Category: Nostalgia

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Google Doodle Propagates the Route 66 Myth

A Route 66 Gift Shop

On April 30, 2022, Google’s doodle sported a Route 66 theme. The doodle, an animated Route 66 road trip, is set to a jazz version of “Get Your Kicks on Route 66.” Google Art Director Matthew Cruickshank created it. He based it on his sketches made during a Route 66 road trip. The doodle proved popular, becoming the number one trending video on YouTube that day. The doodle also propagates the Route 66 myth.

“Get Your Kicks on Route 66” songwriter Bobby Troupe performed the jazz version used in the doodle. It’s likely many viewers were unfamiliar with Bobby Troupe’s 1964 performance of his popular song. Although written by Troupe, cover versions by Nat King Cole, Chuck Berry, the Rolling Stones, and others made the song and the road famous. Much of the iconic allure of Route 66 is due to media productions about Route 66. 

The Route 66 Myth

Yet, the iconic stature of Route 66 is based in myth. The whole idea of getting your kicks along a highway like Route 66 connects into folklore about road trips, nostalgia for supposed simpler times, and culture-war themes about Route 66 representing a better, more authentic version of America. The Route 66 myth is steeped in romantic visions about the freedom of the open road and its endless possibilities. It resonates with idealistic dreams of travel on Route 66 leading to personal transcendence in the wilds of the “real America.”

Google’s doodle leans heavily into the myth of Route 66. In discussing its doodle, Google describes the highway as the way to take “the ultimate road trip” mentioning awe-inspiring scenery, retro diners, and quirky motels. When asked what message he hoped people took from his Route 66 doodle, the creator, Matthew Cruickshank replied, “That life in the slow lane can be incredibly worthwhile.”

This vision of Route 66 as a slower, better way to travel that connects travelers to a more authentic America of yesterday is the core of the Route 66 myth. It is a myth since the reality of traveling Route 66 was one of congestion and danger with wildly divergent travel experiences dependent on race. 

Route 66 Reality

The decommissioning of the Route 66 in 1985 made traveling on abandoned sections slow and carefree. When it was a functional highway, it thronged with traffic. Utilized well beyond capacity with few engineered safety features, Route 66 garnered the dark nickname “bloody 66.” The high number of traffic fatalities along the road made travel anything but carefree.

While Google correctly notes that millions of Americans traveled the road postwar, missing from their description is any mention of the disparate experiences Black and White travelers experienced on the road. Doodle creator Matthew Cruickshank mentioned New Mexico as one of his favorite parts of Route 66 from his road trip. Yet, Black traveler guides from when Route 66 was operational show only a handful of businesses willing to service Black motorists. White travelers faced no such limitations. 

Route 66 Tourism Propagates the Route 66 Myth

Modern Route 66 tourism encourages the Route 66 myth. Tourism promoters often create “never was” Route 66 destinations for tourists. Many of the quirky roadside attractions that fuel the Route 66 myth, and productions like Google’s doodle, were actually created after Route 66’s demise. Google’s write-up on their doodle mentions Cadillac Ranch – a supposed Route 66 roadside attraction featuring several generations of Cadillac automobiles buried nose-end in in the ground in Amarillo, Texas. An art group called the Ant Farm created it in 1974. However, road maps from 1969 show Route 66 replaced by Interstate 40 for several miles east and west of Amarillo. Maps from 1975 show all of Route 66 in Texas replaced by I-40. With Route 66 completely replaced in Texas before the creation of Cadillac Ranch, it is actually an Interstate 40 roadside attraction.

Similarly, in many towns claiming Route 66 heritage, numerous gift shops, diners, and quirky motels date from after Route 66’s decommissioning. These faux Route 66 businesses offer up a “never was” version of life along Route 66 for tourist consumption. Many feature an idealized version of the 1950s as a better time in America despite the numerous issues that confronted America mid-century. Some authentic Route 66 businesses remain, but the reality for most small towns and businesses bypassed by interstates was bankruptcy. 

