DOCSLIB.ORG

The Interstate Highway System As an Agent for Cultural Expression And

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Interstate Highway System As an Agent for Cultural Expression And 1 The Interstate Highway System as an Agent for Cultural Expression and Transformation The Federal-Aid Highway Act, officially signed into law on June 29, 1956, set in motion the largest public works program in United States history. Its goal was to construct the longest and most modern system of highways that the world had ever seen. The National System of Interstate and Defense Highways did just that and much more. The Interstates brought the nation closer than ever before, and yet, at the same time, divided it in many ways. Its story is one of modern engineering marvels but also of deep changes in American culture. Americans today would find their lifestyle impossible, and their culture entirely misplaced, without it. First, the federal government became increasingly concerned with national defense and stimulating economic growth in the early to mid-twentieth century. The federal government attempted to satisfy both defense and economic needs by funding national road and highway construction. The Interstate system embodies the permanent entanglement of these interests that invariably lead into the next three elements. Second, car culture influenced the creation of the Interstate system immensely, and the Interstates then effectively transformed it into a keystone of modern American culture. Third, although suburbia was born before the Interstate system, it was always dependent on highways or urban expressways, car culture, and the economic interests of the federal government. The Interstates then provided a conduit for suburbia to expand as never before. The fourth, and final element of modern American culture discussed in this project, is civil activism, specifically during the 1960s and 1970s. Urban pollution, the destruction of urban neighborhoods and historic landmarks, the demise of the center city, and urban sprawl were all blamed on the Interstate system. Not 2 only were the Interstates the subject of much protest and debate, but they provided citizens the ability to assemble en masse in virtually any city of their choosing to protest things such as the Vietnam War and civil rights. Without understanding the Interstate system as the underlying common denominator, these core elements of modern American culture appear disconnected and ambiguous. This project explains why the Interstate system was created and how it transformed American culture. Federal Involvement in Defense and Economic Interests Since the 1890s, organized citizen groups involved in the Good Roads movement, like the League of American Wheelmen, had urged the federal government to get involved in improving roads. 1 The movement began with bicycle enthusiasts who wanted good roads, especially in more rural areas, for a more enjoyable cycling experience. Colonel Albert Augustus Pope, who was a member of the League of American Wheelmen and personally funded their Good Roads magazine, was the original advocate for the Good Roads movement. 2 Congress responded to his demands by creating the Office of Road Inquiry in 1893. The movement soon became especially popular with farmers and small communities, but also with automobile owners and anyone who saw the economic benefits of better roads. In 1916, President Wilson signed the first Federal-Aid Road Act which helped bring the movement to the forefront of national politics. It was the first federal law that funded highway construction and it replaced the Office of Road Inquiry with the Bureau of Public Roads. At this point, both citizens and government started to understand 1 Richard F. Weingroff, “The Man Who Loved Roads,” Public Roads 65, No. 6, (May/June 2002). Last modified April 7, 2011. http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/publicroads/02may/08.cfm. 2 Richard DeLuca, The League of American Wheelmen and Hartford’s Albert Pope Champion the Good Roads Movement. http://connecticuthistory.org/the-league-of-american-wheelmen-and-the-good-roads-movement-how-popes- bicycles-led-to-good-roads/. 3 the beneficial effects of good roads on the economy almost immediately, but the connection between good roads and defense wasn’t officially illustrated until 1922 with the “Pershing Map.” Thomas MacDonald, along with General Pershing and the U.S. Army, produced this map to chart the routes that would be most crucial to national defense in a time of war. 3 Thomas Harris MacDonald was appointed Chief of the new bureau in 1919, upon recommendation from the American Association of State Highway Officials. 4 MacDonald was one of the first major political supporters of the Good Roads movement, and remained the most influential person in the nation, in terms of highway building, for over thirty years until the Eisenhower Administration. The Good Roads movement helped bridge the gap between government involvement in road building, car culture, and civil activism. