Vehicles of Leisure

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In spite of the affluence and rampant consumption of the postwar economy, the trailer boom continued after World War II. Now however, trailer travelers began to face a growing sense of disapproval. During the 1950s, as the sizes of homes grew in suburbia, earlier campers seemed small and cramped. Moreover, campers had been used during the 1930s and 1940s as temporary shelters to be inhabited while one worked at a transient job. This was an unpleasant connotation to overcome.

The solution was to integrate the automobile and the trailer, creating one continuous unit called a "Recreational Vehicle" or RV. This new kind of vehicle would use space more efficiently and would permit other activities to take place while the unit was being driven. In doing away with the automobile or truck hauling the camper, the RV is clearly positioned as a vehicle in which one does not work. You cannot drive your RV to a workplace. Above any other vehicle, the RV exists purely for a lifestyle of leisure and consumption.

RVs have continued to rise in popularity ever since. Today one in ten American vehicle-owning households has an RV.

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