The Problem with Celebrating Route 66

Google’s Doodle, like Bobby Troupe’s song and the other media celebrating Route 66, is part of the Route 66 myth. A myth that holds up Route 66 as emblematic of a better, more authentic America without specifically defining what makes it better. Given the heavy “back to the fifties” tones infused in the Route 66 myth – a decade when America just began to address its long overdue issues with racial discrimination – Americans embracing the Route 66 myth should closely examine exactly what they are celebrating. 

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Route 66 and Muscle Cars

A 1964 Pontiac GTO.
The 1964 Pontiac GTO. Image courtesy GM Heritage Center

When senior Pontiac engineer John DeLorean slipped a 389 cubic-inch V8 engine into the mid-sized Pontiac Lemans Sport Coupe in the fall of 1963, he almost singlehandedly ushered in the muscle-car era. Muscle cars captivated the American imagination and became symbolic of 1960s prosperity and American dominance internationally. These cars are often associated with Route 66 as a symbol of a simpler time of fast cars, fun road trips, and the American good life. However, Route 66 and muscle cars are not as closely related as current American Route 66 nostalgia would make it seem.

The muscle car as a thing almost did not happen. In 1963, GM banned corporate participation in racing events, and large displacement engines as standard engines in smaller cars. While evaluating prototypes for the new 1964 model line, DeLorean and a group of senior engineers noted that a large displacement V8 would fit into the new mid-sized Pontiac Lemans. There was only one problem: the corporate large displacement engine ban. Undeterred, DeLorean found a work-around by making the engine optional. The GTO performance package option, first available on 1964 Pontiac Lemans Sport Coupes, placed the large displacement 389 cubic-inch V8 and a four speed into the relatively light Lemans and the muscle car was born. The formula would be copied by Ford in the summer of 1964 when they unveiled the Mustang and ushered in the first pony car. GM would follow suit in 1967 with pony cars of their own, the Pontiac Firebird and Chevrolet Camaro. By the late 1960s, all American automobile manufacturers were offering muscle cars with the 1969 to 1971 models representing the peak of muscle car performance and style.

A 1969 Pontiac GTO Judge.
By 1969, the GTO was its own model with a new high-performance option package called “The Judge.” This option made the already muscular GTO even more powerful. Image courtesy GM Heritage Center.

A number of factors brought the muscle car era to a rapid close in the early 1970s. Rising concerns about pollution led to a ban on leaded gasoline. Beginning in 1972, all new cars were required to be able to run on unleaded fuel with the complete phase out of leaded gasoline for new cars planned for 1975. The elimination of lead, an engine knock suppressor for high-compression engines, led to a drastic reduction in engine fuel compression ratios and horsepower. It also became increasingly difficult to insure muscle cars as most major automobile insurance companies began requiring expensive muscle car riders on automobile policies. However, the oil embargo of 1973 and subsequent gas shortage probably did the most to hasten the end of the muscle car, as a now low-performance, big engine car that got bad fuel economy became particularly unattractive.

Image of gas shortages in 1973.
Gas shortages, long lines for gasoline, and complete unavailability in some areas became common during the oil crisis of 1973. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian.

Despite the relatively short run of classic muscle cars from 1964 to 1971, the muscle car has become closely associated with Route 66 nostalgia. The highway itself came into existence in 1926 and had been a federal highway for almost 40 years before the first muscle car arrived, and yet Route 66 nostalgia does not often traffic in automobiles from the 1920s or the 1930s. Another simple fact makes the muscle car association with Route 66 even more questionable. By the time the first muscle car arrived in 1964, interstate highway construction had been in full-swing for eight years and large portions of Route 66 were already gone. By 1969, arguably the height of the muscle car era, Route 66 was almost completely eliminated in many of the states it used to run through. The eastern half from Illinois to Missouri had been the first part to be replaced. Even in the southwest, by 1969, Route 66 was largely gone in Oklahoma and New Mexico. The portion through northwestern Arizona and the Mohave desert in California was the largest section remaining.

The association between muscle cars and Route 66 nostalgia may have more to do with nostalgia itself than with any actual association between muscle cars and Route 66. Nostalgia for Route 66 began developing in the late 1980s after the road was completely replaced and decommissioned. This was around the same time the oldest Baby Boomers were entering middle-age. The association may be more a conflation of different elements of postwar Anglo-White memory melding into nostalgia for a “never was” version of Route 66 where unencumbered powerful muscle cars freely roamed down the open road.