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Major Dwight D. Eisenhower wanted nothing more than to fight for his country. He specially applied for overseas deployment numerous times, and every time top ranking officers turned down his requests to join battalions serving in Europe on the basis that they felt he possessed “special qualities as an instructor.” 5 Consequently, Eisenhower spent the duration of the war on the home front training recruits in the newly formed Tank Corps out of Camp Colt, Pennsylvania. 6 He both rued and lamented the fact that “the war to end all wars” had come and gone and he was denied his dream of participating in active combat. At one 3 Richard Weingroff, “Milestones For U.S. Highway Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration,” Public Roads 59, no. 4 (Spring 1996), last modified April 8, 2011, https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/publicroads/96spring/p96sp44.cfm. 4 Richard Weingroff, “Firing Thomas H. MacDonald - Twice,” History of FHWA, last modified October 16, 2013, https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/firing.cfm. 5 Dwight D. Eisenhower, At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends (New York: Doubleday & Company, 1967), 133. 6 Eisenhower, At Ease: 137-138, 133. 4 point, he even considered leaving the army but ultimately decided to stay. 7 Always eager to learn and participate, the adventurous young officer, less than five years graduated from West Point, volunteered as one of two specially requested tank officers to act as observers for the one small tank in a transcontinental convoy. 8 On July 7, 1919, the “motor truck train” embarked from the Ellipse in Washington, D.C. en route to San Francisco. Just over seven hours later and forty-six miles from their original departure point, the convoy suffered its first breakdowns and made camp in Frederick, Maryland, where Eisenhower joined them. 9 Their journey concluded after sixty-two days of transcontinental travel at a snail’s pace; the convoy averaged only 58.1 miles per day and just over six miles per hour. 10 By no means did the convoy set any speed records, but it did set a world’s record for “the total continuous distance traveled of 3,251 miles,” and it was also “the first motor convoy to cross the American Continent.” 11 The accomplishment is even more astounding given that over seventeen-hundred miles of the journey were “made over dirt roads, wheel paths, mountain trails, desert sands and alkali flats.” 12 If nothing else, the experience convinced Eisenhower that the nation was in dire need of better roads. Both the military vehicles and the roads on which they traveled hardly stood up to the test. The convoy headed west via the Lincoln Highway, which remained so underdeveloped in some areas that Emily Post once described it as, “an imaginary line like 7 Eisenhower, At Ease: 155-156. 8 Eisenhower, At Ease: 157. 9 Richard F. Weingroff, “The Man Who Changed America, Part I,” Public Roads (March/April 2003), last modified April 7, 2011, http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/publicroads/03mar/05.cfm. 10 William C. Greany, “Principal Facts Concerning the First Transcontinental Army Motor Transport Expedition, Washington to San Francisco July 7 to September 6, 1919,” Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, 6. http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/research/online_documents/1919_convoy/principal_facts.pdf. 11 Greany, “Principal Facts,” 1. 12 Greany, “Principal Facts,” 8. 5 the equator! Once you get beyond the Mississippi the roads are trails of mud and sand.” 13 Eisenhower recounts that the convoy had been on schedule until it reached Nebraska, at which point the roads became so poor that they delayed the convoy by four days. 14 Adding to the difficulty, some drivers feigned experience when, in actuality, they were barely familiar with a Ford Model T. 15 Although some vehicles performed better than others, and mechanical issues were not a major hindrance to their progress, the deplorable condition of the roads meant that the convoy could not have proceeded any faster, even if the equipment were up to the task. The most troublesome delays, reportedly numbering over two-hundred, were caused by “road accidents” or, “mishaps due entirely to the unfavorable and at times appalling travel conditions that were encountered.” 16 Every challenge and problem faced by the convoy provided officers and observers valuable knowledge and insight about the value of good roads and highways. The transcontinental motor convoy offered the military the chance to test and compare the performance and reliability of their vehicles. Specifically, their ability to transport troops and materiel across vast expanses of land in the event of a national emergency. It also offered the American public a glimpse at the equipment that had helped win them the war, as well as the opportunity “to understand the vast importance and urgent necessity of motor transport and good roads in the cause of national defense.” 17 13 Drake Hokanson, The Lincoln Highway: Main Street Across America (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1999), 4, accessed March 25, 2014, http://books.google.com/books?id=y0Fz8raz2LsC&lpg=PR2&ots=ZsWvMmWwpw&dq=an%20imaginary %20line%2C%20like%20the%20equator%20lincoln%20highway&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Good Roads Everywhere: a History of Road Building in Arizona
