Abstract
By examining the case of La Société protectrice contre les excès de l'automobilisme, an early twentieth-century anti-automobile advocacy group composed of attorneys, this article explores how Parisians reacted to the changes wrought by the introduction of automobiles into the city streets. Cars were dangerous, and many believed they threatened to turn public thoroughfares into the private preserve of drivers whose speed changed the ways in which Parisians could use their streets. Drawing on Solidarist principles, this group promoted a kind of `urban Solidarism' in an attempt to rebalance the relationship between cars and their urban surroundings, and to shame drivers into showing more socially responsible behaviour.
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