(cheerful piano music) ♪ (narrator) Since its inception in 1926, Route 66 has been an icon of the American West and a defining element of the American experience.

♪ From Chicago to Los Angeles, the Mother Road takes us on a journey from the East to the American West, with its wide-open skies and a mix of different cultures.

(Mary) Route 66 has opened the gateway to a lot of opportunities.

(woman) You can still drive it?

I'm like, "Oh, my gosh, how cool is that?"

(woman) Where y'all from?

(man) Germany.

(narrator) International visitors come by the tens of thousands, hungry for an American experience.

(mellow music) (indistinct remarks) ♪ (woman) But the most famous person of all?

-Who?

-Me.

-Yay!

-They grew up watching American television.

Route 66 with George Maharis, Martin Milner.

And they're all here to see America of yesterday.

(narrator) Beloved television shows, like the Route 66 TV show, and films like Easy Rider, have celebrated the road from a male perspective, in which women are seldom in the driver's seat.

♪ (woman) We forgot that women were on those journeys.

We forgot that women were working all along the way in those businesses.

(narrator) Despite its moniker, the Mother Road, little attention has been paid to diverse women's experiences across many different cultures and almost 100 years of history.

(woman) When I first got the motel and they were having a convention, and they said, "Well, no-- a woman doesn't come.

There's no women."

And so, they put this man beside me.

I don't know who he is, but they just said, "Well, no, you just-- just has to be a man with you."

It's a mirror held up to the nation.

A road that can be really a living classroom.

(woman) She was entrepreneurial, she was very business oriented, and she allowed us to live a very comfortable life.

(narrator) From archaeologists to politicians and countless entrepreneurs, women overcame segregation and gender discrimination to build fulfilling lives for themselves and generations to come on America's most beloved road.

This is their story.

(vehicles whirring past) Along the Mother Road, women had spent almost two decades slowly building communities along Route 66, when World War II launched the country into a new era.

The first and fundamental fact is that what started as a European war has (inaudible) as the Nazis always intended it should develop into a war for world domination.

(explosions) (newsreel announcer) Overnight, we were at war, a war we not prepared to fight.

Still fresh and bitter are the memories of those days.

(jazz music) (Heidi) In the 1940s, there's a dramatic shift, because Route 66 is an important transportation corridor for both war materiel and for war personnel.

You have soldiers coming through, you have equipment coming through.

(narrator) The war opened up new opportunities in the workplace for women.

Jobs that had previously only been open to men and required technical training and expertise were suddenly recruiting women.

(John) Flagstaff at that time was a small mountain, tourist, lumber town.

♪ They decided this would be one of the 16 new ordnance depots that they would build in the West.

Route 66 served as a major conduit.

Workers from all around could come into Flagstaff, they would go over the Arizona Divide, they would just drop down into Belmont, and work was guaranteed.

The project manager out here, a man named Captain Myrick, knew that labor would be at a premium.

He knew that Flagstaff could not supply anywhere close to the 8,000 construction workers that were needed.

So, Captain Myrick said, "We have got to go out on the Indian reservations, and we've got to recruit Navajos and Hopis."

Well, they approached the Navajo and Hopi leaders and said, "Listen, okay now, what if we built an Indian village on the Army base?"

And both the Navajo and Hopi leaders, they thought that over for a few seconds, they said, "That would be wonderful."

So, for the first time in American history, a large group of Native Americans moved onto a U.S. Army base gladly.

(indistinct remarks) I work at Camp Navajo as an ordnance inspector.

That's my title.

I've been there at Camp Navajo for 27 years.

I felt like I had a calling to the military, and I think it came from when I was a child.

Here is my grandfather.

He was actually the chairman of the tribe.

To me, I've always looked up to my grandfather.

He also served in the Army as well.

I have always felt a connection at Camp Navajo, because my people have been there.

(John) During the war, there would be probably around 3,500 Navajo and Hopi families that lived in something called Indian Village.

So, the women came along to help with the children, but they really weren't considered for employment at that time.

When all the construction workers left in 1943, they had to get women out there for the permanent force.

You see women adjusting the thin lock nut on 500-pound bombs.

They did a lot of the, uh-- on the assembly line, they did work with munitions.

Well, all of the information that had to be stenciled onto the green artillery shells was done by Navajo and Hopi women, also Anglo women, and they would take fuses down, and they would drop test the fuse to see if it would explode or not.

1.3 million tons of munitions came in and out of Navajo Ordnance Depot, but the mission was to store it here until it was needed in the Pacific, and then they would ship it to Los Angeles or to San Francisco.

They were always short of people, and consequently, there was considerable pressure on Flagstaff women through the newspaper and through the clubs saying, "You've got to come out to the depot to work, and we have a good-paying job for you."

(narrator) While the jobs at the depot were civilian jobs, to make them more attractive to women, a uniform was designed that conveyed the importance of their work and position.