The reality of postwar Route 66 was a narrow highway jammed with too many cars resulting in slow and dangerous travel. Route 66 garnered the stark nickname “Bloody 66” due to the high volume of serious traffic accidents on the road, particularly in the American West. After all, there was a reason the United States spent billions of dollars building the interstate highways. Ironically, on the few remaining abandoned but drivable portions of the old road, motorists in classic muscle cars can live out the “never was” nostalgia version of Route 66 since all the other motorists are duking it out on the interstates.

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What if You Became a Product?

A postcard called colorful Indians.
“Colorful Indians,” from the postcard pack titled All Along Route 66 sold throughout Route 66 postwar. Postcard from the author’s personal collection.

The rise of social media led to a concurrent rise in concerns about personal privacy. As social media companies sought to monetize their platforms, they took the personal information and activity of their users and “productized” it into advertising algorithms worth billions. As alarming as this modern phenomena was, the commercial process of turning the personal into the commercial is quite old.

As Erika Marie Bsumek documented in Indian-Made: Navajo Culture in the Marketplace, 1868–1940, while the reality of American policy towards Native Americans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was one of destruction, the American public, particularly in the east, were often disconnected from this harsh reality. In northwestern Arizona, the Hualapai had been forcibly relocated after the Hualapai Wars in the late 1870s to make way for railroad construction and white settlers. This cleared the way for development of Kingman, Arizona’s mining resources and capturing the water supplies at Peach Springs, Arizona. Rather than developing an understanding of the reality of American policy towards Native-Americans like the Hualapai, eastern middle and upper class Americans became fascinated with artifacts of supposedly “authentic” Native American culture. This “authentic” indigenous culture, however, often took the form of synthesized cultural productions and objects that were often highly inaccurate but catered to the majority culture’s nostalgic conception of what Native American culture was like. [1] 

As the “Colorful Indians”postcard indicates, this process did not stop after 1940. Many Navajo, including the well-known Code Talkers, served with distinction in WW2. After the war, economic necessity prompted many to take part in the same commercialized displays of Native American culture that late-nineteenth century middle and upper class Americans had demanded. No longer facilitated by eastern promoters or railroads, in the postwar period this commercialization of person and culture took on a decidedly local flavor with some help from national postcard companies.

A post card called colorful Indians.
This postcard depicts members of the Navajo Nation from Gallup, New Mexico. The brightly colored dress is not accurate to traditional Navajo cultural dress. Postcard from the author’s personal collection.

The ” Colorful Indians” postcard was printed by a national publisher and sold to motels and gift shops throughout Route 66. The postcard depicts the Navajo participants in dress that is not part of their culture. Largely an amalgam of Plains Indians and Hollywood “never was” depictions of Native American dress, the image was sold to middle class automobile tourists from the east reinforcing their preconceptions of what Native Americans were like. This was also reflected in the intense, stylized roadside attractions built by local boosters to lure in travelers off of Route 66 and get them to spend their money in town. The Wigwam Motel in Holbrook serves as a stark example with each motel room built in the form of a teepee – a style of housing not utilized by the Navajo.

Wigwam motel in Holbrook, Arizona.
The Wigwam Motel in Holbrook, Arizona. The native Navajo did not use teepees as a form of housing. Postcard courtesy of the Library of Congress.

As alarming as digital invasions of privacy can be, they are at least somewhat avoidable. Participation on Facebook, Twitter, or InstaGram is not required. One can carefully curate what information about themselves they release online. For the marginalized, however, majoritarian cultural appropriation can be difficult if not impossible to resist. For many Native Americans, the majority culture both actively engaged in indigenous cultural destruction and demanded sanitized versions of that same cultural for commercial consumption. While postcards like “Colorful Indians” may no longer be printed, the Wigwam Motel and other examples of problematic cultural appropriation remain actively in use. Often represented as fun harmless nostalgia, these objects and places raise a troubling question. What exactly are we being nostalgic for?

[1] Erika Marie Bsumek, Indian-Made: Navajo Culture in the Marketplace, 1868–1940 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008). Shepard, We Are an Indian Nation, 1-55.