In 1919, the “Tin Can Tourists of the World” was founded in Florida. For them, the automobile was a vessel of unprecedented liberty—a literal engine of middle-class expansion. Today, for millions of the working poor, the car has transformed from a symbol of freedom into a “steel tent,” a final, desperate barrier between themselves and the street.
The contrast between these two eras reveals a bitter irony: the very technology that once democratized leisure now serves as a visible marker of economic exile.
1. The Technology: Innovation vs. Insulation
• The Tin Can Era: In the 1920s, the Ford Model T was the cutting edge of social mobility. Owners were “makers”; they modified their cars with soldered tin cans on radiator caps (to heat food) and custom-built “house car” wooden bodies. This was the birth of the RV—technology was a tool for active exploration.
• The Modern Era: Today’s “car dwellers” often live in aging sedans or SUVs packed with high-tech sensors they can no longer afford to calibrate. The technology is no longer a tool for travel, but a shell for survival. While the Model T was designed to be opened up and expanded with tents, the modern car is a closed, insulated pod designed to shield the inhabitant from the gaze of the public and the elements.
2. The Spirit: Freedom vs. Fragility
• The “Canners”: For the Tin Can Tourists, the road was a choice. They had a secret handshake, a club song (“The More We Get Together”), and an official mascot. They were the “original rebels,” escaping the stuffy formality of hotels to embrace the “dirt-road” freedom of the American South.
• The Modern Working Poor: For today’s vehicle residents, the “road” is often a series of parking lots and side streets. Their mobility is not fueled by wanderlust, but by avoidance—the need to move every few hours to avoid “knock-and-talks” from police or complaints from residents. The “freedom” is a forced one; they are mobile because they are not allowed to be stationary.
3. The Prejudice: “Frugal Adventurer” vs. “Social Nuisance”
• Past Perception: Early Tin Can Tourists faced some skepticism—locals joked they arrived with “one shirt and a five-dollar bill and changed neither”—but they were eventually embraced as a boon to the economy. Towns competed to build municipal “Tin Can Camps” to lure their business. Their frugality was seen as a quirky, adventurous trait of the hardy middle class.
• Present Prejudice: Today, living in a car is often criminalized. Ordinances against “oversized vehicle parking” or “camping in public” treat the car-dweller as a threat to property values rather than a traveler. The “frugality” of the past has been rebranded as “vagrancy.” Where towns once built camps for the Model T, they now install “No Overnight Parking” signs for the working poor.
The Great Role Reversal
The Tin Can Tourists actually had a rule in their charter: they sought to “clearly distinguish those who camped by choice from those who traveled due to economic hardship.” A century later, that distinction has collapsed. The aesthetic of “Van Life” (the modern spiritual successor to the Tin Canners) is celebrated on social media as a luxury choice, while the nurse or grocery clerk sleeping in a Toyota Corolla in the same parking lot is viewed with suspicion. The Model T once promised that we could all go anywhere; today’s economy has ensured that for some, the car is the only place left to go.
In the transition from the 1920s to the 2020s, our collective sense of compassion has undergone a profound “marketization.” We have moved from a society that viewed the automobile as a tool for communal adventure to one that views it as a litmus test for economic worth.
The shift isn’t just about how we travel; it’s about how we value a human life based on whether its movement is “profitable” or “poverty-driven.”
1. The Erasure of Common Ground
In the era of the Tin Can Tourists, the “road” was a shared frontier. There was a sense of horizontal empathy: a doctor in a Buick and a mechanic in a Model T might park in the same municipal camp, share a “potluck” stew, and help each other fix a flat tire.
Today, that common ground has been privatized.
• The 1920s: Towns competed to build free or low-cost camps because “auto-tourists” were seen as a sign of a healthy, modern community.
• Today: Public space has been “hostiled.” Cities install spiked “anti-homeless” architecture and height-restricted bars in parking lots specifically to exclude those who use their cars for shelter. Compassion has been replaced by zoning.
2. The Rule of Power and Money: “Van Life” vs. “Car Living”
The most striking evidence of our changed views is how we commodify the aesthetic of car living while criminalizing the reality of it.
We have created an economy where freedom is a luxury good. If you have money, living in a vehicle is “liberation.” If you are broke, it is a “violation of public order.”
3. From Mutual Aid to Surveillance
The Tin Can Tourists had a “Code of the Road”—a literal agreement to help any stranded motorist. This was a form of grassroots social safety net. In our modern economy, power is exercised through visibility and surveillance. * Power today means the ability to remain invisible when you want (privacy) and the ability to make the poor hyper-visible when they “intrude” on wealthy spaces.
• Instead of a “Code of the Road,” we have apps like Nextdoor, where residents report “suspicious vehicles” (usually a worker sleeping before a double shift) to the police. The neighborly eye has been replaced by the policing eye.
The Modern Irony: We spend billions on “Smart City” technology to optimize traffic flow, yet we cannot find a legal square of pavement for a full-time worker to sleep safely.
The “Tin Can” spirit was about the democratization of the horizon. Our current system is about the privatization of the curb. We have traded the messy, dusty compassion of the 1920s for a sterile, “efficient” economy that treats those without a zip code as if they don’t exist and they are not given the same constitutional rights as those with a zip code.