The Society of Automotive Historians has given the 2020 E. P. Ingersoll Award to Indie Auto.
The award is named after Edward Platt Ingersoll (1861-1920), who was the editor of Horseless Age. This was the United States’ first automotive magazine. The award’s purpose is to recognize “excellence in presentation of automotive history in other than print media” (Wilson, 2020).
Ingersoll Award one of nine award categories
Nine award categories were considered by the the SAH, which is a nonprofit organization with an international membership heavily populated with professional automotive historians. Other award winners included:
- The Carl Benz Award — Ronald Sieber for his article, “The Rise and Demise of the Packard Speedsters,” which was published in the January/February 2019 issue (Vol. 83, No. 1) of Antique Automobile.
- Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot Award — Daniel Cabart and Gautam Sen for their two-volume book, Ballot (2019).
- Richard P. Scharchburg Student Paper — Han-Yi Huang for “Church Pews From Detroit: The Rise of the Drive-in Church in the United States Between the 1940s to the 1950s.”
Indie Auto lauded for ‘elevation of fact over dogma’
Ingersoll Award Committee Chair Steve Wilson (2020) stated that “Indie Auto stands out for the originality of its perspective, its scrupulous elevation of fact over dogma, the lively cogency of its argumentation, and the scope of its study of automotive history.”
Previous winners of the award include Ate Up With Motor (SAH, 2020). I single out Aaron Severson’s website partly because it has been a significant role model for Indie Auto. The depth and quality of his research is outstanding, even compared to much larger and well-funded media outlets.
Also see ‘Should auto history websites only say nice things?’
Of course, my editorial voice is different in two key respects from Severson’s. Indie Auto tends to have a more critical (and vaguely theoretical) tone in its analysis. In addition, serious thinking is mixed with some pretty absurd satire (go here for further discussion).
On both of these fronts, Paul Niedermeyer has been my biggest role model. He has proven with his website, Curbside Classic, that you can be provocative in the auto history field and live to talk about it.
Journalistic quality demands media diversity
I bring all of this up to make a meta point: Individual auto media outlets don’t operate in isolation even when their publishers are unusually independent minded. This is why the quality of automotive journalism you read is heavily dependent upon the diversity of the media.
It’s not just about the sheer number of media outlets. If everyone is largely dependent upon advertising revenue, then they all must pump out content on a 24/7 basis in order to attract an adequate number of eyeballs (go here for further discussion). That can result in clickbait overshadowing serious historical analysis.
The whole point of Indie Auto is to experiment with something different. For example, real ads have been replaced with satirical ones. That has allowed a more leisurely publishing cycle, an emphasis on lengthy essays, and a critical analysis that can be irritating to those who merely want to admire old cars.
This has not been a recipe for high readership. Thus, I’d like to thank those of you who have stuck with Indie Auto as it has grown up. I’m always interested in your thoughts, either in a public comment (see below) or a private missive.
Share your reactions to this post with a comment below or a note to the editor.
RE:SOURCES
- Society of Automotive Historians; 2020. “E. P. Ingersoll Award.” Accessed December 26.
- Wilson, Steve; 2020. “E.P. Ingersoll Award.” SAH Journal (membership required). No. 306, September/October 2020: p. 6.
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