"Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road" (Jack Kerouac).

          Over time, the open road has become synonymous with the American ideal of freedom. It connects people, brings us together, helps us get where we need to go, and facilitates the mobility provided by recreational travel. The story of the nation’s highways, however, is best told by the places found on the road, scattered between one’s starting point and destination. Gas stations, rest stops, diners, motels, and other neon-lit landscape vernacular commonly found along highways and roads residually hold imprints of the social forces that built them, symbolizing a very transformative period in this country’s history. As the foreword to Peter Laufer and Sheila Swan’s Neon Nevada declares, “as artifacts of American culture, neon signs illuminate our character and our history” (Laufer/Swan). I believe that by looking into roadside Americana, neon signage, vernacular landscapes, and other mid-century media, insights about American social, political, and economic changes in the decades leading up to and directly following the construction of the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System can be revealed.