THE NATIONAL ROAD

The National Road is America's first federally planned and funded highway. This book is the first of a two-volume set on the National Road. This Volume 1 is an historical and geographical appraisal of the National Road from conception to its evolution as America's foremost highway. The National Road is an archetypal road that has played a formative role in American life; a road that best illustrates how America's peoples have embraced the highway and the landscapes attendant to its route. Volume 1 is organized into four parts encompassing twelve chapters. Part 1 places the American highway within a broad historical and cultural context. Chapter 1 examines the evolution of the American attitude toward transportation--movement equals freedom--and the landscapes that grew up as a product of our affinity for access to places near and far. Chapter 2 places the National Road in the context of the physical environment across which engineers had to direct its route, and a portfolio of paintings and prints introduces visual images of how the highway came to play a central role in American life. Part 2, "Building the National Road," includes four chapters, on planning and funding, surveying and construction, and evolving construction and transport technologies. Part 3, "Image and Landscape," comprises four chapters that examine historic travelers' impressions and experiences of the National Road; how the Road became a corridor for the movement of ideas as well as commodities and people; the merger of the Road into the national highway network as US 40 and how a new auto-oriented roadside landscape evolved; and an examination of the interstate and how its presence represents a standardizing federal presence across a varied countryside. Part 4, "The National Road as American Landscape Heritage," contains two chapters. Chapter 11 examines the role of accessibility in American culture. The concluding chapter examines the place of the Road, its attendant landscape, and all that they symbolize in the context of historic preservation.