The 1950s: Post-War Prosperity, Las Vegas, and the Interstate Highway
Emerging from World War II as a global power, the United States experienced a unique, unrepeatable period of extreme wealth and economic growth. The systems of infrastructure and commerce established during wartime now served to facilitate greater prosperity in peacetime. In the foreword to Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways, Transforming American Life, Gertrude Stein declares, “in the fifties we thought there was nothing beyond us. We could do everything and we could do it to excess” (Lewis/Stein).
Left: Highsmith, C.M. (2018, March 14). [There was a time when the signs for every decent motel in Tucson shimmered in neon vibrance along the “Miracle Mile”? entryway into town] [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://www.loc.gov/item/2018663058/.
Center: Highsmith, C. M. (2015, July 29). [This place does not fuel the international space station in low Earth orbit. It’s a cleverly designed terrestrial gas station, whose sign lights brightly at night in Steamboat Springs, Colorado] [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://www.loc.gov/item/2015633723/.
Right: Margolies, J. (1987). [Branding Iron Motel sign, B-40 (Route 66), Flagstaff, Arizona] [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://www.loc.gov/item/2017703539/.
As soldiers returned home from war, started families, and set out on road trips to show them the America they grew up with, neon signs began to promote a distinct sort of consumer escapism. Tropical tiki bars and motels donned Polynesian themes to transport veterans back to the island paradises they were stationed in during the war, western casinos capitalized on regional history and the idea of the rugged individual to encourage gambling and self-indulgence, and buildings used Googie architecture to present the public with the hopes and dreams of the coming space-age future. Steve Fitch notes that “during the 1950s, signs became more sculptural and bigger in size, eventually evolving into asymmetric designs” (Fitch). Nowhere is this belief more visually apparent than in the towering neon signs of the Las Vegas strip.
Highsmith, C.M. (c.1980). [Neon signs shine in Las Vegas, Nevada, in the early 1980s] [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://www.loc.gov/item/2011631290/.
In Neon Metropolis: How Las Vegas Started the Twenty-First Century, Hal Rothman shows how the early days of Las Vegas set the scene for the later excess, decadence, and fantasy offered at corporate casinos. “In the 1930s Las Vegas offered an image of the mythology of the nineteenth-century West, where an individual could thrive and institutions could not impinge upon personal desire,” he states. “There was one way that Las Vegas [stood] apart from the multitude of similar towns. It possessed a sense of itself as a place out of time, left over from an older western past” (Rothman). Vegas’s attachment to its history sets it apart as being filled with landscape vernacular. Many of the old western saloons and storefronts became icons of the Vegas strip. The most recognizable example is probably that of the Pioneer Club with their ‘Vegas Vic’ cowboy sign.
Highsmith, C. M. (between 1980 and 2006). [Vegas Vic on Freemont Street in Las Vegas, Nevada] [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://www.loc.gov/item/2011630281/.
Christoph Ribbat indicates that “between the 1950s and ‘70s, Las Vegas developed into a neon oasis. In that period its casinos went in for spectacular innovations in order to attract gamblers” (Ribbat). Blending entertainment, experience, and opportunity for a huge portion of the American public, Las Vegas became the place to go if you were feeling lucky. Elvis Presley commemorated Sin City’s opulence in 1963’s “Viva Las Vegas,” describing the spectacle of Vegas’ neon signs, the consumption they celebrated, and its transformative grip on the psyche.
"Oh, there’s blackjack and poker and a roulette wheel. / A fortune won and lost on every deal”
“Viva Las Vegas with your neon flashin’,”
“Viva Las Vegas turnin’ day into nighttime, / Turn the night into daytime, / If you see it once, you’ll never come home again”
Rothman further relays that “in its promise of a luxury experience for a middle-class price, Las Vegas pretend[ed] to encourage social mobility; it guarantee[d] escape from the mundane – with you at the center of the story” (Rothman). Functioning much like how Ronald Primeau perceives the road trip, with the appeal being the “carnivalesque disruption of the ordinary” (Primeau), Las Vegas and countless other vacation destinations became a port of call for tourists looking to make new memories or forget about their past. The immersive nature of the landscape vernacular used at these places truly transported guests to a world of their own.
Left: Margolies, J. (1980). [Oasis Bar sign, Billings, Montana] [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://www.loc.gov/item/2017709775/.
Top: Margolies, J. (1991). [Warren Dunes State Park sign, Red Arrow Highway, Bridgman, Michigan] [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://www.loc.gov/item/2017705928/.
Bottom: Margolies, J. (1982). [Cuban Liquors, Scenic Highway, Baton Rouge, Louisiana] [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://www.loc.gov/item/2017702480/.
Right: Margolies, J. (1991). [El Portal Motel sign, Santa Rosa Avenue, Santa Rosa, California] [Photograph]. Retrieved from https://www.loc.gov/item/2017703548/.
As Peter Laufer identifies, “the development of neon and the popularization of neon coincides temporally with the rise of the automobile culture and the concept of the American road trip, and enough disposable income to allow a substantive portion of the American population to just hop in the car and go see America” (Laufer). This swell in automotive tourism can be seen in National Park attendance, which nearly doubled throughout the fifties, from 32,706,172 visitors in 1950 to 62,834,000 in 1959 (nps.gov). Ronald Primeau recognizes the lure of the road to be “simple adventure, escape, and the offer to break the routine. The freedom of the pilgrimage is a social alternative, a pure quest for something beyond the mundane” (Primeau). However, with the passing of the Federal-Aid Highway Act on June 26th, 1956, the mundane began to seep into the landscape of the American road trip.
Highway engineers across the country began planning the Interstate to implement a “uniformity of design” while also overcoming regional geographic challenges, among other pertinent issues. J. Richard Capka mentions that “the design of the Interstate System has not been static. Through creativity and engineering expertise, each State built highways that, while uniform in some respects, were also unique to their setting” (Capka). Sharing this feature with landscape vernacular, the new highway system began to literally surpass the old markers of regional personality in favor of a streamlined path straight towards a destination.
Cold War tensions meant that President Eisenhower was constantly overwhelmed with the threat of nuclear attack during his two terms. Dan McNichols claims that Eisenhower “saw an Interstate System of highways as essential to the nation’s defense, needed for the fast deployment of troops and as a possible escape route for Americans fleeing the fallout of an atomic blast” (McNichol). Influenced by the defensive design of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944, the stark juxtaposition of the intended purpose for the new Interstate Highway, and how the public perceived it as a mechanism for personal freedom, seems like a paradox. Some recognized this paradox, and embraced it in an attempt to subvert the conformist, consumerist values promoted by the developing highway systems. Abandoning the mainstream for a nomadic life of roaming the country’s expressways and impulsively seeking out direct lived experience, alienated Americans desired ways of connecting with other likeminded individuals that were not mediated by materialistic economic ideology.