concussion”—which sent bricks flying ten feet—appears to have been the first recorded automobile accident in San Francisco (and, possibly, in the United States). The driver of the brick cart did have the right of way, though it seems a bit reckless to have insisted on this technicality when facing down an eleven-ton, barely steerable monstrosity. In any event, the promoters of the steam wagon—much like those of autonomous vehicles today—blamed the accident on the stubbornness of old-fashioned drivers and old-fashioned technology, the Alta even threatening that

if any more gentlemen, driving brick carts, undertake to block the way, they must take the consequences, and if iron and steam gain the day, it will be a fair fight—the hardest stands the best chance of winning.

After giving up on "road locomotives," the Vulcan foundry had more success with regular rail locomotives, such as the Calistoga, produced for the Napa Valley Rail Road in May 1867. (progress-is-fine.blogspot.com)

Another demonstration of the steam wagon was made four days later, when a more skeptical reporter for the Bulletin noted that the start was delayed for over an hour while the engine “got up steam.” It finally departed the Vulcan yard after noon:

To get into the street, from the yard where it stood, the machine had to start directly up a sharp ascent. As soon as the steam was turned on, up it came, without hesitation or demur—making a scream or two, and a contemptuous puff at the difficulty. It then ran rapidly up First street towards Rincon Hill; ascended that street as far as Folsom, though the grade is pretty severe; turned round with ease, and came slowly back to its point of starting and there turned round and backed up its load, consisting of a train of freighted trucks. (Daily Evening Bulletin, 6/13/1860)

These trucks were loaded with pig iron, in order to test the engine’s strength. As soon as they were attached,

there was a scramble among the people to get standing room on the trucks. Not one inch was left unoccupied—and some men and boys were even hanging on to the axles and sides of the conveyance. The Engineer moved his lever, and the wagon started off boldly, and though it evidently felt the immense load—which must have been near 50 tons—it moved along briskly enough for a short way. Then the wheels of the iron laden truck sunk down through the cobble pavement, and soon a heap of sand and stones were piled up in front of those wheels.

The trucks had to be taken off, and the train reassembled some blocks away on the plank road, which was able to support the weight. After pulling the trucks successfully, the locomotive was hitched to a fully-loaded omnibus, which it dragged along at eight miles an hour. The Alta reporter pronounced it a success, while the Bulletin dissented, “for the present, we do not believe that the steam will run horses and mules off of our common roads.”

No collisions were reported during this second trip; however, some houses caught fire on Third street soon after the wagon passed, and some witnesses “averred with great positiveness that it was kindled by a spark from the chimney of the Steam Wagon, but by others this is denied.”

The story of this vehicle, marking San Francisco’s entry into the automotive era, has some resonance with our own time, as autonomous vehicles promise to bring us into a new, third age of the carriage. Although the design of horseless carriages had still to improve dramatically before they would be able to operate effectively in the city, we can already glimpse, with the Vulcan steam wagon, how the city would, in turn, be transformed to accommodate the automobile. Cobble-stone pavement—and even the sturdier planking—would be replaced with asphalt; and rules of street behavior and movement would be rewritten, to prioritize the needs of the heavier, faster vehicles of the auto age.

Ogden & Wilson hoped to sell many more road locomotives, but this was not to be. (Sacramento Daily Union, 1/30/1860).

The fate of the Vulcan steam wagon

Ogden & Wilson, the owners of the Vulcan Iron Works, had caught the auto bug a year earlier, when Wilson, travelling in Europe, had seen an exhbition of Joseph Barran’s new traction engine prototype. He excitedly ordered an engine of this design manufactured, by the Leeds firm of Joseph Witham and Son, and shipped to San Francisco, where it was assembled in the Vulcan foundry. Ogden & Wilson clearly imagined a great future for their import, advertising themselves as “sole agents for the sale of Barran’s Patent Traction Road Locomotive.”

These “road locomotives” were not, in fact, intended for urban use, but for hauling resources extracted from the hinterland, over terrain that animals found difficult. The engine imported from Leeds had been promised to a silver mine in Patagonia, Arizona; another engine, to be built by Vulcan on the same model, was to be sent to the Russian River to haul timber for Alexander Duncan (after whom Duncans Mills is named). This second engine, however, never seems to have been built, and at some point the Patagonia silver mine backed out of the deal for the Leeds engine, which was instead sold to Phineas Banning, impresario of the growing port at San Pedro.