    GOODGGOODGOOOODD ROADSRROADSROOAADDSS EVERYWHERE:EEVERYWHERE:EVVEERRYYWWHHEERREE:: A HistoryHistory ofof RoadRoad BuildingBuilding inin ArizonaArizona prepared for prepared for Arizona Department of Transportation Environmental Planning Group May 2003 Cover Photograph U.S. Highway 66 at Gold Road, circa 1930s Norman Wallace, Photographer (Courtesy of Arizona Department of Transportation) GOOD ROADS EVERYWHERE: A HISTORY OF ROAD BUILDING IN ARIZONA prepared for Arizona Department of Transportation Environmental Planning Section 205 South 17th Avenue Phoenix, Arizona 85007 Project Number STP-900-0(101) TRACS #999 SW 000 H3889 01D Contract Number 97-02 URS Job 23442405 prepared by Melissa Keane J. Simon Bruder contributions by Kenneth M. Euge Geological Consultants, Inc. 2333 West Northern Avenue, Suite 1A Phoenix, Arizona 85021 revisions by A.E. (Gene) Rogge URS Corporation 7720 N. 16th Street, Suite 100 Phoenix, Arizona 85020 URS Cultural Resource Report 2003-28(AZ) March 2004 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables ...................................................................................................................................... iv List of Figures..................................................................................................................................... iv List of Pocket Maps............................................................................................................................ v Foreword (by Owen Lindauer and William S. Collins)....................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Protesting Portland's Freeways: Highway Engineering And
    PROTESTING PORTLAND'S FREEWAYS: HIGHWAY ENGINEERING AND CITIZEN ACTIVISM IN THE INTERSTATE ERA by ELIOT HENRY FACKLER A THESIS Presented to the Department ofHistory and the Graduate School ofthe University of Oregon in partial fulfillment ofthe requirements for the degree of Master ofArts June 2009 11 "Protesting Portland's Freeways: Highway Engineering and Citizen Activism in the Interstate Era," a thesis prepared by Eliot Henry Fackler in partial fulfillment ofthe requirements for the Master ofArts degree in the Department of History. This thesis has been approved and accepted by: Committee in Charge: Ellen Herman, Chair Jeffrey Ostler Matthew Dennis Accepted by: Dean ofthe Graduate School 111 © 2009 Eliot Henry Fackler IV An Abstract ofthe Thesis of Eliot Henry Fackler for the degree of Master ofArts in the Department of History to be taken June 2009 Title: PROTESTING PORTLAND'S FREEWAYS: HIGHWAY ENGINEERING AND CITIZEN ACTIVISM IN THE INTERSTATE ERA Approved: ---------ht _ Ellen Herman From its inception, the Oregon State Highway Department and Portland's political leaders repeatedly failed to address the city's automobile traffic problems. However, in 1955 the Highway Department published a comprehensive freeway plan that anticipated new federal funding and initiated an era ofunprecedented road construction in the growing city. In the early 1960s, localized opposition to the city's Interstate system failed to halt the completion ofthree major routes. Yet, politically savvy grassroots activists and a new generation oflocalleaders used the provisions ofthe National Environmental Policy Act and the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 to successfully stop the construction oftwo freeways in the mid 1970s.
    [Show full text]
  • Tennesseans and Their Competing Visions of the Interstate System
    “Urgent and Necessary”: Tennesseans and Their Competing Visions of the Interstate System by Andrew W. McMahan A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in History Middle Tennessee State University May 2018 Thesis Committee: Dr. Louis Kyriakoudes, Chair Dr. Carroll Van West ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to thank Dr. Louis Kyriakoudes for being the first to give me the idea to write about the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. I would like to thank Dr. West for agreeing to act as a reader. I also want to thank the staff of the Albert Gore Research Center and Tennessee State Library and Archives for assisting me in finding primary source material. I wish to thank my colleague J. Ethan Holden for reading multiple drafts, giving constructive feedback, and recommending a number of secondary sources to provide context for my work. I want to thank my parents for encouraging me pursue my interest in history throughout my high school and undergraduate education. Lastly, I want to thank my wife Alexandria for all of her patience, support, and understanding during these last two years of study. It means more to me than I could possibly communicate. ii ABSTRACT The interstate system had a profound impact on the state of Tennessee and the rest of the nation. Several historians have explored the interstate system and its many impacts. However, not much has been written on the interstate highways in Tennessee or how Tennesseans thought of them during the months leading up to the passage of the Federal- Aid Highway Act of 1956.
