A century ago, the automobile was quickly coming to dominate the street life of Los Angeles. And it wasn’t always a pretty picture.

Cars were soon clogging the narrow roads of downtown Los Angeles and beyond, creating the city’s first traffic jams, rush hours and even some road rage.

Drivers turned out not to be very good at sharing the road, to the detriment of pedestrians, cyclists and others.

Automobiles quickly became a cultural obsession in the city, for both good and bad.


Here’s how L.A.'s early car culture was reflected in Los Angeles Times editorial cartoons.

MORE: A century of California droughts told through cartoons