Experiencing Space through Leisure Mobility: The Interwar Period in Switzerland

Abstract

In recent years leisure mobility has received more and more attention both in science and the public. In particular, the hypothesis of ever growing leisure traffic has increasingly been at the core of scientific studies, government reports and media articles. According to the latest national mobility survey, leisure is by far the most important purpose for trips in Switzerland, as 40% of daily distances travelled within the country are covered in connection to leisure activities. The initial starting point of the growing importance of leisure mobility for a wider public is often linked to the breakthrough of the consumer society in the 1950s and 1960s and especially with the heavily increased spreading of the automobile. While these developments certainly are crucial for understanding the growth of leisure mobility in the second half of the 20 th century, this contribution argues, that when examined from a mobility history perspective this supposedly obvious caesura may not be as distinct as expected. Many historians have highlighted the significance of leisure activities for the history of different modes of transportation. Both the automobile and the bicycle first developed as sport and adventure machines for a riche elite. Trams in Switzerland were initially primarily used by the bourgeoisie for their leisure trips. The same is true for the Swiss railways, which brought recreational landscapes like the Alps on the doorsteps of affluent city dwellers. It is therefore apparent that mobility and leisure have long-since shared an interdependent relationship. But apart from being a certain kind of lifestyle for a riche elite, when did leisure mobility start to affect the lives of a wider public? I would like to argue, that in many ways, the interwar period was an important predecessor of later developments in the 1950s and 1960s. The national railway and the Swiss postbus further expanded their ticket assortment (e.g. reduced tickets for families, ski trips or holidays) in order to attract new customer segments. Extended access to bicycles and/or motorcycles widened the geographical realm of experience for a growing number of people and familiarized them with the advantages of private transportation. Furthermore, the idea of the weekend as a new unit of time and an escape from everyday life was picked up, celebrated and propagated by advertising, fashion and lifestyle reports in popular media. The ongoing secularization gradually opened up Sundays, traditionally dominated by church-related activities, to other experiences. Further on, new leisure activities like free camping came into fashion and youth hostels and other organizations provided an ever narrower network of affordable accommodations. These and other developments slowly broadened the scope of action for an increasing number of people and influenced their experiences with mobility and space. Therefore, when a wider public did get access to cars in the 1950s and 1960s, people didn’t just change their leisure habits over night, but instead drew on past experiences and public discourses on leisure and mobility, which go further back than the breakthrough of the consumer society. Author: Markus Sieber graduated from the University of Bern in 2014 with a Masters of Arts in modern history, geography and general ecology. Currently he is a second year PhD-Student in the research project “Mobility in the Swiss Federal State (1848-today): A new perspective on transport history” at the university of Bern, Section of Economic, Social and Environmental History.