Publication Cover
History and Technology
An International Journal
Volume 28, 2012 - Issue 1
348
Views
2
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Articles

Who gets to draw the map? The contentious creation of the American road/map system, 1917–1926

Pages 3-24 | Published online: 22 Mar 2012

References

Abbreviations used for archival collections:

  • LHA Lincoln Highway Association Records. Special Collections Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
  • MHDR Minnesota Highway Department Records, AmericanAssociation of State Highway Officials collection. Minnesota Historical Society Library, St Paul.
  • RMNA Rand McNally Archive. Newberry Library, Chicago.
  • WDHT Wisconsin Division of Highways and Transportation Services: General Correspondence and Subject File, 1918-1993, Series 918. Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, Madison.
  • AASHO , Staff . 1965 . “ The U.S. Route Numbered System. ” . In Published on the Occasion of the Golden Anniversary of American Association of State Highway Officials: A Story of the Beginning, Purposes, Growth, Activities and Achievements of AASHO , Edited by: Johnson , A.E. Washington , DC : The American Association of State Highway Officials .
  • Akerman , James R. 1993 . Maps, Selling Highways: Rand McNally’s “Blazed Trails” Program . Imago Mundi , 45 : 77 – 89 .
  • Akerman , James R. 2006 . “ Twentieth-Century American Road Maps and the Making of a National Motorized Space ” . In Cartographies of Travel and Navigation , Edited by: Akerman , James R, . 51 – 206 . Chicago , IL : University of Chicago Press .
  • American Association of State Highway Officials. ‘Resolutions Adopted by American Association of State Highway Officials at its Tenth Annual Convention at San Francisco, California, November 17–20, 1924.’ MHDR, Box 1.
  • American Society of Civil Engineers. ‘Report in Full of the Sixty-Eighth Annual Meeting, January 19th and 20th, 1921.’ Proceedings of the American Society of Civil Engineers 47, no. 2 (February 1921): 175–230.
  • Atlanta Constitution. ‘Highway Dept. for Dowell Bill,’ 22 May 1921.
  • Babcock, Charles M. ‘Annual Address of the President of the American Association of State Highway Officials by Charles M. Babcock, Minnesota, Dec. 4 [1920] at Kansas City, Mo.’ MHDR, Box 1.
  • Bay, Helmuth. ‘The Beginning of Modern Road Maps in the United States.’ Surveying and Mapping 12, no. 4 (October–December 1952): 413–16.
  • Bement, Austin F. ‘What the Lincoln Highway Means to the “New West,” 1915. LHA, Box 3.
  • Brink, John. History of Rand McNally Auto Trails, 1908–1926. Unpublished typescript, no date, but probably 1926 or 1927. RMNA, Series 3, Box 9, folder 105.
  • Brink , John . 1992 . The Blazed Trails , Chicago , IL : Rand McNally & Co .
  • Buerglener, Robert. ‘Creating the American Automobile Driver, 1898–1918.’ PhD Diss., The University of Chicago, 2006.
  • Butler, Sheppard. ‘News and Comment of Motordom.’ Chicago Daily Tribune, 13 April 1919.
  • Carson, Robert N. ‘The Chief of the U.S. Bureau of Highways and Automobile Tourists Favor the Maintenance of the Trail Markers,’ 1 June 1925. LHA, Box 3.
  • Chicago Daily Tribune. ‘Politics a Blight on Good Roads, Expert Warns,’ 19 May 1921.
  • Chicago Sunday Tribune Magazine. ‘He Made the Highways Happy Ways.’ Chicago Sunday Tribune Magazine 8 November 1959.
  • Cosgrove , Dennis . 2008 . Geography and Vision: Seeing, Imagining and Representing the World , London : I.B. Tauris .
  • Dawley , Alan . 1991 . Struggles for Justice. Social Responsibility and the Liberal State , Cambridge , MA : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press .
  • Ehrenberg , Ralph E. 2006 . “Up in the Air in More Ways Than One:” the Emergence of Aeronautical Charts in the United States ” . In Cartographies of Travel and Navigation , Chicago , IL : University of Chicago Press .
  • Engineering-News Record. ‘New Federal-Aid Road Bill Calls for Highway Classification and State Systems.’ Engineering-News Record 86, no. 17 (29 April 1921).
  • Erickson, Conroy V. ‘Even George Washington Needed a Road Atlas.’ Press release from the office of the Public Relations Director, Rand McNally and Company, January 1980.
  • Fein , Michael . 2008 . Paving the Way: New York Road Builiding and the American State, 1880–1956 , Lawrence , KS : University Press of Kansas .
  • Friedman , Lawrence M. 1990 . The Republic of Choice. Law, Authority, and Culture , Cambridge , MA : Harvard University Press .
  • Good Roads. ‘Wisconsin Law Accepting Federal Aid.’ Good Roads 52 (old series 14), no. 13 (29 September 1917), 175.
