The Gas Station in America (Creating the North American Landscape) | 
 enlarge | Authors: John A. Jakle, Keith A. Sculle
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
Buy New: $21.90
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Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 384145
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.6 x 6.8 x 0.8
ISBN: 0801869196
Dewey Decimal Number: 629
EAN: 9780801869198
ASIN: 0801869196
Publication Date: March 27, 2002
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Condition: free USPS tracking
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
The most significant features of our landscape are often invisible to us. For example: how often have you wondered about the evolution of the gas station? How many gas stations are there in the U.S.? Are gas stations increasing or decreasing in number? What do Bauhaus and feminism have to do with gas station architecture? Whether or not these questions have kept you awake at night (or been asked of you during job interviews), this delightful hybrid between architectural history, economics, pop-culture studies, and geography will give you unexpected insights into one of the more important components of the American landscape. Illustrated with more than 150 maps, photos, and drawings, and highly recommended.
Product Description
In the first volume of their celebrated "Gas, Food, Lodging" trilogy, John Jakle and Keith Sculle offer a comprehensive history of the American gas station, exploring every aspect of this roadside icon, including its evolving architectural identity; its place in both the American landscape and popular culture; the corporate decisions that determined its look and location; its metamorphosis into the mini-mart; and its role as the most visible manifestation of one of the world's largest industries. From the quaint curbside filling stations of the 1910s to the novelty designs of the 1920s (when stations were built to resemble English cottages, Greek temples, Dutch windmills, and Spanish missions) to the Bauhaus-inspired stations of the 1930s to today's nationwide chains of brightly lit look-alikes, The Gas Station in America is the definitive book on the subject. Richly illustrated with more than 150 images--postcards of gas stations, vintage ads, maps, and other memorabilia--this book bears witness to an economic and cultural phenomenon that continues to be a defining part of the American experience.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Very solid overview of gas station evolution November 15, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book covers a wide range of issues related to the development of gas stations in America. Its primary focus is to show how the idea of the gas stationed developed and how it changed the cultural and physical landscape of America. There are wonderful pictures in here that show a wide range of gas stations and layouts around the city. It is also an excellent corporate history of oil companies and their role in serving as gas stations. It takes a look at the break up of Standard Oil and its subsidiaries to the mom and pop operations that ran across the country. The idea of product placement is loosely tied in throughout the book and I think the authors are forced to stretch to far to place it here. The book takes on a very academic quality with that discussion and for the general reader it will be a waste of time. As a historian I did not find it useful and I enjoyed the discussion of how these stations developed. Overall this is one of the best sources out there on how the gas station evolved and an excellent look at urban history.
 Gas Stations of the past to the present March 30, 2000
13 out of 16 found this review helpful
I think that this book really is a great resource to people who are interested in American history and how an industry can evolve over the decades. The information regarding the retail petroleum industry itself was a little bit thin. I would have liked to see how the industry boomed when cars became a necessity to Americans and how the gas station industry handled that. The pictures in the book make the book very likable even to the everyday person picking up the book off of a coffee table. It takes older American's back to their younger days of $.05 gas and younger American's to a time when gas wasn't over $2.00 a gallon. I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to a person who is interested in the industry of retail petroleum and the evolution of the gas station we all use!
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