The Motel in America (The Road and American Culture)
Editorial Reviews
Midwest Book Review
The Motel In America presents an informative and entertaining look at the history, architecture, and business of motels in the U. S. The Motel In America explores the effect on American culture as citizens became motorists. The popularity of motels grew steadily throughout the century, booming after World War II, and reaching a peak in 1961 with over 61,000 motels operating throughout the country with the vast majority of them independently owned, introducing Americans to consumer novelties like color televisions, automatic coffee makers, shag rugs, and residential swimming polls. By the 1980s the number had dropped to around 40,000 with most of them affiliated with referral and franchise chains, reflecting the traveler's need for uniform quality and the entrepreneur's desire for regional or national recognition. The Motel In America is a comprehensive history from autocamp to franchise, illustrating much that is central to the American experience. A unique bit of 20th century American history, The Motel In America is a useful and entertaining view of a genuine American cultural institution.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"A motel tell-all on how these inns gradually popped up along our roadsides out of grass-roots entrepreneurship and built themselves a place in the American consciousness... Provocative."--Winnie Carlson, Memphis Commercial Appeal
""A team of academic historians and geographers turn a childhood love of the motor hotel into a well-documented and richly illustrated study... Tracing the motel's origins to the auto camps of the early 1900s, simple roadside areas where 'tin can tourists' (named as much for their refuse as their cars) could pitch tents, they trace its evolution into such later forms as the motor court."-- Preservation
"Both a rewarding read and rich in thoughtful commentary... For anyone interested in how and why motels became as much a part of modern America as the cars that made them necessary, The Motel in America is required reading."--Steven Thompson, AutoWeek
""Enjoyable for its own sake, the book is also valuable as a reference for collectors of roadside memorabilia... An entertaining, well-illustrated history of the motel."--Don Abood, Mobilia
" The Motel in America... is to roadside accommodations what Gibbon's history is to Rome."--Wayne Curtis, Atlantic Monthly
""Lolita was debauched in one; Kentucky Fried Chicken was born in another. Lots of interesting things happen behind the impervious, often cheesy facade of roadside motels... A masterful scrapbook for fellow devotees."-- Entertainment Weekly
"The authors of this smart and entertaining history of the roadside slumber industry come to some interesting conclusions."-- Hungry Mind Review
"The definitive work on motels of the post-World War II era... A valuable contribution to the growing interdisciplinary literature on the nation's vernacular landscape."--Andrew Hurley, Journal of American History
"While The Motel in America is informed by sensitive nostalgia and well illustrated with postcards and other ephemera appealing to roadside buffs, it is a serious work whose methodologically varied chapters comprise an interdisciplinary whole encompassing architecture, geography, economics, marketing, and social history... An excellent, always engaging work that will remain the last word on many aspects of its subject."--Jeffrey L. Meikle, Techology and Culture
The Motel in America (The Road and American Culture)
The Motel in America (The Road and American Culture),John A. Jakle,Keith A. Sculle,Jefferson S. Rogers,The Johns Hopkins University Press,0801869188,Architecture,General,Public, Commercial, or Industrial Buildings,Travel,United States - General,Architecture / Landscape
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