Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/kerouacs-on-the-road-50th-anniversary-celebrated Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Fifty years ago, Jack Kerouac's iconic "On the Road" was published. The NewsHour takes a look at the novel's legacy and reports on some events being held to commemorate the anniversary of its publication. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. JEFFREY BROWN: A most unusual literary document is traveling the country this year, the 120-foot scroll on which Jack Kerouac typed — over 20 days in April 1951 — the original version of "On the Road," his semi-autobiographical novel that would become a seminal marker of cultural change in the 1950s and '60s.Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, to French-Canadian parents. His first language was French. He studied at Columbia on a football scholarship and began writing seriously there before leaving school. "On the Road" recounts his travels across America by thumb, car and bus in the years 1947 to 1950, often with Neal Cassady, the prototype slang-talking hipster who became a model for youthful rebellion through the 1960s and beyond.Other Kerouac friends, including poet Allen Ginsberg and writer William Burroughs, would themselves become famous as part of the so-called "Beat Generation." The book's portrait of fast-living, unconventional youth continues to connect with many young people today. STEPHANIE FRANCIS, Student: When I was reading his "On the Road," it was about living in the moment, and just taking off, and not knowing what was going to happen, but having faith that it was going to work out, and you were just going to do whatever you wanted. You know, I mean, how perfect is that? JEFFREY BROWN: When "On the Road" was first published in 1957, editors imposed a number of changes to the text. Now the original scroll version has been released for the first time. It and new research could inspire some rethinking about Kerouac the writer, says co-editor Penny Vlagopoulos.PENNY VLAGOPOULOS, Contributor, "On the Road: The Original Scroll": People think that he just sort of sat down and wrote books without much thought. And, in fact, one of the big reasons for our project is to dispel the myth that he wrote it in three weeks. And, in fact, it's a book that he was thinking about and writing in various versions for years.