author
1870–1952
An early automobile-school promoter and writer, he is best known for a lively 1912 guide that doubles as a window into America’s first motoring boom. His work captures the confidence, salesmanship, and practical know-how of a moment when cars still felt thrillingly new.
by Charles Andrew Coey
Charles Andrew Coey (1870–1952) is a little-known American writer remembered today mainly through C.A. Coey's School of Motoring, 1424-26 Michigan Ave. Chicago. Project Gutenberg lists that work under his full name and identifies his dates as 1870–1952.
His best-known book is less a conventional literary work than a mix of instruction manual, promotional booklet, and snapshot of early car culture. It presents his Chicago motoring school as a place where students could train as chauffeurs, mechanics, and automobile salesmen, showing how closely education, entrepreneurship, and the fast-growing auto industry were tied together in the early 1900s.
What makes Coey interesting now is the energy of his writing and the world it reflects. His book preserves the language of a time when the automobile promised opportunity, status, and a whole new kind of work, making it a useful and engaging piece of American motoring history.