If Banning's name sounds familiar, it is probably because of these dinosaurs near Banning, CA. (Wikimedia)

Banning was a showman, and seems to have bought the steam-wagon as much as a publicity stunt, as for the practical purposes of hauling freight from the port to Los Angeles. Harris Newmark, writing fifty years later, recalled the excitement with which Angeleños greeted the news that “The steam-wagon has arrived at San Pedro!” and how they waited, “anxiously, hourly, expecting to see Major Banning heave in sight at the foot of Main Street” in his road locomotive. The enthusiasm was finally punctured with a sad report from San Pedro:

The steam-wagon, we regret to learn, has at last proved a total failure. It was freighted at San Pedro, and on Wednesday morning of this week, set in motion for Los Angeles. The failure took place on the first piece of sandy road encountered. (Los Angeles News, 8/3/1860)

Bannings' base of operations at Wilmington harbor, San Pedro, in 1860. The steam wagon became stuck in the sand only a short distance along the eighteen-mile road to Los Angeles. (California State Library)

In the media, the steam wagon became an object of state-wide ridicule, stranded in the sand near San Pedro. One more attempt appears to have been made to put the engine to use, in the service of agriculture in San Joaquin county; this, however, turned out also to be a failure. In October, 1861, the engine was shipped back to San Francisco and to the Vulcan foundry for a last time, its most likely fate to be scrapped, and its parts used for other machinery.

The Oregon Pony, the oldest West-Coast-built locomotive engine, was manufactured by the Vulcan Iron Works in 1862 for service in Oregon. It can still be seen at the Cascade Locks Historical Museum.

See also:

San Francisco's Early Jitneys
A History of San Francisco's Cab Industry, in Advertisements
How Ludwig van Beethoven Invented the Taximeter
1906: SPEED MADNESS on the Corbett Road!

A Bus Ride from North Beach to South Park in 1857

The route of the North Beach to South Park omnibus is superimposed on a 1858 US Coast Survey map of San Francisco (courtesy of Wikipedia). In 1858, 16 horse-drawn omnibuses, working for two competing companies, carried 2,400 passengers a day along this route.

This description of the sights and sounds of an omnibus ride from North Beach to South Park in 1857 was written by H.L.N., a contributor to Hutching's Illustrated California Magazine. It makes an interesting pair with the more philosophical description of a similar ride from 1859 which I posted last month.

An omnibus waiting for passengers at the Plaza. Detail of a photograph from G.R. Fardon's San Francisco Album (Bancroft)

AN OMNIBUS RIDE.

Jump in — only a shilling from North Beach to Rincon Point — the whole length of the city: twelve tickets for a dollar. Gentlemen, jump in — make way for the ladies — and, bless me! do crowd closer for the babies. One, two, three, four! actually seven of these dear little humanities. Here we go, right through Stockton Street. Four years ago this was one long level of mud in the rainy season — not such a luxury as an omnibus thought of. Tramp went the pedestrian the length and breadth thereof, thankful for side-walks. But now note the handsome private residences, the neat flower gardens, the fruit stands, the elegant stores in Virginia Block, the display in the windows both sides the way — dry goods, toys, stationery, tin ware, &c, &c.

The Cobweb Palace at the foot of Meiggs' Wharf, near where the omnibus started. (Bancroft)

But let us get in at the starting point. Leaving the promenade which makes Meiggs' wharf so pleasant of a summer morning, we step into one of the coaches, which are ready every eight minutes, according to the advertisement; run along Powell street a few squares, catching glimpses here and there of the greatest variety of architecture in the residences, and remarking upon the neatness of those recently erected; thence down a square into Stockton street, where the attention is distracted between the outside prospect and the protection of one's own limbs from the fearful thumping into divers holes which the ponderous vehicle encounters every few minutes.

Steady now — we have passed the worst part, and there is the State Marine Hospital, — quite a respectable amount of brick and mortar, patched at the rear with appurtenances of lumber, and which in its time has used up more "appropriations" than would comfortably have supported three times the number of sick within its walls. It is at present in the hands of the Sisters of Mercy.

Passengers in a London omnibus, by William May Egley, 1859. (Tate Gallery)

There! make room for the lady in hoops! only a shilling for all that whalebone! so now — let out the thin spare man, he fears suffocation — and the nervous gentleman too wants to alight; that baby has whooping cough, and annoys him. Poor bachelor! he cannot begin to comprehend infantile graces, and he votes the whole race a bore; while glancing satirically at the lady, he observes to his friend, the spare man, “Poor little sufferer, how it hoops.”

