Highway History Bibliography
Interstate System
The latest additions are in bold
Eisenhower, Dwight David, "Through Darkest America with Truck and Tank," At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends, Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1967. (This chapter discusses Eisenhower's trip in 1919 with the first U.S. Army transcontinental truck convoy.)
Foust, Dean, "The Boom Belt," Business Week, September 27, 1993. (Cover story on I-85, with the blurb: "Drive Interstate 85 from Georgia to the Carolinas, and you'll travel through the heart of an economic success story. There are lessons for the rest of the country.")
"40th Anniversary Special Section," Roads and Bridges, June 1996 (collection of articles on the 40th anniversary of the Interstate System).
Hickok, Beverly, Development of the Interstate Highway Program: 1916 to Date, University of Transportation Studies, University of California, June 1980. (A selected bibliography based on the holdings of the Institute of Transportation Studies Library.)
Lewis, Tom, Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways, Transforming American Life, Updated Edition, Cornell University Press, 2013. This updated edition of the 1997 book includes a chapter called "Buried Desires" that focuses on the Central Artery/Tunnel project in Boston (the "Big Dig") and the changing attitudes about highways in the years after major construction of the Interstate System ended.)
Martin, John M., Jr., "Proposed Federal Highway Legislation in 1955, The Georgetown Law Journal, January 1956.
Murphy, John, The Eisenhower Interstate System, Chelsea House Publishers, 2009. (Part of Chelsea's "Building America: Then and Now" series, "celebrating the most famous and important construction projects that changed the United States from an open frontier to the most important country in the world.")
McNichol, Dan, The Roads That Built America, Barnes and Noble Books, 2003. Paperback edition, 2005. (Although described as "The Incredible Story of the U.S. Interstate System," the book covers the evolution of American roads from authorization of the National Road in 1806 through Boston's Big Dig. It discusses the history, construction, and impacts of the Interstate System and provides background information on early road pioneers, U.S. officials such as Logan Page and Thomas H. MacDonald, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Federal Highway Administrator Mary E. Peters, and many others.)
Rose, Mark H., Interstate Express Highway Politics 1941-1989, University of Tennessee Press, 1990 (Revised Edition). (Excellent scholarly history of the Interstate System.)
Schwartz, Gary T., "Urban Freeways and the Interstate System," Southern California Law Review, Vol. 49.406, March 1976. (Insightful look at creation of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, and criticism of the urban elements of the System.)
Swift, Earl, The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011. (The story of the Interstates with emphasis on the lives of Carl Fisher (Lincoln Highway), BPR's Thomas H. MacDonald, BPR/FHWA's Frank Turner, and urban critic Lewis Mumford.)
The States and the Interstates: Research on the Planning, Design and Construction of the Interstate and Defense Highway System, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, 1991. (Development of the Interstate System from the perspective of the State highway officials who built it. Based on oral history interviews with State and Federal officials.)
White, Leland J., "Dividing Highway: Citizen Activism and Interstate 66 in Arlington, Virginia," Washington History, Spring/Summer 2001. (Detailed look into the history of I-66 and how its design evolved inside the Capital Beltway in the face the community opposition.)