Motel in America

An informative look at the history, architecture, business and growth of motels in the US. This book considers what happened to American culture as its citizens became motorists. If automobiles were private containers of movement, the authors argue, motels became places for pause - equally private, equally public. As they developed as commercial enterprises, took form as architectural expression, and evolved within the place-product-packaging concept along America's highways, motels also molded Americans ideas about residence and home. Travelers' rejection of hotels, located in congested downtown areas and lacking adequate parking, prompted the rapid rise of roadside lodging outside the city limits - cabin courts, cottage courts, motor courts, motor inns and eventually highway hotels. By whatever name, motels rapidly increased in number through the 1930s, and then again in the two decades after World War II, reaching their peak in the early 1960s, when about 61,000 motels operated in the US. In 1962, fewer than 2 per cent of all motel establishments were affiliated with franchise lodging chains. By 1964, 64 per cent of the country's motels were part of these networks.