  • Gudis , Catherine . 2004 . Buyways: Billboards, Automobiles, and the American Landscape , New York : Routledge .
  • Harley , J.B. 2001 . The New Nature of Maps: Essays in the History of Cartography , Edited by: Paul Laxton . Baltimore , MD : Johns Hopkins University Press .
  • Heminway, M.L. ‘By-Ways Versus Highways.’ The Highway Engineer & Contractor 6, no. 2 (February 1922).
  • Highway Engineer & Contractor. ‘Resolutions Passed at Annual Meeting of State Highway Officials.’ Highway Engineer & Contractor 6, no. 1 (January 1922).
  • Highway Planning Survey . 1947 . A History of Wisconsin Highway Development, 1835-1945 , Madison , WI : State of Wisconsin .
  • Hirst, A.R. ‘A.R. Hirst to A.E. Nissen, December 24, 1918.’ WDHT, Box 7, folder 7.
  • Hirst, A.R. ‘A.R. Hirst to A.E. Nissen, January 2, 1919.’ WDHT, Box 7, folder 7.
  • Hirst, A.R. ‘A.R. Hirst to John S. Owen, January 29, 1918.’ WDHT, Box 4, folder 22.
  • Hirst, A.R. ‘A.R. Hirst to L.C. Whittet, September 10, 1919.’ WDHT, Box 6, folder 8.
  • Hirst, A.R. ‘The American Highway Problem.’ Public Roads 2 no. 20 (December 1919).
  • Hirst, A.R. ‘Developing a Highway Transportation System for a State.’ Journal of the Western Society of Engineers 27, no. 1 (January 1922): 13–25.
  • Hirst , A.R. 1918 . “ Underlying Principles Controlling the Laying Out, Marking and Maintaining of a State Trunk Highway System ” . In Fourth Biennial Report, by the Wisconsin Highway Commission , 5 – 60 . Madison , WI : State of Wisconsin .
  • Hirst, A.R. ‘The Wisconsin System of Marking Trunk Highways.’ Engineering and Contracting 51, no. 6 (5 February 1919).
  • Hotchkiss, W.O. ‘State of the Origin of Wisconsin Highway Work,’ typescript dated 23 January 23, 1925. W.O. Hotchkiss Papers, 1919–1925. Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison.
  • Inyo Good Roads Club. ‘The Pasear.’ Bishop, Cal.: Inyo Good Roads Club, 1915. LHA, Box 4.
  • Jenkins, J.L. ‘Middle West Accepts U.S. Road Numbers.’ Chicago Daily Tribune, 18 January 1926.
  • Johnson, Hiram W. ‘Hiram W. Johnson to A.R. Pardington, June 19, 1914.’ LHA, Box 2.
  • Jordan , John . 1994 . Machine-Age Ideology: Social Engineering and American Liberalism, 1911–1939 , Chapel Hill , NC : University of North Carolina Press .
  • Joy, Henry B. ‘Tightening the Union,’ ca 1915–1917. LHA, box 3.
  • Layton , Edwin T. 1986 . Revolt of the Engineers: Social Responsibility and the American Engineering Profession , Baltimore , MD : Johns Hopkins University Press .
  • Lincoln Highway Association. ‘Lincoln Highway Association Subscription.’ LHA, Box 2.
  • Lincoln Highway Forum. ‘A.A.A. Urges States Retain Established Route Names.’ The Lincoln Highway Forum 6, no. 4 (January 1924).
  • —. ‘Can Lincoln Highway be Wiped off Map?’ The Lincoln Highway Forum 6, no. 12 (April 1925). LHA, Box 4.
  • Markham, W.C. ‘W.C. Markham [legislative representative of the American Association of State Highway Officials] to all state highway departments, February 26, 1921.’ MHDR, Box 1.
  • McNally, Andrew, III. Interview ca 1934. RMNA series 1, Box 6, folder 168.
  • McShane , Clay . 1994 . Down the Asphalt Path: The Automobile and the American City , New York : Columbia University Press .
  • Morehead, John H. ‘John H. Morehead to the Lincoln Highway Association, August 26, 1914.’ LHA, Box 2.
  • Mumford , Lewis . 1963 . The Highway and the City , New York : Harcourt, Brace, & World .
  • Municipal and County Engineering. ‘Make the National Highway Bill a Law.’ Municipal and County Engineering 56, no. 6 (June 1919).
  • Municipal Record. ‘The Federal Highway Act.’ Municipal Record 14 no. 51 (22 December 1921).
  • Nissen, A.E. ‘A.E. Nissen to A.R. Hirst, Dec. 15th, 1918.’ WDHT, Box 7, folder 7.
  • —. ‘Organized and Blazed Automobile Trails in Minnesota,’ originally published in Western Magazine, St. Paul: no date, but between 1918 and 1919. WDHT, Box 7, folder 7.
  • Norton , Peter D. 2008 . Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City , Cambridge , MA : The MIT Press .
  • Packer , Jeremy . 2008 . Mobility Without Mayhem: Safety, Cars, and Citizenship , Durham , NC : Duke University Press .
  • Pisani, Donald J. ‘Reclamation and Social Engineering in the Progressive Era.’ Agricultural History 57, no. 1 (January 1983): 46–63.
  • Porter, James E. ‘James E. Porter to the Lincoln Highway, June 10, 1914.’ LHA, Box 2.
  • Radford, Gail. ‘From Municipal Socialism to Public Authorities: Institutional Factors in the Shaping of American Public Enterprise.’ The Journal of American History 90, no. 3 (December 2003): 863–90.
