Customer Reviews

American Road: The Story of an Epic Transcontinental Journey at the Dawn of the Motor Age

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

While Pete Davies may be a British citizen, he does an effective job in capturing a small segment of Americana in the immediate aftermath of World War I.

It is hard to believe in this day and age, that just 80 years ago there was limited amount of good roads in the U.S. and traveling cross country by car would be such a major achievement.

The book is actually two stories. The first is the story of the First Transcontinental Motor Train from Washington to San Francisco. The second is the movement to build The Licoln Highway, a national road (or a U.S. Main Street) across the country.

Mr. Davies gives a vivid description of capturing post World War I along the route of the motorcade. All through the route both large and small towns planned dances, baseball games and provided food and drink (lemonade since Prohibition had taken effect one week before the tour started) for the soldiers. To many towns this was an event unlike any other. From time to time Mr. Davies also goes into a brief history of towns along the route and in certain instances what it looks like in the 21st century (some have even disappeared). A mysterious Dr. Johnson appears throughout the book giving speeches for the need of good roads and urging for the passage of pending Townsend Act before Congress that called for a national system of highways.

While there were many social events along the way, the motorcade involved incredibly hard work. This was especially true west of the Mississippi River and east of Sierra Nevada when the roads were generally unpaved, the weather was relentless, numerous trucks, cars, and motorcycles got stuck in mud and sand requiring to be towed (sometimes by hand) and bridges were not found not be sturdy enough for the motorcade.

Besides Dwight Eisenhower who was an Army officer on the cross country journey, several of people associated with the motorcade or the Lincoln Highway are chronicled, many of them had a vested interest in building roads. These include Carl Fisher who built the Indianpolis speedway with bricks, Frank Seiberling the founder of Goodyear Tire & Rubber and Henry Bourne Joy the chairman of Packard Motor Company.

The book also delves into feuds along the way among army officers and between Nevada and Utah on the route of the national highway (should it head toward Los Angeles or San Francisco?)

Anyone interested in the Lewis & Clark expedition or the building of the first transcontinetal railroad should enjoy American Road. The book is an easy book to read certainly taking less than the two months the motorcade took!

"The American Road" is a fascinating historical work that chronicles an event that was of monumental importance that has been most forgotten in the public consciousness. In the summer of 1919, a U.S. Army convoy left Washington, D.C., bound for San Francisco. Two months later it arrived at its destination having fought incredible obstacles and hardships along the way. In doing so, the convoy dramatically pointed out to a nation just emrging from the first World War and entering the automobile age the need for good roads.

Author Pete Davies does a decent job of resurrecting the memory of The First Transcontinental Motor Train. He describes the trip in detail and recounts the contribution of its most colorful participants, including a young lieutenant colonel named Dwight D. Eisenhower. The event was a spectacle all along the route, and even generated controversy between communities either included or left off the right of way. For most of the journey, the convoy followed the "Lincoln Highway," a privately funded project that was the first bicoastal road, but in 1919 in many places was actually little more than a line on the map.

As a work of history, "American Road" completes its mission well enough. Author Davies is a decent storyteller and he does a good job of setting the historical context and showing how the event was crucial to the development of America's national road system. The book's main drawback is that Davies chose to focus much of his attention on the relatively unintersting local political controversies along the route and not enough on the stories of individual soldiers in the convoy. Even the colorful "Ike" gets only a scant few pages of coverage in total. Also underutilized is the author's accounts of what the route looks like today, which are sprinkled in here and there without much rhyme or reason. On the plus side, the book contains a generous helping of photographs and a helpful route map on the inside covers.

Overall, a decent historical work that serves to rekindle the memory of the dawn of the American motor age.

Pete Davies has done a spectacular job of capturing the enormity of this history-making undertaking. When you consider that less than 100 years ago there were less than 10 miles of paved road in the whole country and contrast that with today, it's mind-boggling what has been accomplished in such a short time.

