Art
Around 1900, inventors experimented with steam-powered buses to move people through Paris. This omnibus represented an ambitious attempt to replace horse-drawn carriages with cleaner, faster machines. Though steam buses ultimately failed, they showed how ordinary city travel was beginning to transform.
Art · Full story
You stand on a Paris street at the turn of the century, watching engineers and investors pose beside an enormous contraption of boilers, pipes, and mechanical joints. Steam hisses. Passersby stop to gawk. Will this machine actually carry people across the city? Or is it just another wealthy inventor's expensive fantasy?
Reflect
What made people believe this heavy, complicated machine was better than the horse-drawn buses they already knew?