Part of a series of articles titled The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963.
Article
Chapter 8: The Ultra-Glide!
Image courtesy of robhillphoto.com
Ever since the phone call to Grandma Sands, Momma and Dad have been acting strange.
Momma is adding and subtracting figures in a notebook and Dad is driving all over town looking for parts to fix up the Brown Bomber (Kenny, Joey, and Rufus tag along). After a deep cleaning, the Plymouth looks brand-new.
On Saturday, Kenny wakes up early to catch the morning cartoons then watches Dad shave. Kenny claims that he's starting to grow a mustache, and Dad says he can see it if he squints really hard. Dad leaves for an errand and comes back with a big surprise. He ushers the whole family to the Brown Bomber with their eyes closed, before revealing a brand-new record player installed in the dashboard. The "Ultra-Glide" boasts the newest technology, and records don’t skip when the car goes over a bump. Momma doesn't seem too pleased with the purchase, knowing that it must have been expensive, but Kenny and his siblings are thrilled. In the voice of a disc jockey, Dad shows off the Ultra-Glide's features. Byron runs to the house to get some records, and everyone gets a chance to play a favorite song, with Dad hamming it up as the dj.
Momma then returns to explain that the family is going to take the now fixed-up car to Birmingham, where Byron will spend the summer with Grandma Sands. Momma and Dad hope the change of scene, and supervision by strict Grandma Sands, will help Byron stay out of trouble. Momma tries to soften the punishment by reassuring Byron that he will like Birmingham. Afterall, Momma loved growing up there, and Grandma Sands says their old neighborhood is safe and quiet, away from all "that stuff on TV." Byron is angry, and he storms into the house, cursing.
"RCA '45' phonograph," 1960 Plymouth Accessories Booklet, 7.
Fact Check: Did people really install record players in their cars?
What do we know?
In-car record players did exist! Chrysler introduced the first in-car record player, Highway Hi-Fi [High Fidelity], in 1956. Other brands followed, but car record players never became standard in cars the way other entertainment features like car radios, tape decks, CD players, and bluetooth technology later did. Automobile record players were both too expensive and too impractical (records break easily, and records can skip) for widespread adoption.
Yet as later developments suggest, drivers wanted to be entertained on the road, and they wanted to be in control of what they listened to.
What is the evidence?
Primary source: "RCA '45' phonograph," 1960 Plymouth Accessories Booklet, 7.
Primary source: "Dodge cars now have hi-fi music," The Hartford Courant (CT), February 19, 1956, 23F.
"Some Americans spend more time in their automobiles than in their homes. The trend to make them comfortable moves another step forward this year. [Chrysler] Dodge is introducing Highway High-Fi, a record player which operates through the car radio. Forty-five minutes to one full hour of uninterrupted high-fidelity play are featured on each side of the 7-inch records. A choice of classical and popular recordings, and even readings of selected subjects, are available for listening pleasure. A set of 35 recordings will be available with the set. The exceptional fidelity was designed to compensate for the normal traffic sounds of the road. ...Operating the Highway High-Fi record player is quite easy, hardly more complicated than selecting a radio program. Pushing in a latch button permits the door to open downward. The turntable is then pulled out about three inches, allowing the record to be changed or turned over. Stops at the rear of the turntable automatically center the record over the center post. Placing the stylus on the record is also quite simple and can be done by the driver without taking his eyes off the road."
Secondary source: Sharon Riley, "[Car] Record players were the infotainment systems of the 1950s and '60s: early adventures in mobile fidelity," Consumer Reports, April 12, 2014.
"A new technology came on the market in the mid-1950s and early 1960s that freed drivers from commercials and unreliable broadcast signals, allowing them to be the masters of their motoring soundtrack with their favorite pressed vinyl [record] spinning on a record player mounted under the dash. ...The 'Highway Hi-Fi' was the first [in-car record player] on the scene, available from the Chrysler Corporation as an option on the 1956 Chrysler, Desoto, Dodge, and Plymouth. ...The Highway Hi-Fi was short-lived as Chrysler only offered it for two years. Consumer Reports did not test it, but we did report its demise [end], suggesting that the price tag of nearly $200 (over $1,700 today) and the constraint of buying proprietary records [ones made especially for the car record player] from Columbia were probably reasons for the player's short run. Chrysler did eventually add an option to play [regular] 45 rpm records on the Highway Hi-Fi, but perhaps that choice came too late."
