Highway Services

Any long-distance road trip will involve a near constant search for the basic necessities such as food, water, and gasoline. And that was certainly true for westward migrants such as the Joads who had to carefully balance the availability of gas with their need to follow a strict and careful budget. But there was another difficulty that migrants had to face in such situations as well: hostility. Bereft of most of their worldly goods and thrown onto the highway in a search for survival, migrants often appeared poor and desolate. They were forced, much to the ire of highway businesses, to seek out whatever free services they could find and to spend as little as possible only when it was absolutely necessary. As Rick Marshal describes it in his article on the highways featured in The Grapes of Wrath:

“The services along Highway 66 are minimal. Yes, there are shacks with gasoline pumps, but the owners frown if the migrants only want to use the water and the restrooms and not purchase anything. The owners cannot turn a profit from these people. They make their profit off of those who purchase gasoline, eat their food, and buy supplies. The migrant family traveling out of necessity is again segregated from those traveling for pleasure or work. Steinbeck’s highway landscape portrays an inhospitable environment for those who do not have the means to purchase anything” (69).