DIVIDED HIGHWAYS TEACHER'S GUIDE

Section I: The Problem of Roads

PREVIEWING ACTIVITIES:

This section presents information about:
-The decrepit state of American roads
-Earlier modes of transportation: bicycles and trolleys
-The growth of American motorways since 1900
-Visions of future highways: Thomas Harris MacDonald FDR the New York World's Fair of 1939.

Discussion Questions:
-Why did the automobile come to dominate American transportation?
-What were the technological, social, and economic conditions that led to the highway program?
-How can the highway system be seen in the context of the progressive movement?
-What was the General Motors Futurama exhibit's prediction for the future?

Suggested Activities:
Copy the timeline or use as an overhead to highlight dates and events with students. Discuss important developments beginning with the introduction of bicycles, trolleys, and automobiles. Have students choose an event on the timeline they may wish to research later.

Use an overhead or map to illustrate how early roads, canals, and railroad lines provided transportation links across 18th and 19th century America. Who paid for these links? What role did the federal government play? Did Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, and other early presidents support internal improvements?
- Ask students if they know what early modes of transportation served their community.

Hand out a map of the Interstates have students locate their community or nearest urban center. Trace an interstate from coast to coast on a US map, noting what states it traverses and major urban areas or capitals it serves.
Ask students if they know the meanings of the following terms:
Road - narrow route in rural area
Highway- wide road, carries more traffic at higher speeds
Street - urban route
Expressway - in the US this is a multi-lane divided roadway with limited access (relatively infrequent entrances and exits)
Expressway in Britain is called a motorway (or an "M")
Expressway in Germany is called an autobahn
Expressway in Italy is called an autostrada
Freeway - multi-lane divided roadway with no tolls
Turnpike - multi-lane divided roadway with tolls

POSTVIEWING ACTIVITIES:

Brainstorm with students on several key figures and events they found interesting in this section of the film. Suggest that they might research some of the individuals they noted in their journal or discussed in class.

The film begins with Gertrude Stein's remark, "...that it is something strictly American to conceive a space that is filled with moving, a space of time that is filled always filled with moving." Ask students what they think she meant.

Distribute archival photo of 1939 World's Fair showing roadway of the future. Discuss what the photo tells us about the 1930s vision of the future. What do students envision transportation to look like 20 years from now? Use segment of the video, WORLD OF TOMORROW: THE 1939 WORLD'S FAIR(1986).

Distribute copies of the Auto Ownership/Miles of Paved Roads graphs. Ask students how many more automobiles were registered in the US each decade how do those figures compare with the miles of roads paved? What conclusions can students draw from the statistics as they relate to the growth of highways? What conclusion can students draw from the two graphs? Discuss the idea presented in the film that the automobile preceded the advent of good roads. How were those two developments related to the end of the railroad boom?

Divide students into small groups. Have them meet to brainstorm ways in which any two events on the timeline are related. Assign groups to read relevant sections in their textbook.Students should consider how one event influenced another.

ENRICHMENT ACTIVITIES:

Stephen Ambrose states in the beginning that the Interstate Highway system is
the "biggest public works project of all time." What is meant by "public works"? List earlier examples of engineered structures, e.g., pyramids, Roman roads, China's Great Wall. Assign individual students to research modern examples of large scale public works, e.g., Tennessee Valley Authority, Hoover Dam, George Washington Bridge. Create a poster with photographs and charts comparing costs, number of people employed, years to construct. Have students display and discuss findings with the class.

Students research the history of railroad and interurban transportation, focusing on the reasons for their growth and later decline. Did over regulation of railroads and inadequate fares for interurbans lead to their demise? Debate the practicality of reintroducing and/or expanding railroad and interurban transportation today.How should such expansion be funded? Students might contact the National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP) in Washington, D.C. for information on current legislation and rail- passenger ridership.

Harley Shaiken says that the automobile is "one of the defining inventions and one of the defining technologies of the 20th century." But first the automobile needed good roads. Have students research any other invention or discovery that preceded its implementation, e.g., car before roads, trains before tracks, cameras before film. Students submit written essays on a specific invention and share their findings with the class.

Students can produce an illustrated timeline of early bicycles, trolleys, and automobiles beginning in the 1880s with Siemens' electric streetcar, Starley's safety bicycle, and the Duryea brothers first auto (1893). Assign individual students to research visuals, others to write captions. The Smithsonian VISUAL TIMELINE OF INVENTIONS is a good resource model.

Reproduce the Saxon Motor Co. ad and the Map of the Interstates. Discuss with students the statistics and information presented in the ad, e.g., miles driven on the Lincoln Highway, gasoline consumed. Have them plan an similar trip for a recent- model automobile using the current Interstate map. Calculate travel time, changes due to time zones, projected stopping points, accommodations, cost.