At the turn of the twentieth century, a grassroots movement for the improvement of rural roads and highways swept across the United States, laying the groundwork for the highway systems that shape American life today. The reformers and bureaucrats who advocated for better roads did more than tout the economic benefits of improved mobility. They articulated a gospel of infrastructural progress that redefined roadbuilding as a missionary endeavor whose purpose was to civilize and spiritually redeem the American landscape, from its urban centers to its rural margins.

Apostles of Asphalt reveals how and why members of the good roads movement used the language of religion, civilization, and redemption to achieve their goals. Focusing on the movement’s influential Southern branches, Isaiah Ellis shows how white Southerners who became involved in the movement brought its religious and moral message increasingly in line with the Jim Crow regime, aiding broader efforts to sanctify the Confederate past and revitalize the doctrine of Manifest Destiny for the twentieth century. Ranging from the mountains of North Carolina to the swamps of Florida, Ellis offers a fresh perspective on the ideas at the foundation of the American highway system. In so doing, Apostles of Asphalt challenges the easy equation of infrastructure development and the common good.