(John) Hundreds and hundreds of young Hispanic women, they went out to the depot and got a good-paying job at a very good wage for the first time in their lives.

(melancholic music) (narrator) The dangerous work at the depot, handling all kinds of ammunition from 50-pound bombs all the way down to artillery, took its toll.

One of the most hazardous tasks at the depot was digging explosives out of a shell -using a wooden tool.

-So that gunpowder could be saved and used in other shells.

(narrator) Women were frequently involved in serious accidents that required hospitalization, and they had to juggle work with their role as wives and mothers in a way that the men of the era did not have to do.

♪ (Joe) You know, Molly, I've been thinking.

(Molly) Yes, Joe?

(Joe) Maybe some of those women and girls coming into the plant, well, maybe they have home responsibilities, too.

(Molly) Could be.

(Joe) Maybe--maybe they really do need time off.

(narrator) Over 19 million women worked during World War II.

What made the Navajo Ordnance Depot unique was the high percentage of Native American women who were integral to its success.

(Mary) Here, the reason why I put them there like that, to me, it's like me as a Native American, and me as a--an Army person.

In the Navajo way, they have a saying about changing woman.

Changing woman, she had to adapt through certain things, you know.

She had to change, and you know, as a girl, you change to become a woman.

These photos right here, I was very sad when I left, and this was my first deployment, and at that time, you know, my children were crying after me, um, my son wouldn't let me go in this photo, and we had a lot of casualties in the first deployment.

I put this up here because... (uplifting music) ...I greet the morning every morning when I get to work, and there is the chapel at Camp Navajo.

I've always felt blessed that I'm able to stay near the reservation, even though I'm away from home, and every time I look at the sacred mountain, which we call Dok'o'ooslid, I've always remembered my prayers, and, um, and always had that connection that I am home.

Route 66 has opened the gateway to a lot of opportunities, especially to the Navajo reservation.

♪ (narrator) World War II invigorated the railroads, which were of paramount importance to the war effort, and run parallel to Route 66 in the Southwest.

This created additional job opportunities for women from many different backgrounds.

(Stephen) You have an enormous number of troops that are going through the Southwest, so the restaurants, which are these very high-level restaurants, where everything's supposed to be perfect, and the tables have white linen and really nice china and all this kind of stuff, they basically take the restaurants apart, put long boards over all the tables, and they turn them into dorm eating for as many people as they could fit in there, and then everybody they can't fit in they serve through the windows of the cars.

It was run more like a culinary army than a restaurant chain.

(Katherine) I was a Harvey Girl at El Navajo in Gallup, New Mexico.

A girl from Acoma and I were making these sandwiches for the troop trains.

(honky-tonk piano music) So, the next year I went back, and I actually got a job in the coffee shop.

(narrator) The Harvey Girls, who were part of the civilian workforce during World War II, wore an immaculate white uniform that commanded respect.

(Rose) And then, they had a little black bow and they had their number on it in silver, and my mother's number was four.

My mother's father came from Japan, and her mother came from Mexico.

(Virginia) I remember working with Mary Montoya in the '40s.

Her Japanese name was Toki.

And we've been friends since before we started there.

I started making beds, and the-- then the second morning, the bedrooms were upstairs, and I was making up the bed, and I guess I have a lot of electricity in my body, and it shocked me, and it threw me clear across the room, and I almost went out the window.

So, that frightened me and I ran downstairs, and I told them, "I'm through, I quit."

And so, the manager, he said, "Would you like to work in the kitchen?"

I said, "Sure."

So, I started making salads, and then one of the girls didn't show up, and we were short, so he put me out front, and that's where I started my career, working as a Harvey Girl.

I worked a lot of troop trains, yes.

(mellow music) A lot of 'em, they came one right after another.

And we had to have the-- the tables all set when they came in.

When we were a Harvey Girl, we had recognition from a lot of people, because all the troop trains, you know, that come, I got a lot of mail from them.

(Rose) They had everything ready to go.

They honored 'em so much.

Well, with the train, they--they just saw everybody.

♪ These guys knew these were probably the last women they were gonna see before they went off to war, so they were always sneaking them notes, and asking if they could write them, and you know, the women were overwhelmed by this, because it's just like, you know, it's like 50 guys ask you to be the last person they're with before they go, a day.

They also served prisoners.

I mean, Japanese prisoners being taken to prisoner-of-war camps came through these towns and had to be served by the trains.

At that time, it was pretty rough for the Japanese people.

When we were in grade school, my sister and I-- and they--they knew that, you know, my grandfather is Japanese, so we were taunted a lot.

But, believe you me, my sister stood up and she fought.

(narrator) Farther west, prejudice and fear resulted in Japanese Americans being incarcerated for much of World War II in what were called internment camps.

(Rose) Our American citizens were put in camps.

(contemplative music) Anybody that was half Japanese on would be placed into a camp.

♪ It was around 1942 that the FBI, via the Monrovia Police Department, knocked on the door one evening and took my grandfather to be interrogated to the camp in New Mexico in Santa Fe, where he was interrogated there.

