Americans have a unique connection to long-distance travel. Scholars have argued that from early settlers arriving on the Mayflower to white settlers moving west in wagon trains in the 1800s to Black Americans making the great migration to the North in the 1930s, the culture of the United States has been shaped by people striking out into the unknown, pushing into new territory in search of better opportunity.
In preparation for the summer road trip season, join historian Allen Pietrobon, a professor of global affairs at Trinity Washington University, as he looks at the ways Americans traveled in the past—for example, what it was like to be aboard a wagon in the 1840s and a transcontinental railroad in the 1880s. Pietrobon talks about the rapid growth of interstates in the 1960s, the associated rise of fast food and roadside motels, and, most importantly, the birth of the notion that the open road is the epitome of American freedom. Why are tales of cross-country travel such an integral part of American culture? What can the nation’s long tradition of road tripping teach us about our country and ourselves?
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