On the Move should be on your bookshelf

If you removed all the text from On the Move, the photos and illustrations could stand alone to make this an excellent book. The book is a cooperation of National Geographic and the Smithsonian Institution and it shows. The book is filled with clear jump-off-the-page pictures dating back to the late 1800’s. I’m so used to thinking of the past in monochrome black and white or at the best brownish sepia. This makes the color from the past so bright with new photos of old transportation equipment from the Smithsonian’s collection. I never imagined the color of the past in the rich red gas pump, the glorious green locomotive, or the 40’s golden yellow Dodge school bus.

On the Move gives a great overview of not only facts and figures of transportation, but societal changes that were part of it. Thankfully, it’s getting harder to imagine a time when there was a need for “The Negro Motorist Green-Book” to find a place where they could buy gasoline or get a meal or warm bed for the night. Suburbia grew first from mass transit and then from speedy travel on high speed non-stop freeways. A new culture was built around the car, while other urban cultures were split in two by Interstate highways.

For the lover of all roads or the Road Geek like me, the photos of road building, old roads, gas stations and even advertising to take me back to a time. This was a time before I was born, when modern transportation and travel was like an infant with so much to grow and so much to create.

This book is partly based on the Smithsonian’s exhibit “America on the Move” which just reopened in Washington, DC. The History Channel also produced a DVD also called On the Move 1876-2000.







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