They took mostly the-- the leaders of the Japanese community, or businessmen.

There were posters that were plastered on telephone poles that, "If you are Japanese that live from this street to this area, you will report to Santa Anita with just what you could carry by hand," your suitcase, one suitcase, that's it.

(newsreel announcer) Santa Anita Racetrack, for example, suddenly became a community of about 17,000 persons.

The Army provided housing and plenty of healthful, nourishing food for all.

(quirky music) (Keiko) My cousin Bacon was there in Santa Anita, and he remembers the horse stalls that some of them had to be housed in before the barracks came, and the smell was just horrible.

When my mother and my grandmother went past Santa Anita, and they noticed barbed wire, the guards facing in, and all of these Japanese.

(somber music) ♪ For my mother and my grandmother, when they went to the Pomona Fairgrounds, waiting to be processed, my mother remembers how humiliating it was.

At that time, she was about 18, 19, had just started at Pasadena City College, and my mother-- they had a ceremony, "Goodbye to the Japanese."

(narrator) In Route 66 communities across Southern California, many Japanese-American families lost what they had worked so hard to build.

♪ (Keiko) My grandfather had a gas pump on the property, and Mr. Good was a representative for Standard Oil, but he was just a lovely man, and my grandfather and Mr. Good just really hit it off and became very good friends.

And when the executive order that Roosevelt had issued, because of the Japanese being a threat, he most likely contacted Mr. Good, and gave him power of attorney.

Mr. Good rented out the property, and during the time that my mother and my grandparents were in the concentration camps, he sent them the monthly checks.

But many families lost everything.

(somber music) (narrator) Wartime work on the domestic front was dangerous.

Between 1941 and 1945, in the Air Force alone, there were almost 14,000 fatalities within the continental U.S., often leaving women bereft and with the responsibility of mourning the dead.

♪ Miami is right here where we are.

World War II, in many ways, has become a romantic era.

We look back on it as a golden age of ethics, a golden age of sacrifice.

The war is also a pressure cooker for romance in the sense that you have relationships between individuals who may not see each other again.

Well, a little slice of Britain right here.

-Mhm.

-Yeah.

(Andrew) For all intents and purposes, this is British soil.

(Nancy) The British were here to train because the skies were so dangerous there.

There were so many fatalities.

They--they're-- while they were training, they would get, you know, shot down, and they were losing so many cadets before they could ever get 'em trained.

So, the United Kingdom made arrangements with the United States to place training facilities here in the States for their boys.

The most intriguing part of this is the--the way the city of Miami just reached out to these cadets and embraced them with open arms, and welcomed them, and welcomed them into their homes, and, you know, took 'em to church, and had Sunday dinners with them.

(Andrew) Here we are on Route 66 behind us.

You had a--RAF soldiers living here amongst this small town, and the small town took to them, like, it was unbelievable.

In fact, one of the stories is, the boys were busy every night of the week with constant invites.

In fact, if you look through, there's a nice advertisement for "The Coleman Theater welcomes the RAF pilots."

(narrator) Some of the young Brits who traveled to Miami, Oklahoma, were confused when they got there, having thought they were on their way to Miami, Florida.

(engine whirring) ♪ Frances Hill's story actually is fairly well known to Miami.

(Nancy) Her daughter fell in love with one of the British cadets.

-Wow.

-And he finished his training, got his wings, and then, um, from that point, you know, he left and went on to war, and it wasn't but just a very short time after that he actually died.

-His plane crashed.

-In the English Channel, -correct?

-Yeah.

So, it devastated her daughter, and she also, in the meantime, had grown such a fondness to all the British kids, you know, British cadets, because they-- she would welcome them into her home, and gave them that little piece of home life that they missed from being over here.

(Andrew) Most of the deaths, obviously, are accidents.

I think I read some of them were at night, but do you-- is there an overarching... (man) We've had some at night.

We had two planes actually crash into each other.

(Nancy) Mhm, and killed all four.

Whenever they, you know, would pass, she would always go to their funerals.

She would walk the railroad tracks that run along through here from her house, and carry flowers from her garden, and come out and decorate these graves.

(mellow jazz music) (man) She tended it--them up to her death.

She was awarded, uh, a medal.

-The King's Medal -King's Medal from King George VI for basically taking care of these boys for 40 years.

(Andrew) "Frances May Hill of Miami-- Miami, buried alongside voluntarily tended these 15 British airmen's graves, and helped their loved ones from 1941 to 1981."

(Nancy) I believe they called it a selfless human action.

♪ (narrator) Even after paying the highest price for one's country, however, soldiers were not guaranteed equal treatment.

(Judith) The ultimate sacrifice was, of course, the death of-- of Juvenal, uh, in the Second World War.

