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Twentieth-Century American Road Narratives from <Em> University of Mississippi eGrove Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2019 Road Trippin': Twentieth-Century American Road Narratives from On The Road to The Road Scott M. Obernesser University of Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Obernesser, Scott M., "Road Trippin': Twentieth-Century American Road Narratives from On The Road to The Road" (2019). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1652. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/1652 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ROAD TRIPPIN’: TWENTIETH CENTURY AMERICAN ROAD NARRATIVES AND PETROCULTURES FROM ON THE ROAD TO THE ROAD A Dissertation Presented in partial fulfillment of requirements For the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy In the Department of English The University of Mississippi by SCOTT M OBERNESSER December 2018 Copyright Scott M Obernesser 2018 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT “Road Trippin:’ Twentieth-Century American Road Narratives and Petrocultures from On The Road to The Road ” examines late-twentieth century U.S. road narratives in an effort to trace the development of American petrocultures geographically and culturally in the decades after World War II. The highway stories that gain popularity throughout the era trace not simply how Americans utilize oil, but how the postwar American oil ethos in literature, film, and music acts upon and shapes human interiority and vice versa. Roads and highways frame my critique because they are at once networks of commerce transportation and producers of a unique, romantic national mythos that impacts American literary and extra-literary textuality throughout the late-twentieth century. My methodology draws on literary, environmental, and material culture studies, but rather than dwell on the substance itself, the project traces oil’s presence in the aesthetic stuff of our lives: the novels, films, television shows, popular songs, and memoirs that structure conceptions of individualism, freedom, mobility, race, gender, and sexuality. In doing so, I rely heavily upon interdisciplinary lenses derived from literary, film, and affect theories. Petroaffect, or the ways in which oil and oil culture shape and reshape human interiority, reveals how people are in a sense manufactured by oil as psychological or even spiritual beings. Tracing petroculture’s trajectory throughout late-twentieth century road narratives —road novels, outlaw trucker movies, popular music, memoir, and apocalyptic fictions—demonstrates that oil’s material, ideological, and environmental effects and affects are vital to the formation of the petromodern American. ii DEDICATION For all of my friends, family, and colleagues who patiently put up with me during the years spent researching and writing this project. In particular, I would like to thank Karen, Jay, and Cristie for reading copious drafts, offering notes and guidance, and ultimately helping me craft a project I am very proud of. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………………………ii DEDICATION……………………………………………………………………………………iii INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………….......1 I: WHAT IT MEANS TO BE ON THE ROAD………………..………………………………..33 II: PETROANXIETY AND OIL SCARCITY……………….…..……………………………...92 III: WHAT CAN THE ROAD DO FOR YOU……………………..…………………………..150 IV: ECOAPOCALYPTICISM AND THE END OF PETROCAPITALISM……….………....210 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………272 VITA……………………………………………………………………………………………282 iv I. INTRODUCTION Mapping Petroculture: Or, When the Road Is More Than Just a Road “The engine was a big 4,257-cc straight-six, and sitting on his worktable it looked like some vast mechanical heart—which was what it was, he supposed. So many of man’s inventions—the syringe, the sword, the pen, the gun—were metaphorical cocks, but the internal combustion engine had to have been dreamt up by a man who had looked upon the human heart. " —Joe Hill, NOS4A2: A Novel Mapping Petroculture On July 23, 1958, Simon and Schuster issued an in-house news bulletin applauding the triumphs of their newest regional travel guide: the MOBIL GUIDE, a 330-page dollar book registering “good food, lodging and sight-seeing” in Texas, Arkansas, New Mexico, Louisiana and Oklahoma (News). The guidebook, co-published with the Magnolia Petroleum Company (a subsidiary of Mobil Oil), had become “the fastest-moving book of any kind” in the five-state area, the sales far exceeding those of any other book (News). Most copies—roughly half of the initial printing of 100,000—were distributed at Mobil stations along highways throughout the five-state