Alabama Department of Archives and History. Donated by Alabama Media Group. Photo by Robert Adams and Ed Jones, Birmingham News.
Fact Check: Was Birmingham in 1963 unchanged from Birmingham in the 1940s, as Momma claims? Was it "safe" and "quiet"?
What do we know?
Birmingham was anything but "safe" and "quiet" for African Americans, in either the 1940s or the 1960s. In a certain respect, Momma was right. It could feel like little had changed in twenty years. In the 1940s, after World War II, there was a severe housing shortage. In the racially segregated city of Birmingham, this meant a competition between white and Black families for limited housing stock. When Black residents moved to the edges of historically white neighborhoods, white supremacists tried to scare them away with violence and fires intentionally set to intimidate Black families from purchasing homes. Between 1947 and 1965, they bombed approximately 50 houses, giving the city of Birmingham an unattractive nickname: "Bombingham." Violent scare tactics and destruction of property continued because most of the people in power shared the perpetrators' racist beliefs. Voter suppression, itself often enforced by violence, helped maintain that status quo. In 1960, only 10 percent of Birmingham's Black population was registered to vote.
But in the early 1960s, Birmingham became a major center for civil rights activity designed to force the local elites in power to make changes and confront segregation. While the Watson children were finishing the school year in Flint, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested in Birmingham and wrote his now famous "A Letter from a Birmingham Jail." Birmingham school children, meanwhile, participated in a school walkout to support the cause and faced dangerous water hoses, police dog attacks, and arrest. This "children's crusade" created a media storm and moral crisis that forced local and federal action. Eventually, it helped inspire President John F. Kennedy to support federal civil rights legislation.
What is the evidence?
Primary source: Robert Adams and Ed Jones, Birmingham News, "Fred Shuttlesworth, Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy and others, linking arms and singing during a civil rights demonstration in Birmingham, Alabama," Alabama Department of Archives and History. Donated by Alabama Media Group.
African American leaders like Reverends Fred Shuttlesworth and Martin Luther King Jr. organized a campaign of demonstrations in 1963 to demand desegregation and equal access to employment opportunities. In partnership with the SCLC or Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the local community in Birmingham participated in sit-ins, boycotts, and marches throughout the spring.
Secondary source: Glenn Eskew, But for Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997).
"The dynamite blast that shattered the house of Sam Matthews on August 18, 1947, marked the first in a series of racially motivated bombings brought on by the postwar transformation of Birmingham, Alabama. Although racial attacks occurred in other southern cities, the frequency and number—some fifty dynamitings between 1947 and 1965—made Birmingham an exception and gave rise to the sobriquet [nickname] 'Bombingham.' At first, the victims of the bombings were African Americans who had responded to a postwar shortage of adequate black housing by moving onto the fringes of white neighborhoods. In time, civil rights integrationists became the targets of the attacks. White vigilantes saw their acts of terrorism as a defense of white supremacy."
Voices from the Field
Radio and Postwar Advertising by Richard Popp, professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and author of The Holiday Makers: Magazines, Advertising, and Mass Tourism in Postwar America.
Photos & Multimedia
Marion S. Trikosko, U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection, Library of Congress.
Writing Prompts
Opinion
What car would you buy (not necessarily new) if you could afford it? State your opinion about why there is no other car to compare. Support your choice by providing reasons for your choice and comparisons to at least one other available car. Provide a concluding statement related to your reasons for choosing this car.
Informative/explanatory
What is a record player? Include a description of the records called 45s. Introduce the topic clearly and group identifying information in sections with formatting (e.g., headings), illustrations, and descriptions to aid comprehension.
Narrative
Be a car! Give your car a name and personality. What are your features? Who is your owner, where do you live? Describe a day in your life. Use dialogue and description to develop experiences and events. Provide a conclusion to your day as a car that follows from the narrated experiences.
Note: Wording in italics is from the Common Core Writing Standards, Grade 5. Sometimes paraphrased.
Last updated: December 29, 2023