Ex-Westminster School Library

In the summer of 1949, George R. Stewart, a 54 year old English professor at the University of California, Berkeley, embarked on an extended journey across the America’s midsection on the highway U.S. Route 40. His objective was to record the history, geography, landscape as well as everyday life as it existed along the shoulders of the nearly 3,200 mile transcontinental highway. In 1950, Stewart made a second trip across the highway. In the end, he logged more than 15,000 miles, took close to 1,000 photographs and filled three notebooks with field observations. The culmination of this effort was his 1953 book, U.S. 40: Cross Section of the United States of America.

Stewart’s U.S. 40 was a landmark in the field of landscape studies for it was the first book written about a transcontinental U.S. highway – and it was the first time anyone had written extensively of the notion of a highway as place. Appealing to general public and academic audiences, the book did well by 1950’s standards, with almost 20,000 copies sold. The book contained 114 stunning black and white photographs and 92 well crafted essays covering subjects as diverse as architecture, geology, history, billboards and litter. While Route 66 became a Hollywood legend, Route 40 was the real deal – an honest working transcontinental highway. This book captured the very essence of everyday life along the highway at the zenith of the golden age of automobiling, just prior to the development of the Interstate Highway System.

Like Stewart himself, this book was a somewhat hidden from the mainstream. Its influence, however, was considerable. Scores of academics and writers, including Larry McMurtry, J.B. Jackson and William Least Heat-Moon have cited this work as one of the greatest works in the field of landscape and odological studies. Among my roadside studies peers, most tell a recurring story: they stumbled on the book at an early age and they’ve never been able to put the book down. ( )