Route 66: Iconography of the American Highway (review)

How does a 2,400-mile strip of asphalt and concrete become a cultural icon? Once a major transportation corridor, Route 66 still exerts a hold on the imagination more than two decades after its formal decommissioning. In Route 66: Iconography of the American Highway, Arthur Krim adroitly combines words and pictures to describe and explain how a highway stretching from Chicago to Los Angeles became the embodiment of American values and aspirations.

The opening chapters pay particular attention to the planning and construction of earlier highways that were eventually incorporated into Route 66. A considerable amount of attention is also devoted to the early railroad routes, especially that of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, which came to demarcate much of the highway's path through the Southwest. In tracing this history, Krim combines broad historical currents with a retelling of some decisions of the moment that had a lasting effect. The history of Route 66 reflected America's westward expansion, mass automobile ownership, organized campaigns for better roads, the prosperity of the 1920s, and a national culture that celebrated the freedom of the open road. More directly, the eventual alignment of the highway and its alliterative numerical designation were the product of political pressures by state and local governments, the efforts of an Oklahoma highway official to connect his isolated state with the rest of the country, and even the substantial political influence of the Ku Klux Klan in that state.

Route 66 opened amid the exuberance of the 1920s, only to be emblazoned in the national consciousness during the grim years of the 1930s, when the highway served as the primary escape route for tens of thousands of dust bowl émigrés. This sad time in American history is well-covered by a chapter on John Steinbeck's depiction of what he famously called "the mother road" in The Grapes of Wrath, followed by a chapter on the movie version of that book. The tone becomes decidedly more upbeat in the next chapter, which recounts the creation in 1945 of the song that further established the status of the highway as an American icon, Bobby Troup's "Route 66."

Later chapters note how the song's invitation to "Get your kicks on Route 66" was eagerly taken up by postwar motorists heading west, many of whom never went back to their original points of departure. By this time, the highway's appeal extended beyond its homeland. As the real or imagined setting for books like On the Road, movies like Easy Rider, the Route 66 television series, and the monumental art installation known as Cadillac Ranch, Route 66 cast its spell on other parts of the world. At this point it hardly mattered that the Rolling Stones mangled several place names in the rendition of "Route 66" that appeared on their premier album; Route 66 was the embodiment of freedom and a pursuit of adventure that seemed quintessentially American.

By this time, however, the construction of the Interstate Highway System was in full swing, with seemingly fatal consequences for Route 66 and many of the communities that it ran through. But the highway would not die. It is now a destination in its own right because, in sharp contrast to the featureless interstates that replaced it, it continues to be, in the words of one of the writers of the Route 66 television series, "an expression of going somewhere" (p. 142).

Although Krim is a little shaky on a few things, such as his rendition of the early history of the automobile, Route 66: Iconography of the American Highway more than makes up for any deficiencies with an excellent selection of illustrations and contemporary maps. Well-researched and clearly written, it effectively depicts the enduring association of Route 66 with adventure, escape, and a yearning to start life anew.