Stockton street, from Fardon's 1856 San Francisco Album (Bancroft)

Rows of pretty cottages on one side the street — handsome brick buildings on the other — and at the corner of Stockton and Washington, a private garden laid out with exquisite taste and neatness. A refreshing fountain sends its spray over the blossoms of the sweet roses and verbena, while the graceful malva trees stand sentinel at the gateway. Only a passing glance, however, for the turn is accomplished, and down Washington street to Montgomery is generally a pretty rapid descent.

The Plaza (Portsmouth Square) in 1856, looking towards Washington street, along which the omnibus would have passed. (San Francisco Public Library)

That is a family market near the corner of Washington — quite convenient these — the nicest of vegetables, the best of meats, procurable at market prices. We up-towners could scarcely dispense with them. Past the Plaza — how well I remember that formerly as a receptacle for old clothes, cast off boots and shoes, cans, bottles, crockery ware, skeleton specimens of the feline race — dogs who had had their day — rats whose race was run, and various other abominations; but a treasure heap to the rag pickers, or bottle venders, who in those days were not. But now the Plaza has been smoothed into shape, and if the green things within its borders are perfected by sun and rain, it may yet flourish into grace and beauty.

Montgomery street, featuring the Montgomery Block, from Fardon's (1856) San Francisco Album (Wikipedia).

Montgomery street — look down the long avenue. Where can be found more substantial edifices? more elegant stores? a gayer promenade? Handsomely dressed ladies — gentlemen of business — gentlemen of leisure — mechanics — laborers — children— thronging the side-walks; glitter, and show, and wealth in the windows; equipages, omnibusses, horsemen, in the streets. Hundreds of human beings passing and repassing in an hour, and from almost every nation under heaven.

Montgomery Street, from Fardon's 1856 San Francisco Album (Bancroft)

The Frenchman with his “bon soir” greets you; the Spaniard and Italian, the Chinese, German, Mexican. The rose, the thistle, and shamrock [i.e. England, Scotland, and Ireland] have each their representatives, and beside these many others born in remote regions are congregated in this great thoroughfare of cities.

The view up Second street from Rincon Hill towards Market; from Fardon's 1856 San Francisco Album (Bancroft).

Past the fancifully arranged drugstores; past the tempting exhibitions of jewelry; past the attractive displays of dry goods, book and stationery establishments, banking houses, express buildings, lawyers’ offices, and here we are, turning into Second street. Whirling by the Metropolitan market, we drive down as far as Folsom street, and observe that the neat cottages in this part of the city have a more rural aspect than those in locations nearer to business. A tree is seen here and there, and vines clamber over the porches, and droop over the windows. At the corner of Second and Folsom a garden in luxurious bloom refreshes the sight, and the questioning stranger in the 'bus is informed that the house and grounds were formerly owned, and were the residence of the late Captain Folsom, whose remains now lie in Lone Mountain Cemetery.

The waterfront, viewed from Second and Folsom; from Fardon's 1856 San Francisco Album (SFMOMA).

Adjoining this, on Folsom street, is another stately private residence — another lovely garden, where luxuriant flower growths may be seen at almost any season of the year. Nearly opposite is Hawthorne street. Ah! what associations of “Seven Gabled Houses” are connected with that name. But the eye rests upon none such — only a line of pretty cottages are peeped at ere we are driven past into Third street.

A Daily Alta California ad for one of the two omnibus companies in San Francisco (California Digital Newspaper Collection).

Another long avenue — grocery, dry goods, fruit, market — ever-recurring reminders that humanity has numberless wants, and that, for a golden boon, the supply is always equal to the demand. There are few handsome residences on Third, but many comfortable looking ones.

South Park looking west, from Fardon's 1856 San Francisco Album (SFMOMA).

South Park — a passenger stops. There is a homelike appearance in this solitary row of uniform houses, charming to one who recalls images of long streets, whose “white marble steps” have no parallel in San Francisco. But beyond us is Rincon Point — and in view of the blue waters, the omnibus stops. Nurses and babies alight, and the inquiring passenger strolls, where? Perhaps I may tell you in my next.

By the early 1860s, the omnibus line had been replaced by horse-drawn streetcars such as this one (San Francisco Public Library).

For more on the history of San Francisco transit, see San Francisco's Transportation Octopus.

