America's history is tied to the journey. Its European roots are defined by the great distance those first voyagers traveled. The nascent country chugged westward on the steam of the locomotive, and expanded into the terrain's nooks and crannies on a full tank of gas and the promise of the freeway.
Over the centuries, the open road has signified adventure, possibility, and escape, as well as loss, limits, and dead ends. And all along, the photographer has been there, hitching a ride to capture both the mundane and extraordinary moments that define America.
The Open Road: Photography and the American Road Trip (Aperture, 2014), by David Campany, honors this relationship between the outsider documentarian and the often sublime familiarity of home, wherever that may be. The book's expansive survey features 18 photographers from the last century — including, Robert Frank, William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, and Alec Soth — whose work exemplifies the connectedness of this vast nation and its ever-evolving identity.
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"American culture still finds it difficult to shake the idea that its big cities embody the present and its small towns the past," Campany writes in the book's introduction. "Consequently, one of the major attractions of the road trip has become the fantasy of time travel. The open road leads back to what was, or at least to someplace where time passes more slowly."
Up for a ride? Catch a glimpse of the American road, then and now, through a small selection of the book's images below.
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Lauren Hansen produces The Week’s podcasts and videos and edits the photo blog, Captured. She also manages the production of the magazine's iPad app. A graduate of Kenyon College and Northwestern University, she previously worked at the BBC and Frontline. She knows a thing or two about pretty pictures and cute puppies, both of which she tweets about @mylaurenhansen.
