This book provides an insight to economic conditions and sentiments towards self-reliance, leisure, community versus individualism, within the context of hitchhiking.

I must admit I was surprised at how the author connected the overall sentiments of the country with hitchhiking, but the premise is valid and certainly explains the rise and fall of the popularity.

This was a good book on the rise and decline of hitchhiking. There are personal stories along with newspaper accounts of individual’s experience of getting around for free. The chapters were arranged by time periods, starting out with the Great Depression era of 1928–1940. The epilogue dealt with today, comparing ride sharing with hitchhiking as people jump into cars driven by strangers.

The biggest disappointment for the book was the repetition. The introduction could almost have stood for the entire book, while each chapter goes into more depth. The book is an academic overview of a nearly lost mode of transportation. If anyone has any interest in the topic, the book is recommended.

ROADSIDE AMERICANS, by Jack Reid, chronicles the rise and fall of hitchhiking in the Unites States from the Great Depression through the 1980's. A well researched and detailed history, Reid looks at hitchhiking from the rider/driver perspective, to a community perception, from city planning considerations, to national and international ruminations and opinions of hitchhiking across the aforementioned era.
Reid begins describing the origins of hitchhiking: limited automobiles, surviving by working anywhere and limited public transportation. It evolved during World War II, waned during the economically thriving 1950's, then resurged through the 1960's and 1970's from a general uprising of helping out the fellow man coupled with a desire for adventure and connecting with the unknown (people and places). Reid constantly reminds us that until the 1980's, whatever feelings of the inherent danger that comes with hitchhiking rarely outweighed the desire for those who chose to hitchhike. The feeling while reading this book is that no stone in the study of hitchhiking has been left unturned, but there is an large amount of rephrasing the same point and redundancy throughout the book. Some really fascinating facts are frequent and interesting, but the reader could grow weary of the repetition of the same point.
Being born in the 1970's, I missed the age of hitchhiking and only every understood it as an extremely dangerous and kind of pointless venture since most everyone has a car or someone in their family does. ROADSIDE AMERICANS illuminated a lifestyle I was never really versed on until now. Hitchhiking being part of the fabric of our country for a good part of the 20th Century I didn't not fully comprehend until after reading this book.

I was born in the mid-70s, so I grew up with the idea that hitchhiking AND hitchhikers were dangerous. This book explains this was not always the case. For nearly 50 years, people sticking out a thumb on the highway wasn't considered particularly weird and actually gave people a lot more freedom of movement than they otherwise would have. Very interesting book on a bygone era of American society.

Ahhh, a forgotten pastime of my youth! I used to love hitching rides around the country. Many of my friends did, too. Some even thumbed their ways around the planet! Times began to change in the mid to late 70's. Police were cracking down on us, towns were making it illegal, it was crazy. Well, the book covers lots of stuff I hadn't even thought about. Good trip down memory lane. We were young and we wanted to explore the world! Great book for those of us who remember those days.informative and entertaining. Thanks Jack Reid!

I did not really enjoy this book. It was more of an academic study on the nature and causes of hitchhiking and its decline than a linear narrative that was interesting to read. I felt it got lost too much in the outside influences than on the experiences of those actually hitchhiking.