The History of Transportation Advertising, 1850-1956, and A Study of Its Importance in Knoxville, Tennessee

In 1956 organized local passenger transportation agencies in the United States carried about thirty million passenger every day, 912 million every month, totaling 10.94 billion for the year. These agencies included local motor bus lines, electric street railways, elevated and subway lines, interurban electric railways, and trolley coach lines. They did not include taxicabs, suburban railroads, sightseeing buses, and school buses.

Today's transit industry represents a gross investment of over $35 billion. The American Transit Association listed 1,326 companies (representing more than 85 per cent of the transit industry) that own more than 70,000 passenger vehicles.

Briefly, this is the present status of the transit industry in the United States. For more than a century, the transit industry has grown and expanded to become a necessity in the lives of many people in this country.

Along with the growth of the transit industry, there has evolved an advertising medium appropriately called transportation advertising. From the early days of the main street horse cars to the present modern 51-passenger city-suburban bus, "transportation advertising has grown along with the development of a series of public transportation systems that today carry the equivalent of the entire population of the United States within a five-day period." Today, this medium can be found in almost every city or town in the United States with a population of 15,000 or more, and also in many smaller markets.

(large file - 50 MB)