    [Show full text]
  • The Development of the Interstate Highway System in Texas the Development of the Interstate Highway System in Texas
    ).4%234!4% 4 % 8 ! 3 !NYWHERETO %VERYWHERE The Development of the Interstate Highway System in Texas The Development of the Interstate Highway System in Texas CONTRIBUTING Penny Beaumont AUTHORS Rhonda Brinkmann David Ellis Chris Pourteau Brandon V. Webb GRAPHIC DESIGN Vicky Nelson COVER DESIGN John Henry This paper was partially supported by a Southwest Region University Transportation Center (SWUTC) project. TTI0603.0506.1M Table of Contents From Anywhere to Everywhere: The Interstate Highway System in Texas ................................... 1 Land, Lots of Land... ...................................................................................................................... 2 Early Interstate Champion: Thomas MacDonald ...............................................................................4 Early Highway Development in Texas .......................................................................................... 5 Early Interstate Champion: Frank Turner ...........................................................................................6 Historical Highlights of the U.S. Interstate Highway System ..........................................................7 The Gilchrist and Greer Eras...........................................................................................8 Inventing the Future: Transportation Research and the Interstates ...............................................9 From Expressways to Interstates: Early Freeways in Texas ......................................................... 10 Route
    [Show full text]
  • A Story of Highway Development in Nebraska
    A STORY OF HIGHWAY DEVELOPMENT IN NEBRASKA By George E. Koster Published by the Department of Roads Lincoln, Nebraska Revised 1997 BACKGROUND "A Story of Highway Development in Nebraska" (Revised 1997) is an updated and expanded version of "A Story of Highway Development in Nebraska" (1986), the latter being published by the Department of Roads in December of that year. The text is a compilation of information taken from a myriad of sources and leans heavily on the author's judgement and experience. And, since the entire undertaking was accomplished on a part-time basis, footnotes were omitted for simplicity of publication. In instances where the author may have used brief passages written by another, without using quotation marks or giving that person proper credit, forgiveness is requested. The purpose of the text is not for personal acievement, literary merit, or financial gain. Rather, it is for purposes of history, education, and public information about the development of highways in Nebraska. THE AUTHOR George E. Koster, a fourth-generation Nebraskan and former Secretary to the State Highway Commission (1972-1975), is assigned to the Project Development Division at the Department of Roads headquarters in Lincoln. He is the author of the "Research Study on Corridor Preservation" (1973), "History of the Nebraska State Highway Commission" (1974, 1986, and 1992), "A Story of Highway Development in Nebraska" (1986), "A History of the Principal Executives of the State Highway Department" (1995), and "A Story of Highway Development in Nebraska" (Revised 1997). i CONTENTS Chapter Page Preface.................................................................................... iii The State Highway Department............................................... iv State Engineers......................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • An Evaluation of the Proposal to Remove the Interstate 10 Claiborne Avenue Expressway in New Orleans, Louisiana
    University of New Orleans ScholarWorks@UNO University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations Dissertations and Theses 12-20-2009 Deconstructing Elevated Expressways: An Evaluation of the Proposal to Remove the Interstate 10 Claiborne Avenue Expressway in New Orleans, Louisiana Kim Tucker Henry University of New Orleans Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td Recommended Citation Henry, Kim Tucker, "Deconstructing Elevated Expressways: An Evaluation of the Proposal to Remove the Interstate 10 Claiborne Avenue Expressway in New Orleans, Louisiana" (2009). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 1016. https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/1016 This Thesis is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by ScholarWorks@UNO with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Thesis in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights- holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. This Thesis has been accepted for inclusion in University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UNO. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Deconstructing Elevated Expressways: An Evaluation of the Proposal to Remove the Interstate 10 Claiborne Avenue Expressway in New Orleans, Louisiana A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of New Orleans in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science In Urban Studies by Kim T.
    [Show full text]