(Ruth) I remember I was in a dead sleep, and all of a sudden I heard my mother screaming and hollering and crying, and I got up, and, uh, it was a phone call letting my mother know of the, uh, death of my brother, Juvenal, and I remember jumping up and going up there, and my dad was there with my mother, and they were both crying, and I didn't know what was going on.

He was a cadet in Des Moines, Iowa, in the Air Force, and he died in a boating accident.

When his body was brought home to San Bernardino, California, and arrangements were being made for his burial, my father went and made the arrangements for the funeral.

My father was fair-skinned, so they thought he was maybe something else that he wasn't.

My mother comes to make the final selection of the coffin.

My mother's a bit darker.

And according to my mother, they asked me, "What are you, are you Mexican?"

And she said, "Si."

And they said, "Oh, we're sorry, Mexicans cannot be buried here."

There's another section for Mexicans, which was behind the fence.

So, my father, he was strong-willed person, principled man, fought for what is right, and he said, "If my son can't be buried here, we're not burying him," and we took my brother's body home.

I remember he was in our living room.

-Oh, yes.

-It was just, kind of you go by, and there's, you know, your brother sitting in a coffin, open coffin.

Um, it seemed forever, but I guess it was maybe a week or so.

It was just unusual, but then I also understood at that young age the courage that my father had, because my mother wanted him buried at a certain spot, and he was not allowed because he was Mexican, and he had to be in another part of the cemetery.

So, I--I was really proud of my parents taking that position.

And then, Mike, you remember, he contacted Harry Sheppard, our congressman, so then Harry Sheppard said, "Okay, we'll take him to Arlington," right?

Arlington in Washington.

My mother was devastated.

She says, "No, no, no, I want my son buried here in his hometown."

So, he was not buried, he--he didn't go to Arlington, and ultimately he integrated the cemetery.

And the parents who lost a son in the war received a Gold Star.

So, my mother was a Gold Star Mother, and this is the letter that she received from Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was the president at the time.

"Freedom lives, and through it, he lives in a way that humbles the undertakings of most men."

Signed President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

My mother treasured this.

(Ruth) I was so stricken.

I do remember saving my--my money, and, uh, wanting to do something very special for our veterans.

(ghost of a soldier) The value of these things can't be measured in ordinary ways, but must be paid for in dollars and cents, and sometimes in lives.

Freedom comes high.

(Ruth) And so, when I had enough money, I remember asking, "Do I not have enough for a bond?"

And, uh, I remember being told, "Yes, you do."

And so, I was in school at that point, and I remember these reporters coming to the school, and they had me put my-- my piggy bank there, and they wanted to take pictures.

And so, as a result, there I am, there, ready to, uh, break my piggy bank, which is that one, to get this special bond for-- to help our veterans.

(narrator) The end of the war challenged the advances women had made in the workplace along Route 66.

(mellow rock music) (announcer) Each trip upstairs is the equivalent of lifting her own weight 12 feet.

And at the rate of 20 trips a day, that's lifting about 12 tons of weight.

Who said "weaker sex"?

(narrator) Women were expected to resume being full-time homemakers so that men could take back the jobs they had previously enjoyed.

♪ (Lyndia) My uncle joined the United States Army just before Pearl Harbor.

My mother, she ran the business until the end of World War II, alone.

She was chronically exhausted.

It was such hard work.

She was in the store seven days a week.

She had to take trips to New York periodically to get merchandise.

She was dealing with people who didn't have very much money, so that was layaway.

During the summer, she would store fur coats in a separate building that was cold storage, and it was the Dust Bowl, so she had to clean the shop every day, clean the dust off the windows, which was a lot, and then manage her household when she came home from work.

Her brother, he met a woman in New York City as soon as he came back from the war, so he returned to Amarillo in 1945 with a wife.

Now...during the time he had been gone, my mother, even though she was running the business, really didn't have access to credit in her own name.

She was doing everything on behalf of her brother.

As soon as he came home with a wife, he looked over the books, and said, "Thank you for taking care of the business while I've been gone.

I'm going to take over now."

He decided how much her half of the business was worth, he wrote her a check, and he gave her a one-way bus ticket to her father in Los Angeles.

(honky-tonk piano music) My mother was not really happy about the way her brother had negotiated the "sale" of her share of the business.

In spite of being a decorated war veteran, my Uncle Saul could not join the various veterans' organizations.

He was excluded from the chamber of commerce.

There was major anti-Semitism in Texas.

There were some stories about loans either not being available to maintain the business, or his interest rate being higher than it would've been if he had been a church-going man.

And that was similar to what would've happened if he had been Hispanic or Black.

(newsreel announcer) All this can't keep a fellow from putting down his ideas.

Something is going to add up here.

(gunshot) His own air conditioned castle with a deep freeze, cooler for beer.

(narrator) While the Nazis had been defeated, anti-Semitism had not.

Despite this obstacle, along the Mother Road in Albuquerque, there was a well-established Jewish community, in which women entrepreneurs played a prominent role in business.

