Made In America - Bill Bryson [115]
Then in 1925 one of the company’s travelling salesman noticed that gas stations were increasingly announcing themselves to motorists with a series of strident signs: GAS AHEAD ! CIGARETTES! EATS! STOP HERE! It seemed to work, and he put the idea to the head of the company. As an experiment Burma-Shave erected signs along two Minnesota highways near its headquarters. The first signs didn’t have a jingle. In fact, they could hardly have been less catchy. One read: GOODBYE SHAVING BRUSH !/HALF A POUND FOR/HALF A DOLLAR/VERY FINE FOR THE SKIN/DRUGGISTS HAVE IT/CHEER UP FACE/THE WAR IS OVER/BURMA-SHAVE, which was not only a trifle wordy, but a bit odd in its sentiments since the war had in fact been over for the better part of a decade. By the early 1930s the company was at last beginning to find its métier, and offering passing motorists such droll entertainments as: SHAVING BRUSHES/ YOU’LL SOON SEE ‘EM/WAY DOWN EAST/IN SOME/ MUSEUM/BURMA-SHAVE (1930); HE PLAYED/A SAX/HAD NO B.O./BUT HIS WHISKERS SCRATCHED/SO SHE LET HIM GO/BURMA-SHAVE (1933); HE HAD THE RING/HE HAD THE FLAT/BUT SHE FELT HIS CHIN/AND THAT/WAS THAT/BURMA-SHAVE(1934); WHEN CUTTING/WHISKERS/ YOU DON’T NEED/TO LEAVE ONE HALF/OF THEM FOR SEED/BURMA-SHAVE (1934).
As Frank Rowsome, jun., has put it in his engaging history of the Burma-Shave signs, The Verse by the Side of the Road, humour in advertising in the Depression years ‘was so scarce as to be virtually a trace element’.42 Burma-Shave became the exception. Its signs were virtually guaranteed to hold the attention of passing drivers for an average of eighteen seconds – far longer than any other type of roadside ad could count on. They not only effectively popularized the product, but by promoting highway safety and other timely causes like War Bonds they gave the company an air of kindly altruism, as here: DON’T TAKE/A CURVE/AT 60 PER/WE HATE TO LOSE/A CUSTOMER; PAST/SCHOOLHOUSES/TAKE IT SLOW/LET THE LITTLE/SHAVERS GROW.
Unable to come up with a steady stream of new verses, the company began holding national contests, paying $ 100 for each winning entry. At its peak, it was receiving over 50,000 entries a year. A few were decidedly daring for the times: SUBSTITUTES/CAN DO/MORE HARM/THAN CITY FELLERS/ON A FARM. Others were distinctly morbid: HER CHARIOT/RACED AT 80 PER/THEY HAULED AWAY/WHAT HAD BEN HUR. Or HE LIT A MATCH/TO CHECK GAS TANK/THAT’S WHY/THEY CALL HIM/SKINLESS FRANK.
Sites were selected with great care. They had to be level, straight, and not cluttered with other signs. They were perfect for the Midwest, though in fact they appeared in every state but four: Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Massachusetts. The number of signs, and the fortunes of the company, both peaked in 1955. At 60 m.p.h. or more the signs became hard to read even when spaced further apart. They seemed old-fashioned. Rent and maintenance for the signs cost $200,000 a year by 1960, and, besides, the two-lane highways were increasingly out of the mainstream. In 1963 the last of the Burma-Shave signs were removed. America was no longer a nation of two-lane highways. A golden age was over.
IV
In 1919 the US Army sent a convoy of trucks cross-country from Camp Meade, Maryland, to San Francisco, just to see if it could be done. It could, but only just. The trip took two months at an average speed of less than 7 m.p.h. The young officer in charge of the convoy was Dwight D. Eisenhower. Thirty-five years later, as President of the United