Waubonsee Community College

The big roads, the untold story of the engineers, visionaries, and trailblazers who created the American superhighways, Earl Swift

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

contains biographical information

illustrations

index present

non fiction

The big roads

bibliography

651911390

Earl Swift

the untold story of the engineers, visionaries, and trailblazers who created the American superhighways

"A history of the planning, construction, and impact of the U.S. interstate highway system."--, Provided by publisherA man-made wonder, a connective network, an economic force, a bringer of blight and sprawl and the possibility of escape--the U.S. interstate system transformed America. The Big Roads presents the surprising history of how we got from dirt tracks to expressways in the span of a single lifetime. From the turn-of-the-century car-racing entrepreneur who spurred the "Good Roads" movement, to the handful of driven engineers who conceived of the interstates and how they would work--years before President Eisenhower knew the plans existed--to the protests that erupted when the projects encountered people unwilling to be uprooted in the name of progress, Swift follows a winding route through the dreams, discoveries and protest that shaped these mighty roads, and shows how the interstates embody the wanderlust, grand scale, and conflicting notions of citizenship and progress that define America.--From publisher description

Out of the mud -- Connecting the dots -- The crooked straight, the rough places plain -- The human obstacle