Chapter 8 looks closely at a particular journey across the Atlantic—that
of two American suffrage activists on a trip to visit their activist sisters in
Britain and to attend an international suffrage conference in Stockholm. It
explores how the two women were enabled by a network of technologies of
mobility ranging from transatlantic steamers to Thomas Cook offices. On
their return to Boston, emboldened by their travels, they took to the road in
an automobile as part of a new public politics labeled by the newspapers as
“made in England.” Chapter 9 takes a close look at a particular site for the
production of mobilities—the airport. The site of the airport is important
because it brings together a number of important scales of mobility under
one roof. Th e airport, for instance, is a central metaphor for postmodern,
transnational life in the writings of social and cultural theorists. In addition,
it is a place designed to finely control bodily mobility in ways similar
to those employed by Taylor and Gilbreth. It is a place where national
and international conceptions of mobility as a right becomes a reality or
a cruel trick, depending on what kind of mobile subject you are planning
to become. Th rough an examination of Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam,
I bring together the different scales and narratives of mobility that run
throughout this book. The book ends with an epilogue on the politics of
mobility in and around New Orleans during and following the devastating
experience of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.