And it's all because the automobile came along and people needed passable roads on which to drive them. The Trans-Continental Convoy held up an unavoidable magnifying glass for the citizens (and politicians) of the US so they would not need to ask, "What's wrong with our roads?" It became crystal clear. If you wanted your town and state to develop, you'd better get on the Good Roads bandwagon.

This book was particularly interesting to me because my father drove these trucks during World War One from the automotive centers in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana to Baltimore, using the Lincoln Highway. From Baltimore they were shipped overseas. In one of his letters, he remarked that it had been raining for three days straight, but they got by fairly well because most roads were gravel.

Although I'm sure the eastern most portions of the Lincoln Highway were probably in better repair than the western parts, The American Road gave me a good picture of what my father was up against.

The next time you drive down the Interstate, you can thank the foresight of some people in Detroit, the keen observation of a young Lt. Col. Dwight Eisenhower, and the sheer grit of the Convoy drivers, for showing the nation what had to be done.

Pete Davies has provided us with an interesting view on American history with his book American Road. I found the book interesting and engrossing, though Davies had a tendancy at times to divert off to a tangent that does not seem to be related to the topic at hand. Most of the topics he includes in the book give the reader a better understanding of how critical this transcontinental journey really was in forming modern America.

Davies' research is top-notch; he relies on primary sources including journals and newspaper accounts written at the time of the events.

The book is a great chronicle of early 20th Century Americana from a social perspective, including the trials and tribulations faced by the individuals during the cross-country journey.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the formation of modern America's motor age, but if you're only interested in understanding the Army's piece in this, you should consider skipping this book, because it doesn't do much with the military piece, despite the fact that the U.S. Army was responsible for the motorcade.

American Road by Pete Davies is the story of the first large group road trip ever taken in the United States. Between July and August 1919, the Army sent a truck convoy from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco along the then largely unpaved Lincoln Highway. Ike was there as a young officer. The truck and tire companies were there assuring good product placement. The Good Roads Movement was there. American citzens were cheering [and booing] and Congress was watching. This was the point in history where highways became a Federal concern. Try to imagine the United States without Route 66 or I-80 and you'll know why this period was a pivotal point in road trip history.

American Road is history woven around the travelogue format. As the truck convoy progresses across the country, we learn about the Army's switch to truck transport, the Good Roads Movement, the early history of the auto and tire industries, how the different states were handling their highways, about life in small American towns, and that Ike was a prankster among other things. Even though the transitions aren't always seemless, American Roads is a smooth and comfortable read.

I enjoyed American Roads a lot. My biggest complaint [and it's a small, whiny complaint] is that the book skips from McKeesport, Pennsylvania to Wilkinsburg, Pennsyvania and fails to mention the towns in between. I lived ON US 30 [the old Lincoln Highway] between 1976 and 1981 in Forest Hills, Pennsylvania and still have family there, and I wouldn't characterize the area as a place that has the "look of a place whose future has been and gone already." I remember the Lincoln statue in Wilkinsburg. I recommend this book to anyone interested in history, especially the history of US highways, and anyone who enjoys a good travelogue and a good road trip.

You will find Davies' book to be a highly readable and epic account of the genesis of our nation's road system early in the 20th century as Americans commenced their love affair with the car. His history of the First Transcontinental Motor Train and the Lincoln Highway is well researched, and well deserving of being brought to light, given their impact on the development of the American primary route and interstate systems later on. I learned a lot (now I know how the Lincoln Tunnel in NYC and Lincoln Park in SF got their names), although I was also a bit disappointed that he did not write a more balanced account of the Utah controversy over the placement of the Lincoln Highway, giving only the Lincoln Highway Association's perspective. (Okay, okay...I admit that most readers won't notice that...but hey, I'm a stickler for details!) The book is also timely as we approach the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth, as the centennial provided a context for both the Lincoln Highway and the Lincoln penny! Bravo!

