The American motel
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"Throughout the twentieth century, motels across the nation lured weary travelers with such amenities as a doorside parking space, a firm mattress, and free ice. The American Motel recalls the evolution of yesterday's hotels, motor camps, and tourist courts into the sleek, franchised, leisure motels of today. Car culture historian Michael Karl Witzel colorfully explores such remarkable motel curiosities as the Tin Can Tourists, a travel group of the 1920s that marked their membership by hanging empty cans on their cars' radiator caps; the scrutiny of a traveling motel food critic by the name of Duncan Hines; the combination of the corporate name Milestone Motor Hotel into the first documented use of the term motel in 1925; and John Houghtaling's marvelous, vibrating bed that has lulled travelers to sleep since the early 1950s. The American Motel chronicles such traveling rest-spot innovations as giant icemakers, public "cement ponds," coin-operated radios, and a TV in every room."--BOOK JACKET