region. The remaining copies were sold at book stores, department stores and “Pocket Book outlets,” such as “drug stores, newsstands and variety stores” (News). But those copies quickly disappeared: after just three months, department stores and book stores placed new orders, requesting five to ten times the copies of their initial orders. Simon and Schuster measured the rate of sale by reaching out to selected distributors. “I have had my Mobil Guide books for about two months,” starts one reply. “I believe I was about the first one to receive the 1 guide here—first 2 dozen were selling rapidly so in about three weeks I bought 4 dozen more. I now have 3 ½ dozen on hand. Notice quite a few of my tourists have one when coming in. Some local people have bought the guide” (Berger). Another distributor states, “Very good for us—customers seem to like it! We are ordering additional copies with regular stock order” (Berger). In its initial form, The MOBIL GUIDE consisted of two sections: listed recommendations for over 1500 restaurants, hotels, and roadway attractions; and road maps for each state with Mobil stations prominently marked by a M surrounded by a large red circle or square. 1 Publishers attributed the travel guide’s success to a “unique system of relative ratings” (a star system to “signify degrees of merit” and checkmarks to “indicate especially good buys”) that helped motorists and domestic tourists quickly and efficiently determine where they might best spend their time and money. 2 The Magnolia Petroleum Company had “prepared the GUIDE with painstaking care,” investing over $50,000 “on research alone,” with another $40,000 on promotion (Affiliated Publishers). The MOBIL GUIDE assured distributors the book would increase commercial traffic. Extensive advertising ranging from posters, radio ads, banners, envelope stuffers, and window streamers all but guaranteed the GUIDE would increase revenue if the distributing businesses themselves were willing to promote the GUIDE as well. A 1958 order form released to businesses recommended in the guide states, “Tourists will love the guide. In fact, your local patrons will want it as well. Recommend it to them, just as MOBIL GUIDE recommends you.” The strategy worked: Worth Matthis of the Alamo News and Book Store in 1 The circular border indicated minor fuel stations, while the square border indicated stations with garages and mechanics. 2 One star = “Good, better than average;” two stars = “Very good;” three stars = “Excellent;” four stars = “Outstanding—worth a special effort to reach;” and five stars = “One of the best in the country” (Affiliated Publishers). A checkmark indicated, “In addition, an unusually good value, relatively inexpensive” (Affiliated Publishers). 2 San Antonio reported selling “one copy every two days” to “enthusiastic” customers (Berger). Travelers were led to the Alamo News and Book Store due to its inclusion in the guide; at the same time, the store acted as a dispensary for additional copies. “Advertising seems to have helped considerably,” Matthis writes, “because most of the buyers either have asked specifically for the book, or walked directly to it upon entering the store.” In other words, the MOBIL GUIDE directed travelers to certain businesses and experiences, curating a specific brand of visitation networked through the very establishments that agreed to sell the guide itself. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mobil stations became the most easily recognizable features on the maps, specifically identifying the appropriate stations at which to fuel up and the distances between those stations. The foundations of my project are in the roads and highways that facilitate the growth and progress of oil culture after World War II and the road narratives that shape both postwar American geographies and the American’s imaginary. I begin with the MOBIL GUIDE for two reasons. First, the MOBIL GUIDE is a tangible, textual artifact that suggests deep ties between roads and the proliferation of what scholars have come to refer to as petrocultures, meaning the cultural, social, and political impacts of oil as a powerful material and geopolitical resource. 3 Framing postwar petrocultures through the history and textuality of roads and highways generates new points of discourse regarding the sociocultural impacts of petromodernity, what Stephanie LeMenager defines as “modern life based in the cheap energy systems made possible by oil” (67). The United States’ oil surplus after World War II sets in motion a series of 3 Sheena Wilson, Adam Carlson, and Imre Szeman explain, at the first gathering of the Petrocultures Research Group in 2010, participants identified “existing
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