I saw the author on C-span talking about his book and having driven parts of the Lincoln Highway in Pennsylvania it sparked my interest. This book is a good mix of the early auto and rubber industry involvement in the Lincoln Highway Association as well as the adventures of future president Eisenhower. It takes a look at what started our Federal Highway system. Another interesting fact is that 80 years later Utah still hasn't paved all of their part of the Lincoln Highway. Even if you don't like history, you'll like the adventures of the convoy crossing the country. Every truck on today's interstates can trace its roots to this convoy.

I found it most interesting to read about the country in a time before highways, when roads were meant to connect one town with the next, not to carry people to distant places. It's wild to learn how well known this Lincoln Highway was in its time, how towns held celebrations every time the convoy arrived, and yet most people now have never heard of the Lincoln Highway. Cool to read about Ike's antics, and spy on a future president when he was just a prankster kid.

The author researched it well, quoting old newspaper accounts from the small towns they passed through. Still, it's hard to say the tale of the journey was "riveting" in the way some travelogues about a long journey are. And I found all the details about the supporting characters (the ones who did not take the trip, but funded it or supported it) a bit hard to get through, before the trip started.

In July 1919 an Army motor convoy set off from the White House to drive to San Francisco, a distance of 3250 miles of dirt roads. It took two months for 300 men and 81 vehicles. About fifty miles a day. Its purpose was to demonstrate the need for a national highway system, and led to the Lincoln Highway from New York to San Francisco, the financial capitals on the coasts. [The national railroad system could travel this distance in about a week.] Automobile manufacturers and suppliers wanted the government to build this road to benefit their products and customers. This book tells the story of that journey with related historical facts.

Henry B. Joy was born into wealth. His first car was a Packard which he liked so much he bought the company (p.21). Joy and others wanted to build a transcontinental highway (p.25) that would be called the Lincoln Highway. [Lincoln was a lawyer for the railroads.] Manufacturers of cars, tires, and cement would benefit (p.28). The highway would show the practibility of long distance motor transportation (p.41). States were reluctant to build roads until Henry Ford mass-produced cars (p.46). Steam-powered vehicles needed stokers to feed the boilers (p.54). Chauffeur means stoker. The biggest problem for this convoy was feeding the men (p.63). ["An army travels on its stomach."] "Pavement was power" (p.88). Dusty roads led to accidents (p.91). Paved roads saved gas and less wear on tires and vehicles (p.97). The 1916 Highway Act used auto licensing fees to pay for paved roads (p.97). Plans were made to pave the roads (p.102). But the fall in prices for agricultural produce was the beginning of the Depression for rural America (p.103).

Chapters 7, 8, 9, and 10 describe the passage through Nebraska, Wyoming, and Utah and the difficulties. For comparison ships were sent from Washington through the Panama Canal to San Francisco. There were political considerations to road location in Utah (p.157); who benefitted? The Utah desert was difficult to cross (p.175). Nevada was worse (p.183). Nevada became a state in 1864 (p.191). They reached California (Chapter 11). California passed a bond issue for a statewide highway system in 1910 (p.199). Were they pioneers in road building (p.202)? The caterpillar tractor was invented in 1904 Stockton (p.205). The convoy arrived in San Francisco on September 6 and marched through the town (p.210).

The `Epilogue' tells of the aftermath. Packard stopped making trucks, their utility detracted from their luxury cars. President Eisenhower signed the interstate highway system project, the biggest civil-engineering project in the world. Ike disapproved of building freeways that destroyed parts of cities (p.215). Bad roads had a high number of deaths. [No comment on the automobiles in use or the traffic laws.] Another convoy showed more problems (p.216). President Harding signed the Townsend Bill for Federal Highway funding for the main roads of a state. There was a problem in road building in Utah (p.219) caused by rivalry between San Francisco and Los Angeles (p.220). Money talked, San Francisco won (p.221). The recession of 1921 had its effects (p.223). Henry Joy warned against the dangers of a resurgent Germany and argued for national preparedness (p.228). Packard was the only independent luxury car maker to survive the Depression (p.230). It made airplane engines during WW II. [It suffered in 1955 when its independently produced rear-axles proved defective; they were replace under warranty but the cost killed Packard.] It was the end of an era (p.231).
This book needs pages about the private railroads of that era. They reportedly stopped highway construction in states where they had political influence.