(Helen) I was born and spent my first 18 years in Albuquerque, and I lived very close to the Downtown, which was my, uh, hangout.

(mellow piano music) (Ann) We moved here in 1940, and had a store Downtown Albuquerque.

(Sharon) This became an important spot for you.

-Now, why is that?

-Well, this was Everitt Jewelers.

(Ann) We bought it from the original Mr. Everitt.

We sold jewelry.

We still had a dollar-down, dollar-a-week type thing.

So, you got to know your customers pretty well.

Oh, I washed the glass windows in the morning and swept the floor and kept the books and waited on customers.

Did a little of everything.

(Helen) Well, my parents moved to Albuquerque in 1933.

It was the height of the Depression, and my father went to work for Maisel's, and he worked for Maisel's for several years.

(Sharon) This building was created in 1939, and it was in its time the largest trading post on the route, and it is particularly distinguished on the exterior for the murals that were painted by the young students at the time of the IAIA, the Indian art school in Santa Fe, and many of the best-known Indian artists, people who went on to become groundbreaking Indian artists, actually painted these murals.

This is the only building on the Mother Road decorated by Native Americans, and among the murals that are here is one by Pablita Velarde, who became the matriarch of a very, very well-known Indian artist family.

(mellow music) (Helen) My father turned out to be a wonderful salesman, and with a real knack for Indian jewelry, and he opened his own store about a block away, across from the KiMo Theater, called the Navajo Indian Store.

There were several Jewish merchants in Downtown Albuquerque.

One of them was a woman, Mary Cohen, and, uh, they had a wonderful women's dress shop in Downtown Albuquerque called Jordan's, and that was the main store where I did my shopping, and bringing things home on approval.

And then, there was a woman named Jean Marcus, and she and her husband had moved to Albuquerque from New York, and she had a store on Central Avenue called Accessories by Jean, and it was all costume jewelry and handbags and accessories.

And she was a woman of great style, and the fact that she was from New York was very impressive to me.

(narrator) Success and business on Route 66 did now, however, translate into being able to buy the house of your dreams.

Discrimination by banks against women, and anyone who wasn't considered white, -was commonplace.

-Then, in 1953, Second Street became Eastbound Route 66, and just to the north of that, Third Street became Westbound Route 66.

Historically, Winslow did have a degree of de facto segregation in housing.

Banks would only make loans to people of color to live in certain parts of town.

(Spencer) A realtor wouldn't sell the property to my dad unless we went around to all the neighbors in about a three- or four-block radius, and asked if it was okay for a Chinese family to move into the neighborhood.

At that point, though, I think there were probably about 14 or 15 Chinese families in Winslow.

My mother Linda moved to Winslow, uh, with my father shortly after they were married, right after World War II.

It was an arranged marriage, and so they came over on a ship in, uh, 1947, I was born in 1948.

Route 66 was a source of livelihood for the city.

Brought in all the tourism.

The railroads had a big maintenance yard in Winslow.

So we grew up, um, in a grocery store that was on First Street, which was right across some railroad tracks.

My dad was already a naturalized citizen through his service in the Army, and so I remember coming home one day, and my dad said, "Okay, your mother's gotta speak English.

No more Chinese at home."

♪ So, one of the first things that they did was the-- uh, they enrolled her in school.

My mother's sitting in a 6th grade class, learning English, and so she learned English for about-- I think she stayed there for about a year.

She passed citizenship test, naturalization test, with flying colors, and, uh, she would sometimes help out in the grocery store.

My parents were determined that all four of us kids were gonna go off to college.

My dad realized that working in a grocery store wasn't gonna cut it, so he took a gamble, bought some property and built a drive-in restaurant, a hamburger stand, Freddie's Drive-In.

And so, he said, "Okay, I'm gonna work at the store, and Mom is going to run the restaurant.

Next thing I know my mom was trying to figure out how to cook hamburgers, how to cook tacos, how to make French fries, uh, you know, this whole thing, and then-- and how to manage people.

Remember still seeing the ads.

"Three for a dollar."

And you can buy that and a 16-ounce drink for 15 cents.

She actually made a really good go of it, and, uh, to this day, she invented something called Freddie's tacos, which is considered a classic.

So, that helped fund my college education, helped fund my brother's and my sister's, and then--but my dad said, "You know, we're still a little short."

So, then he--right next to it he built a laundromat, and so my mother would sort of watch out with the laundromat, and the, uh-- and the--and the restaurant and do the cooking there.

Their--their businesses got a lot of traffic, got a lot of tourism along Route 66.

(traffic whirring) (narrator) Despite increased mobility after World War II, segregation was still very much part of the landscape on Route 66.

(soft guitar music) (Larry) The Spicer family arrived in Monrovia in 1947.

My dad came here on Route 66.

My dad was able to send for my mom.

(engine whirring) From Walnut Street to the railroad tracks, on the north and south side, and from Myrtle to Mountain, that's where all the African Americans were located in Monrovia.

