machines, toasters, hair dryers and such—has become commonplace. Since this rise in affluence has been largely the result of cheap energy, the automobile has been the logical symbol of the age. Only one person interviewed did not own a car, and he had owned cars in the past. All were able to recall easily and in specific detail every car they'd ever owned. However, pride in car ownership is no longer unalloyed. The poorest family—Mr. and Mrs. A in Baltimore—were content to move around by taking buses and walking. The richest—the Fs in Manhattan—owned two autos but much preferred taking taxis for short trips and airplanes for longer ones. The Ys in Los Angeles were clearly the most car possessed: they owned four and they made it clear that they did so because they had no practical alternative—there was no available public transportation for the daily, long, necessary trips to work, to school, and to shopping areas.

The decades of cheap available energy have had secondary effects as important as the primary ones. Cars brought good roads and good roads allowed new concentrations of population and industry. Concentrations of power made the concentration and standardization of jobs practical, and almost everyone became mobile: people have moved across the country as easily as people once moved across town. Of the six families described only one, the Ts in Kansas, were living in the city or county in which they'd been born and only one other, the Los Angeles Ys, were living in the same state. The others had moved several times (some had moved thousands of miles) and almost all had moved for economic reasons.

The energy revolution of the twentieth century seems to have made Americans look and sound and think more nearly alike. We have become so similar in so many respects that we might tend to see ourselves as more nearly homogeneous than we are. The members of the six families we have studied make it very clear that we are individuals still.