The Roadhouse Comes to Britain examines how the American idea of the roadhouse, a place of gangsterism, prostitution, gambling and booze was translated by the process of Americanisation in Britain into a country club for the newly motorised. English roadhouses such as the Ace of Spades and the Thatched Barn (pictured) provided 24 hour entertainment, swimming, dining and dancing on a massive scale.
Rene Cutforth recalled:
'There was more champagne than bitter drunk at the Ace of Spades but, all the same, it was considerably unbuttoned for the period: almost anybody could get in there so long as he had his hair appropriately slicked back… with perhaps a little Ronald Colman moustache, a single breasted flannel jacket, a pair of not too outrageous plus fours'
Here are two good reviews - all bad reviews have been suppressed by the site administrator ....
“This interesting and important study adds significantly to the historical and anthropological literature on alcohol and drinking spaces in society. Historians Gutzke (Missouri State Univ.) and Law (Univ. of Westminster, UK) explore the popularity of roadhouses in Britain in the early 20th century. Glorified in Hollywood films and literature, the roadhouse became an iconic symbol of US modernity and popular culture. Spurred by suburbanization and the increasing mobility that accompanied the dawn of automobiles, roadhouses offered urban elites and wealthy suburbanites liminal and clandestine drinking spaces that possessed a complex character of glamour, danger, respectability, notoriety, and sexual dalliance. British high society, especially around London, embraced roadhouses as a symbol of American leisure and transformed them into uniquely British spaces. The authors compare and contrast British and US roadhouses to show the former's transatlantic, Anglo-American character. US bartenders who fled to Britain during Prohibition helped augment the creolized character of these drinking spaces. The British roadhouse was a byproduct of mobility, which changed the meaning of leisure for wealthy Londoners. Roadhouses were so deeply ingrained in the romantic imagination of British high society during the interwar years that they helped define a generation.
Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.” – CHOICE
This fascinating book offers a vivid insight into a neglected subject of the interwar period. But why investigate a phenomenon numbering less than 80 establishments in all its guises? Gutzke and Law argue that they were a significant component in the transformation of leisure in the 1930s, that, at their peak, ‘roadhouses, powered by increasingly extensive automobility, delivered a new form of leisure that combined a contemporary obsession with exercise, the outdoors and the exotic with West End entertainment. Their remote situation provided the locus for actual and literary transgressions as well as societal concerns about anonymity and wider class mixing. Although loosely based on an American archetype, roadhouses combined English architectural manners with Americanized popular culture prevalent in Britain in the decade before the Second World War’ (p.13). It is a case very well made. TIM HOLT
www.bloomsbury.com/author/michael-john-law/
www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-roadhouse-comes-to-britain-9781474294492/
Rene Cutforth recalled:
'There was more champagne than bitter drunk at the Ace of Spades but, all the same, it was considerably unbuttoned for the period: almost anybody could get in there so long as he had his hair appropriately slicked back… with perhaps a little Ronald Colman moustache, a single breasted flannel jacket, a pair of not too outrageous plus fours'
Here are two good reviews - all bad reviews have been suppressed by the site administrator ....
“This interesting and important study adds significantly to the historical and anthropological literature on alcohol and drinking spaces in society. Historians Gutzke (Missouri State Univ.) and Law (Univ. of Westminster, UK) explore the popularity of roadhouses in Britain in the early 20th century. Glorified in Hollywood films and literature, the roadhouse became an iconic symbol of US modernity and popular culture. Spurred by suburbanization and the increasing mobility that accompanied the dawn of automobiles, roadhouses offered urban elites and wealthy suburbanites liminal and clandestine drinking spaces that possessed a complex character of glamour, danger, respectability, notoriety, and sexual dalliance. British high society, especially around London, embraced roadhouses as a symbol of American leisure and transformed them into uniquely British spaces. The authors compare and contrast British and US roadhouses to show the former's transatlantic, Anglo-American character. US bartenders who fled to Britain during Prohibition helped augment the creolized character of these drinking spaces. The British roadhouse was a byproduct of mobility, which changed the meaning of leisure for wealthy Londoners. Roadhouses were so deeply ingrained in the romantic imagination of British high society during the interwar years that they helped define a generation.
Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.” – CHOICE
This fascinating book offers a vivid insight into a neglected subject of the interwar period. But why investigate a phenomenon numbering less than 80 establishments in all its guises? Gutzke and Law argue that they were a significant component in the transformation of leisure in the 1930s, that, at their peak, ‘roadhouses, powered by increasingly extensive automobility, delivered a new form of leisure that combined a contemporary obsession with exercise, the outdoors and the exotic with West End entertainment. Their remote situation provided the locus for actual and literary transgressions as well as societal concerns about anonymity and wider class mixing. Although loosely based on an American archetype, roadhouses combined English architectural manners with Americanized popular culture prevalent in Britain in the decade before the Second World War’ (p.13). It is a case very well made. TIM HOLT
www.bloomsbury.com/author/michael-john-law/
www.bloomsbury.com/us/the-roadhouse-comes-to-britain-9781474294492/