♪ We started traveling back to Mississippi in '65.

Traveling on Route 66, prior to us leaving, they would put this burlap sack bag in the front, because back in those days, you know, the cars weren't as good as they are now, so that you needed to carry some water, and they would hook it on the front of the car, so if the car ran hot, you had your water.

And so, we would ask my dad about that all the time.

You know, we were very curious about the things that he was doing, and he would tell-- he would call my mom-- her name was Geneva-- "Geneva, come get these kids, I'm trying to load up the car and stuff," you know.

We was--we were excited.

My mom prepped all the food, you know, the clothing.

She took care of everything.

My mom would drive, but my mom, man, she had a heavy foot.

She drove too fast, my dad didn't like that.

My mom would get on down the road, so he would drive the most.

We always traveled with another family, the Barneses, so it was two families driving behind one another on Route 66 the whole time.

On convoy, we would get to these gas stations.

My dad would take my sisters, you know, so they-- 'cause he didn't want them going out in the bushes like us, and, um, he would go and stand out there, you know, him and my mom, but he made sure that he would gas up the car, and then he would park the car over by the bathroom so he can see us.

You know, he didn't wanna leave us alone.

A couple of times, you know, the people were using the N-word just over and over.

My dad was just polite, keep his head up, got in the car, and then he would talk to us while he's driving, you know, about how bad people can be, but you have to overlook it because there's better people in the world.

(narrator) It was a new era, and the American family, united after years of Depression and separation, were eager to explore the West.

They took Route 66 to do it.

(Cynnie) Yeah, I haven't seen these pictures for a while.

(Jamie) Well, my favorite thing are the little socks.

(Cynnie) Little socks--they were loafers probably, right?

-Yeah.

-My thinking is, they wanted to come to California, and it was February, so it's cold.

-Right.

-Um, and Route 66 was the way you get to California.

My mother was a debutante in society of Philadelphia.

This Embassy Club in Philadelphia, they hired her as the debutante of the dance.

She wasn't a trained dancer.

My dad at the time was at The Mask and Wig Club, and he wrote songs and danced and sang and all that stuff at the club.

He's at the Embassy and he wants to ask her to dance, because she's, you know, the star, and he walks over and asked her to dance, and she looked at him and she went, "No."

And then he left, and someone said, "Come on, do you know that that's Bobby Troup, he's starring in The Mask."

"Oh," and she marches over to him and says, "Okay, let's dance."

That's the kind of guts she had.

No, I--I never called, uh, my granddad "Grandpa" or anything.

He was Bobby Troup.

And then my grandma, I call her Namok.

The classic Route 66 story that I know was that Bobby Troup and Namok were driving, you know, they're in the car, they're ready to come to California, and they have a map, and Bobby Troup is gonna-- you know, he's thinking of songwriting, you know, he's got that in his mind, so he's gonna write about--a song about Route 40, and she's like, "No, that's not a good idea, 'cause, like, it's only this long," right?

So, she suggests, "You should write about Route 66."

And then, she leans over and says, "Get your kicks on Route 66," and he's like, "Ah"-- like, that's how I imagine, so you know, in my mind, as a kid, like, he had a lightbulb, and she's there.

You know, it's like this perfect little partnership.

And here's the book she wrote.

Once I Was a Debutante.

Cynthia Hare, she uses her maiden name.

"Driving across country, I studied the road map while Bobby drove the car.

We followed Route 40 for a long time.

I said, 'Why don't you write a song about Route 40?'

'That's silly,' he said, 'we'll be on Route 66 most of the way to California.'

Silently I tried to rhyme words with 'six.'

Six, mix, picks, kicks.

A lyric writer I'm not, but I came up with 'Get your kicks on Route 66.'"

And of course he used that line, and she always thought she should've been on the, um, sheet music, that she--songwriting credit, but she didn't.

Yeah, Jamie, you--you've seen this map, and one of the fun things I--I love about this, and it kinda describes their personality.

If--you know--you know, well, she's so not artistic, -me either.

-But she clearly is.

(Cynnie) She is not, I mean, pasted-- no, I mean, come on.

(Jamie) Look, she--she marked where they started.

(Cynnie) Well, no, where the-- where the lyrics are... (Jamie) Oh.

(Cynnie) Yep.

"Oklahoma City looks mighty pretty..." I mean, these are the-- you know, they're 10 cities.

The map is called "the song map."

She obviously made it from a road map, must've just cut the bottom out, and where Route 66 was, traced it with a crayon.

(Jamie) She's pointing, I think, just to California.

-Oh, sure.

-I wonder where that sign is.

(Cynnie) It must be where you come in the state.

(Jamie) Well, it's the state line, yeah, so that's exciting.

(Cynnie) They're here, they made it.

When they got here, and he'd written some of it-- -Mhm.

-And then, they got to meet Nat King Cole, and they went down to Music City, and went into, like, a record booth thing.

Route 66, lots of significance.