See Also:

A Bus Ride through San Francisco in 1859
A New York City Cab Ride in 1840
Streetcar Wars of San Francisco History, Vol. III
The Jitney Stand at 18th and Castro in 1915
A History of San Francisco's Cab Industry, in Advertisements

Digital Platforms, Porosity, and Panorama

I published an article in the Platform Surveillance issue of Surveillance & Society back in March, but was so busy at the time that I neglected to post it here. Here is the abstract and link to the full text online:

https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/view/12937

The concept of porosity, developed by Walter Benjamin and Asja Lacis, is proposed as a useful concept for examining the political, social, and economic impacts of digital platform surveillance on social space. As a means of characterizing and comparing how interconnected spaces are shaped through a diversity of interfaces, porosity bypasses a simplistic distinction between analog and digital technologies without losing sight of the actual material affordances, social and surveillance practices, and politics that these differing and interacting technologies enable. As part of Benjamin’s project of uncovering the tension between the present and the utopian visions that capitalism repeatedly invokes through new technologies, an attention to the politics of porosity can situate the effects of digital platforms within the ongoing history of struggle over the production and experience of urban space.

A Bus Ride through San Francisco in 1859

A "Yellow Line" omnibus in front of Gilbert's Melodeon at Clay and Kearny, about 1860. Detail of a photo held by the Bancroft (Online Archive of California)

The horse-drawn omnibus was the first form of mass transit through the streets of San Francisco. This description was written by "The Dictator at the Dessert," a somewhat pompous columnist for the Hesperian, a women's journal in San Francisco.

An omnibus is a type of life. Like the stage it has its entrances and its exits. Passengers come in and go out all along the track, as humanity commences and ends its existence. At each street corner some one pulls the strap. The fee is paid, the cost of the ride is settled with the driver, and the passenger moves by you to the door, as people move to the grave. A little rustling of silk, a compression of crinoline, a staggering along between rows of people who give place to the departing, and each thinking over an obituary; the passenger goes down the steps into that great grave, the city; the door is shut, and on the omnibus moves again like life, until the next one’s time and place are reached, when the same process is re-enacted.

Meanwhile, like life, the vacant seat is soon occupied by another taken up by the wayside; and so the omnibus, like the great congregation of existence, is varying ever, never so full that there is not room for more. If you keep your seat until near, or quite to the station, like him who reaches the “three score years and ten,” the chances are that few or none of those that started with you are still your companions, and you must go down the steps alone, and no one misses you. All along the way you see new faces, and forms, and fashions; no two alike; each on a different errand, each for a different destination; some, the workers, with a little bundle, some with hard hands, some with unsoiled gloves.

Look out of the window as you ride, and life is passing you this way and that; the pedestrian who keeps abreast, or falls behind; the equestrian who dashes by your slow motion like High Flyer or Lecompte; and there, too, is the toiling drudge harnessed to his cart and heavy load, or the donkey beneath his disproportioned burden. You pass the splendid mansion and its luxurious inhabitants; you pass, too, the hovel and its squalid inmates. Your city is humanity, the street you travel is life’s avenue, along which the wheels of destiny still roll you onward. Now the late shower of prosperity may have lain in the dust, or a hot sun may have dried it, and a fresh breeze, or a squall may roll the stifling particles through the open windows—just like life. Close the windows and you stifle with pent up air, and respiration becomes a burden. Open the sashes and the chill winds comes whiffing in, full of colds, cramps, and rheumatism.

Opposite, sits beauty in satin and ribbons, and by your side, ugliness with a disagreeable breath. Here is a subject of sympathetic instinct that makes the ride pleasant, and you regret to see the fair, small hand raised to pull the string; and there is your antipathy, whose touch makes you shrink with aversion, and you bless the fortune that puts him down at the corner—just like life. I often ride in an omnibus for the lessons it teaches me, for the views I get of humanity in that democratic coach—the royal carriage of the people. There I am the equal of the millionaire, and I see him move from the noisy conveyance to the marble steps of his palace with as much indifference as I do the poor Irish servant with her bundle to find entrance to the kitchen by the side door. I listen to the vapid panegyrics of a prim gentleman, in elegant attire, as he talks morality and essays possession of exquisite taste. And I am not surprised if, when looking back after him when he has jauntingly stepped down from the ignoble car, to see him pull the bell at the door where virtue never enters—just like life.

... Yes, the omnibus is a moving panorama; a life on wheels; an age spent in a half hour’s ride; an education at a bit charge; an experience for which you hand the driver a half dollar and get as change, a ride, eight tickets, and – in the evening – a short quarter from the knavish driver. … 

For more on the Hesperian and its editor, Hermione Day, see Marion Tingling, (1980/1981) "Hermione Day and the Hesperian," California History 59 (4):282-289. 

See also: A New York City Cab Ride in 1840