The Motel in America

The Motel in America. By John A. Jakle, Keith A. Sculle, and Jefferson S. Rogers Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. xiv + 340 pp. Figures, notes, bibliography, and index. $32.95. 0-80185384-4.

This is the definitive history of the motel. Until now, roadside lodging has been treated primarily by writers interested in the "great man" stories of such leaders as Conrad Hilton, Willard Marriott, or Kemmons Wilson, or bv authors nostalgic for the picturesque small businesses of the pre-World War II era. (Such authors include Warren Belasco, Americans on the Road: From Antocamp to Motel (1979), John Margolies, Home Away from Home: Motels in America (1995)). In the book under review here, John Jakle, Keith Sculle, and Jefferson Rogers succeed in creating a highly engaging, multifaceted work that touches nearly every aspect of the hostelry business from the dawn of the twentieth century to the present. The Motel in America is part of an emerging field in historical scholarship, the "history of the built environment," which melds business history with architectural history, cultural geography, and social history. The movement can be traced back to such classics as Sam Bass Warner, Jr., Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston (1961), Gwendolyn Wright, Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America ( 1982) and Marc Weiss, Rise of the Community Builders: The American Real Estate Instr-rl and Land Planning (1985), which together did much to illuminate the mix of financial and cultural forces shaping suburbia. In the 1990s, the field has heated up as scholars have begun probing other distinctive features of the American landscape. Important books include Carol Willis, Form Follows Finance: Skyscrapers and Skylines in New York and Chicago (1995), Margaret Crawford, Building the Workingman's Paradise: The Design of America's Company Towns (1995), and Richard Longstreth, From Center City to Regional Mall: Architecture, the Automobile and Retailing in Los Angeles (1997). This growing body of work demonstrates that buildings are indeed vital "historical documents" that can speak volumes about the past.

At the heart of The Motel in America is a solid business history narrative. The industry took shape in the 1910s and 1920s as entrepreneurs formalized the makeshift auto campgrounds that had sprung up at the edge of America's cities. Enterprising individuals installed stores and bathing facilities, then hammered together strings of little cabins to rent. Eventually, they connected the cabins to create full-fledged motels. Through the 1940s virtually all motels were individual "mom-and-pop" operations, though Frank Redford's Kentucky-grown Wigwam Villages (with teepee shaped cabins), and E. Lee Torrance's Texas-based Alamo Courts attempted to forge small regional chains. The roadside turned corporate in the late 1950s and 1960s. This was partly due to the leadership of Kemmons Wilson, who built the Holiday Inn chain coast-to-coast through such pioneering innovations as computerized reservations. And it was also, the authors stress, due to new tax laws starting in 1954 that made motel construction a favored tax shelter for investors. The 1970s and 1980s saw the lodging industrv firmly enmeshed in the high-finance world of brand segmentation and leveraged buyouts. The study tenaciously follows each major lodging chain through ownership changes, and examines the business reasoning behind creation of hot recent brands such as Hampton Inn and Fairfield Inns.

But the book does not stop with boardroom history. Dozens of additional perspectives enrich the story. With a nod to postmodernism, the authors begin with their own recollections of motel trips of yore-a successful strategy that opens readers' eyes to the multiple meanings and changing nature of the motel. A major theme throughout the book is architectural evolution. Corporate chains succeeded partly because they developed distinctive architecture to catch the traveler's eve, a concept that Sculle and Jakle labeled "place-product packaging" in their preceding book The Gas Station in America (1994). Over a hundred photos gleaned from vintage postcards and promotional literature explore not only exterior architecture but also interior "room geography," and point out the many household innovations that Americans first sampled at motels, including coffeemakers and color TVs. The authors also use maps to great advantage, showing nationwide distribution for each chain over time. In the book's final chapter they offer a case study of the changing lodging landscape of Albuquerque, New Mexico, from the 1910s to the present.

Business historians may wish that Jakle, Sculle, and Rogers had delved even deeper into the financing strategies that shape the corporate roadside. The shifting impacts of federal tax and investment regulations, for instance, drop from sight in the later chapters and conclusion. The authors themselves suggest other areas deserving more discussion: exploration of labor issues; analysis in terms of race, class and gender; research into the changing occupants of motels as the buildings age. Other scholars will undoubtedly pick up these trails, now that they can build on the solid historical base provided by The Motel in America.

[Author Affiliation]

Tom Hanchett teaches American history and coordinates the Historic Preservation Program at Youngstown State University in Ohio. His recent publications include a study of shopping center finance (American Historical Review, October 1996) and the book Sorting Out the New South City: Race, Class and Urban Development in Charlotte, 1875-1975 (UNC Press,1998).