What it did for the family, for money and support, it, from what I understand, is my mom always said it bought the house that we grew up in, and I've reframed the map now, showing the back of it where she wrote, you know, that it bought the house, and how much the house cost, and what the taxes were.

(peppy piano music) She didn't want the divorce, she was only 35.

She dated some, but nobody ever-- you know, he was the man in her life, I mean, until the day she died.

♪ You have the end of rationing, you have the end of-- of men being posted away from their homes who wanna spend time with families.

And they have improved automobiles, and--and everything else, so they pack up and they go on trips.

People wanna go vacation and see the great national parks, pop in the car, and take Susie and Johnny, and go for those long day trips out in the desert, and a lot of times you had to drive at night, 'cause nobody had air conditioning back then.

(Betty) Traveling in August, the hottest month of the year, my father always wanted to leave at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning, so he could--the--we could pass the desert early morning, but it never worked out that way.

We would leave maybe 6:00, 7:00.

But, getting ready, my mother did all the wash, the ironing, the packing, she would fry chicken so we'd have something to eat, and we'd be on the road.

It was six kids plus my parents in my dad's 1956 Chevy.

(Hilda) This is my oldest daughter, her name is Diana, and this is Anna, the youngest one, and this is, um, uh, Betty.

We used to go to New Mexico every year, too, and we would take Route 66.

It was a two-way.

One this way, one that way.

It was--there was a lot of crosses on the street that accidents had happened and people had died.

(Betty) One of the games we used to play in the car is "counting the crosses," 'cause there was crosses on the road.

My father, he drove nonstop practically, so when he would say, "I'm getting tired," he would say, "Betty, you be my eyes," and I always sat behind him, standing up, you know, and the wind in my face.

And especially at night, it was so dark on Route 66, and everybody was asleep.

He would say, "Talk to me."

I had this relationship with my father on the road.

Of course I was exhausted in the morning, but I stayed awake with him all night.

(Hilda) We weren't a very religious people either, but, um, what I remember in my mind I would say for the Lord to guide us safely to our destination, and we did for years and years and years.

(narrator) Even though Route 66 was known as "bloody 66" in more dangerous parts, there were always women forging new paths for themselves, unwilling or unable to stay home.

(JoLynn) I met Joy when I was working for the Hobart Tribune as a reporter, and she was a transplant from Rhode Island.

In the '40s, she had polio, and she came out here for her health.

They had a friend that had a ranch over in the Heber area, and, uh, she was getting better, and that's when she started her Stockmen's Supply company in an old shaggy van truck, and it was, like, 1951, I think, um, and she went all over Arizona with her truck.

There was lots of ranches that are not there now.

She was an exceptional person.

She was from Rhode Island, she went to the Gloria Vanderbilt School, or something to that effect, but she said they didn't finish her off.

She had to come to the West to get finished.

I would say probably late '50 into maybe '60, whenever Dee was born, you know.

I don't know how old Dee is.

But, um, anyway, she had married Dotch.

He had a ranch out at Dead River, which is adjacent to the Petrified Forest.

Today part of that is Navajo land, but anyway, they had a ranch out there, and, uh, a trading post up on 66, and that's where some of her experiences with tourists on 66 came into play.

Of course they sold gasoline, and cold ice, beer, soda pop, snacks, uh, curios, you know, Route 66 flags, or lots of kitschy little stuff back then.

She figured out that that plane was flying low 'cause he was, you know, signaling or whatever, and so she sent somebody to stop traffic at the one end, and he landed going west, and just short of the river bridge, Dead River Bridge, right past her place, and they filled him up and he took off.

She picked up on stuff that other people wouldn't pick up on anyway.

I see a pattern arise when you look at the different women.

These women contributed to the financial success of their families.

They were able to put a Christmas present under the tree that might not be there otherwise.

(mellow music) (Marshall) Today we're in, um, my hometown, Ash Fork, Arizona, right here on Route 66.

And when we moved up here in October of 1947, I was eight years old, and, um, my dad was new to the railroad, so he was not--he was unemployed most of the time.

Dad was gonna have to provide food, and we didn't have enough money for, uh--for meat, so Dad wanted a hunting rifle, and Mom, she decided to get a job.

She was a farm girl, so she had never worked, always been a housewife.

She had three boisterous boys.

She was in a family way when she was 16.

So, by the time she's about 22, I think, she had had four children.

And all of a sudden now she's working in a restaurant and had a job, and it was really neat, 'cause she put on a lot of makeup, and she really looked great.

And she wore this fancy waitress dress.

If you'd left L.A. and had gone through Barstow and Needles and Kingman and Seligman, by the time you got to Ash Fork to eat, you're ready to kill somebody, and they didn't leave much-- much for tips.

She always had in her-- in her apron pocket, was--it was always full of change, and me, a nickel was a lot of money, and I'd come in and bum a nickel or a dime off of her.

The Depression was still kinda going on, and after--after the war, uh, at least for us.