American Road by seasoned author Pete Davies is an amazing, and intimate portrait of a piece of America's past. This story is adventure travel at it's best. Peter Davies telescopes backward in time to 1919 as the U.S Army plans a 3000 mile journey across America's heartland as the First Transcontinental Motor Convoy. To promote the building of America's roads, the army devised a scheme to gather up 81 various vehicles such as cars, trucks, tractors, motorcycles, ambulances, and kitchen messes, to then cross the width of the US starting from Washington D.C on westward to San Francisco. They were to assess what needed to be done to get highways and roads built and to map out which sections of the country were traversable and which were not. At this time, this was still the dawn of the automobile industry and currently cars were still a luxury to be owned only by the wealthy or automobile industry magnates.

Although this was strictly a military operation, of which young Ike Eisenhower is a member, there were many key players of the major automobile and tire companies that added their input and finances to make the trip successful. All parties involved hope to use this journey as a fundraising expedition to pave the roads across America, where at this point in our history, were nothing but dirt paths and previous prairie schooner wagon ruts. America in 1919 was nothing more than a rutted dirt trail through an empty map.

For over 100 eager & determined Army soldiers, this endeavor would prove that only the fittest would survive as these men grunted and strained every single day for over two months, laying down each night under the stars totally believing they would not succeed. As they began their grueling journey and slowly inched west, the easier sections were of course up to the point of Ohio and Nebraska. Small towns and cities first, then the flat prairies where nothing but dirt and plains for all the eye to see eased them into what would soon become a more harrowing trip. Daily, the routine was pull out at 5:30 am, "drive, sink, push, pull, strain, curse, drive on some more" to only fall flat on their faces at midnight when the stars came out and visibility was a hinderance. The clouds of dust, muck as deep as quicksand and as thick as quagmire, rocks and rubble, and steep inclines that threatened to pitch them off the side of mountains to their death, were just some examples of the treacherous terrain from day one to the end. Each day combating the elements, strategizing and puzzling out the best way to battle the dangers ahead took a heavy toll on these fierce yet determined souls. It was a test of "nerve and endurance that proved what the American spirit was capable of". There were torrential rains to make the roads so slick the drivers struggled to take purchase lest they slip off the side of the world. There were dust devils swirling so wide and high they blinded the drivers and clogged up the gear works. Goggles were coated in bugs, dirt and motor oil, and bathing to rid the caked on dirt was for these poor men, a far and few between occurance. Detailed descriptions of climbing monumental sand dunes during moments of intense desert heat had the soldiers fearing they would roast alive leaving nothing but bones for the buzzards. The vehicles, infants in motor history, broke down each and every day. Parts needed replacing, accidents caused injuries and loss, morale for the men diminished mile by mile as they insanely crept toward their goal always voicing "tell me again, why are we doing this?"

I found this marvelous account riveting, and totally got caught up in the spirit of the adventure. The author writes very well and the story reads as smooth as fiction. Davies not only gives the reader an incredible death defying story, but also reveals fascinating facts about the history of the automobile industry by interjecting interesting tidbits dispersed among the daily convoy events. The one thing that might intrigue a potential buyer of this book is that one of our WWII presidents was along for the ride and performed his duty as resident prankster and practical joker as he took it all in stride to boost the others spirits when impending doom seemed imminent. 28 year old Ike Eisenhower seemed to view the brutality of this pioneering road with a sense of humor as well as his duty.

The journey for the Army Convoy team took 62 back breaking days as they rattled and rolled across the heart of America, and believe me they as they drove along hell's backbone, they were not singing Happy Trails to You. But they made it.

I highly recommend this book for any automobile enthusiast, any reader of adventure travel books, and for avid fans of early American history. If the story does one thing for you, it makes you realize 100% how spoiled we are today. Sensational story, two thumbs up!