  • [Ralston, Samuel]. ‘Governor of Indiana [Samuel Ralston] to Henry Joy, August 21, 1914.’ LHA, Box 2.
  • Rand McNally . 2009 . The Road Atlas , Chicago , IL : Rand McNally .
  • Rand McNally and Company. ‘Auto Trails Map, district number 5.’ Chicago, IL: Rand, McNally and Company, 1924. David Rumsey Historical Map Collection, www.davidrumsey.com (accessed 20 April 2010).
  • Rand McNally and Company . 1909 . Photo-Auto Maps: Chicago to Cleveland, Cleveland to Chicago , Chicago , IL : Rand McNally .
  • Rand McNally and Company . 1932 . Rand McNally Road Atlas and Guide to Places of Interest of the United States and Eastern Canada , Chicago , IL : Rand McNally .
  • Rand McNally and Company . 1939 . Rand McNally Road Atlas of the United States, Canada and Mexico , Chicago , IL : Rand McNally .
  • Rand McNally and Company . 1944 . Rand McNally Road Atlas of the United States, Canada and Mexico , Chicago , IL : Rand McNally .
  • Representatives of Organized Trunk Line Highways. ‘Minutes of Meeting of Representatives of Organized Trunk Line Highways’ at Hotel La Salle, Chicago, Monday 9 December 1918. WDHT, Box 7, folder 7.
  • Rice , Bradley Robert. 1977 . Progressive Cities: The Commission Government Movement in America, 1901–1920 , Austin : University of Texas Press .
  • Roosevelt, Theodore. Theodore Roosevelt to Henry Joy, 2 May 1917. LHA, Box 2.
  • Rodgers , Daniel T. 1998 . Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age , Cambridge , MA : The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press .
  • Rose-Redwood, Reuben S. ‘Indexing the Great Ledger of the Community: Urban House Numbering, City Directories, and the Production of Spatial Legibility.’ Journal of Historical Geography 34, no. 2 (April 2008): 286–310.
  • Rossinow , Doug . 2008 . Visions of Progress: The Left-Liberal Tradition in America , Philadelphia , PA : University of Pennsylvania Press .
  • Scarborough . 1905 . Complete Road Atlas, Massachusetts and Rhode Island , Boston , MA : Scarborough .
  • Schulten , Susan . 2001 . The Geographical Imagination in America, 1880–1950 , Chicago , IL : University of Chicago Press .
  • Seely , Bruce E. 1987 . Building the American Highway System: Engineers as Policy Makers , Philadelphia , PA : Temple University Press .
  • Seiler , Cotten . 2008 . Republic of Drivers: A Cultural History of Automobility in America , Chicago , IL : University of Chicago Press .
  • Shaffer , Marguerite . 2001 . See America First: Tourism and National Identity, 1880–1940 , Washington , DC : Smithsonian Institution Press .
  • State Board of Public Roads of the State Rhode Island . 1926 . Twenty-Fourth Annual Report of the State Board of Public Roads of the State Rhode Island , Providence , RI : Oxford Press .
  • Stromquist , Shelton . 2006 . Re-inventing ‘The People’: The Progressive Movement, the Class Problem, and the Origins of Modern Liberalism , Urbana , IL : University of Illinois Press .
  • Swift , Earl . 2011 . The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways , Boston , MA : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt .
  • United States House of Representatives . 1921 . Sixty-Seventh Congress, Hearing Before the Committee on Roads, parts 1 and 2 , Washington , DC : Government Printing Office .
  • Volti, Rudi. ‘A Century of Automobility.’ Technology and Culture 37, no. 4 (October 1996): 663–85.
  • Washington Post. ‘10 La Follette Men Win in Wisconsin; Blaine Renominated,’ 4 September 1924.
  • Weingroff, Richard F. ‘From Names to Numbers: The Origins of the U.S. Numbered Highway System,’ online publication of the U.S. Department of Transportation, last modified 9 January 2009. http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrasturcutre/numbers.cfm (accessed 15 April 2010).
  • Winner , Langdon . 1986 . The Whale and the Reactor: A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology , Chicago , IL : University of Chicago Press .
  • —. ‘Minutes of Wisconsin Highway Commission, Aug. 10, 1920 to Jan. 6, 1925.’ Minutes of the Highway Commission and Division, 1911–1987, Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison.
  • Wisconsin Highway Commission . 1920 . Wisconsin Highway Commission Bulletin , 9
  • Wisconsin Highway Commission . 1926 . Sixth Biennial Report of State Highway Activities , Madison , WI : State of Wisconsin .
  • Woodworth, Harmon H. ‘Harmon H. Woodworth [Sales Promotional Manager at Rand McNally] to John T. McCutcheon, Jr. of the Chicago Tribune, July 20, 1955.’ RMNA, series 2, Box 1, folder 11.

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.