When you walked downtown, you saw businesses, there was a post office, um, a movie theater that had films four nights a week, and, um, let's see, then there was a barber shop, and a drugstore, and, uh, after the drug store was the old opera house, which was now a cafe where my mother was a waitress, and one of her waitress gigs was there.

Then, there was a little alleyway, and then there was another cafe, and that was the Dewdrop Inn Cafe.

The other hospitality place was--was down by the railroad tracks, and that's where, um-- that's where the, um, the--let's just call it hospitality for single girls.

I delivered papers there, too.

I had no idea, I was only 11 or 12 at the time.

That was one of my other jobs, I was a paperboy.

(paperboy) Football scores!

Morning paper!

Morning Star!

Paper, mister?

But, sometimes at night, the--the bus came from Flagstaff that brought the newspapers, and they dumped 'em off at the Arizona Bar, and so I'd wait down there till the bus came in, and if it snowed in Flagstaff, boy, on Route 66, it was just a two-lane road then, and I mean, those roads were really dangerous.

They, uh--and these buses would be late, maybe two or three hours late.

I imagine myself trudging through the snow on a bicycle and delivering papers, and the people all saying, "Oh, Marshall, we were so worried about you, we didn't think you'd make it."

They were asleep and didn't care.

Council buys park!

Scouts find lost girl!

Morning Star!

Except at the--at the little-- the other hotel, and, uh, it was al-- the lights were always on, and she would bring-- madam, the madam would bring me in and give me chocolate.

I did not know until my mother told me one day, we were walking down the street, and the madam had bright red hair.

I said, "Hi," and she said, "Hi, Marshall, how are you?"

I think my mom thought I was a regular customer there or something, I--she said, "How do you know her?"

And I said, "Oh, I was, uh-- I'm the paperboy, I--I deliver papers there."

(upbeat music) '47 and '48 and '49, they had some of the most brutal winters in Arizona history.

Dad was able to buy an Army surplus tent.

We slept in there with just blankets and no heating, nothing.

And the next house we lived in here, it was the rock house, and, um, it--it had plumbing, but the bathroom didn't work.

My mom, she was salutatorian of her class, and, um, real smart, and she had a hard life, and she could've had so much.

(melancholic music) ♪ People's hopes and dreams are not always realized, and if the road symbolized opportunity and mobility and hope, sometimes it brought disappointment and devastation and death.

There's--there's no doubt about that.

(narrator) As more Americans took to the road, the case for an interstate became clear, prompting changes that impacted women's lives.

(broadcaster) Though we have the greatest highway system in all the world, it can't carry... (dramatic music) ♪ (narrator) Not all communities' needs were considered equal.

(Mark) In the 1950s, San Bernardino embarks on a freeway-building project.

Off-ramps are built directly exiting only into the eastern part of San Bernardino into Downtown.

This directly cut off access into the west side for motorists traveling along the new freeway.

There's a very willful neglect of the Mexican merchant class and their livelihood.

(bright piano music) ♪ The freeway was a concern of our family, 'cause my mom thought that it would bring the business down.

(Lucy) In the '50s, '51, we had everything on Mount Vernon.

We had a drugstore, we had beer bars, grocery store, theater, a mortuary, a pharmacy, two markets.

It was very lively then.

Now it's very different, very different.

Today the Mitla Cafe is really one of the-- the only surviving businesses that's left from this once powerful Mexican merchant district.

(peppy music) (Patti) I think the secret to the success of Mitla Cafe is that we try to stay as authentic as we can to the recipes that my grandmother had.

She established an atmosphere of family, which we try to maintain.

We know our customers' names, you know, we know their problems, we know their hardships, or whatever in life that they're going through, you know, we know it, and we reach out to them.

And we've employed a lot of people in this community.

♪ (Judith) I was recruited to run for mayor.

My argument was that we needed to right and correct the system that we had in San Bernardino, which was tantamount to freeway apartheid, and they say, "Apartheid?"

Yeah, I said, "That's a strong word."

You say that, that gets everybody's attention.

I said, "Yes, and I need the support of all the mayors and supervisors there," and they all supported it.

Consequently, we have this crosstown freeway now.

It has the exits, and the slow lanes go to the left, and then the fast lanes stay on the right, then on the way back, so it-- it's the way it should be, the way it should've been all along, and so we won that battle.

I wasn't conscious of I was following the legacy of my family and my father.

Uh, it was what was right and what was best for the community, and what we needed to do to right the wrongs of the past.

(upbeat music) (narrator) Almost 100 years after her birth in 1926, Route 66 is truly a living history classroom.

(woman) My grandmother's recipe, it's got three ingredients: butter, flour, and sugar.

♪ Then, we went to the movie premiere, and from the time it started I just started crying, because never in a million thousand years did I think they were gonna, like, tell my life story on a big screen.

(overlapping remarks) -You still get emotional.

-I do.

(peppy piano music) ♪