E. O. Hoppe's Romantic America

2026 not only marks the 100^th anniversary of Route 66, but also the centennial of an epic eight-month road trip by British photographer E. O. Hoppé. This resulted in the first transcontinental photography survey of the United States, Romantic America. Hoppé set out from New York city in 1926 and traversed through over 120 cities and 35 states. His views record a rapidly changing America, from the development of highways to the construction of bridges and skyscrapers. He was interested in how the automobile was altering the social and physical landscape, presaging similar interest by later photographers such as Robert Frank. Hoppé also intently explored the unique ecologies and wide-open spaces of the desert Southwest which came to be inextricably intertwined with the lure of the road trip as it developed in the post-war period.

While Romantic America, printed in a run of almost 100,000 copies, had a significant impact in its time, its influence waned over time and was overlooked in early photohistory books. Recent research into Hoppé’s archive allowed the specifics of his trip to be recreated, and the full range of his project–aesthetically and conceptually—to be recognized. Hoppé was the first to take up the challenge of synthesizing a certain spirit of Americanness out of the cultural and geographic diversity of the country, and he set the bar high for those who followed. Awareness of his work deepness our understanding of the connection between photography and the road trip in the first half of the 20^th century.