The necessity of bus travel forced a lot of issues in America, and before the civil rights movement bus terminals and the busses themselves were segregated. Here you can see the signage indicating which terminal sections each race could use, and a 1943 image of two soldiers that gives a glimpse of the more positive changes to come in America.
Black bus riders were forced to sit in the back of Greyhound (and other) buses. If a white person needed a seat, the driver would often force a black rider to leave the bus and wait for a later bus. In the early 1960s, a group called the Freedom Riders challenged these practices (which were then illegal under the Civil Rights Act) and violence erupted in many bus terminals.
Here, a street-cleaner from Nashville is traveling to Ohio in search of a defense job. Below that, soldiers on their way to war say goodbye to their girlfriends in Indianapolis, and a woman hails the Greyhound bus in Macon, Georgia.
As bus lines expanded, the larger ones began promoting bus travel as a vacation alternative and offering specific travel packages. Here are two 1938 images from Greyhound ads run in National Geographic magazine.
And here, from the 1950s, are ads from various bus lines. During this period, many Europeans got a great view of America through travel packages that let you go anywhere in America for 99 days at $1 per day.
Of course, by the ’60s, bus travel was starting to lose favor and bus lines began a long decline. Several tried new techniques, such as luxury buses and “scenic cruiser” configurations. But more and more, bus travel was the cheap alternative, and no matter how much lipstick the bus lines put on their buses, they were still, well, buses.
It’s possible that harder times and higher gas prices will lead to a bus revival, though I suspect many of us would rather stay home than travel somewhere by bus. The express routes are mostly gone, so getting anywhere by bus takes a long time with many stops. Here, a direct bus to Detroit, and a wayward dog that wandered on the bus in Cincinnati, only to be escorted off.
Actually, the thought of sitting next to a dog is appealing to me, and I might re-visit my own prejudice toward bus travel if I could bring my pets. They’re well-behaved, well-bathed, and they don’t talk to themselves.
If you have a favorite horror (or even positive) bus story, please share it by clicking on the Comment button. And if you get a few extra minutes, navigate over to insidedigitaldesign.com and download the free podcasts on design that my co-host Scott Shepherd and I do each week.
This article was last modified on May 18, 2023
This article was first published on October 24, 2008
Commenting is easier and faster when you're logged in!
