1.2 Teacher's guide: Eisenhower and the highway

By Kristin Post

Provided by UNC Libraries / Documenting the American South

Introduction

We just mentioned Dwight Eisenhower. If you’ve ever driven down a highway, you may have noticed a brown sign with five stars and the title “Eisenhower Interstate System.” Launching a federal interstate system was not easy. Construction costs, ownership of property, design and regulations, and state versus federal control were all hot topic issues when Dwight Eisenhower proposed the idea. After a few years of waging these political battles, Congress signed the Federal Aid Highway Act in 1956, which launched the construction of several interstate highways. According to one of Eisenhower’s biographers, the interstate system was by far his favorite domestic program.

We are now going to listen to an excerpt of a recorded interview with Stan Hyatt, a North Carolina DOT engineer who has built interstate highways. He explains his understanding of the reason why Eisenhower wanted an interstate system.

The recording

Play the Eisenhower and the Highway oral history excerpt. Running time: 1 minute 16 seconds.

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Transcript

Rob Amberg

There’s an interesting book out. It’s a history of the interstate system. It’s called Divided Highways, I think. I can’t remember the author’s name, but in reading that book he was talking about the initial motivation for the interstate highway system back in the early 50s. President Eisenhower basically was really enlightened when he was fighting Hitler in Germany and saw the road system.

Stan Hyatt

Saw the Autobahn system, and he realized the importance from national security standpoint more than anything, I think. To be able to move military machinery and people rapidly — from point A to point B — nation-wide. And he looked at the fact that the United States did not have anything that compared to that. That’s my understanding of how the interstate system was born. He brought it back from Germany and said, “Let’s build that in this country.” I think he did it primarily for national defense, but also realizing that commerce and other things would benefit from it.

Follow-up questions

1. When and where did Eisenhower get the idea for an interstate highway system?
2. Why would good highways be helpful for defense?
3. For what reasons do most people use highways? What would be different in your life if there were no highways?

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Related topics

• Search LEARN NC for more resources on Autobahn, Dwight Eisenhower, Federal Aid Highway Act, Stan Hyatt, interstates, and national defense.