Update
Show Summary Details

Page of

PRINTED FROM OXFORD REFERENCE (www.oxfordreference.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2023. All Rights Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single entry from a reference work in OR for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

date: 17 February 2025

Motor Vehicles. 

Source:
The Oxford Companion to United States History
Author(s):
Clay McShaneClay McShane

The pioneer mechanical engineer Oliver Evans built a steam-powered amphibious dredge in 1805, but the first significant American experiments with mechanized vehicles came in the 1820s. These heavy, smoky, and unreliable steam-driven vehicles ran on rails, which were smoother than any pavement and guided the vehicles through turns, but sharply limited their utility.... ...

Access to the complete content on Oxford Reference requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter without a subscription.

Please subscribe or login to access full text content.

If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.

For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can''t find the answer there, please contact us.