"From the early 1920s to the late 1950s, the American drive-in restaurant was the social arena for the young and old alike. Swinging ponytails, shiny new automobiles, and the aroma of French fries drifting through unrolled car windows heralded a new freedom for American consumers. Since the original Texas Pig Stand of 1921, the drive-in has become an all-American icon. A fascinating cultural and historical commentary on the first half of the twentieth...

Before the advent of corporate communications and architectural uniformity, America's built environment was a free-form landscape of individual expression. Signs, artifacts, and even buildings ranged from playful to eccentric, from deliciously cartoonish to quasipsychedelic. PhotographerJohn Margolies spent over three decades and drove more than 100,000 miles documenting these fascinating and endearingly artisanal examples of roadside advertising...