I’ve commented before that “Why another Route 66 book?” is something I sometimes ask. I more or less thought I would be asking that question about Aprons Away: Women’s Work on Route 66, but found it wasn’t really needed. This is not, in my opinion, “another Route 66 book”. It is a book about women who made meaningful contributions to the world and who happen to have a connection to the route. For some, that connection is lifelong and one that defines their contribution. For others, Route 66 is associated with a smaller—sometimes much smaller—portion of their accomplishments. You won’t learn all that much about Route 66 from this book. You will learn a lot about a bunch of women who left their mark on the world. Route 66 is not the subject of this book; it is only the filter for selecting the subjects.
Jett divided those subjects into ten chapters, starting with “Blueprints” and ending with “The Documentarians”. Each chapter begins with a brief introduction of each of the chapter’s subjects, including some hints as to what each of them accomplished. Not so brief, but not overly long, biographies follow. Most are only a page or two, but each one makes it clear just made the woman stand out and what connected her to Route 66.
In interviews, Jett has said that the first stories in her collection about women and Route 66 were of women in “visible roles”. By that, she meant waitresses, motel operators, and others who were visible to travelers on the road. Neither of the categories I’ve mentioned, “Blueprints” and “The Documentarians”, is visible in that sense, but each contains someone quite visible to the world at large. The person whose biography begins the book, Mary Colter, is best known to fans of Route 66 as the architect of La Posada hotel in Winslow, AZ, but is highly visible to others for her wide-ranging design work on and off the route. Dorothea Lange, who appears on the cover of Aprons Away, is undoubtedly the documentarian in the book with the highest level of visibility. Her depression era photographs are some of the most recognized in the world.
“An Apron and a Coffee Pot”, “The Gas Station Girls”, “The Inn Keepers”, and “The Entrepreneurs” more closely match the “visible roles” Jett was referencing. Sometimes women waited tables, pumped gas, registered guests, or collected tickets for a business run by their husband or father, but not always. Lucille Hamons, Lillian Redman, and Ramona Lehman are names that nearly every fan of Route 66 will recognize for their major roles in customer-facing businesses along the route. The other categories, “Public Service”, “The Artists”, “World War II”, and “Design and Engineering” also have stars that are known to many who have traveled or studied the route.
Of course, every one of those chapters has several sections on people much less famous than Lange or Colter or Redman, and that’s why we buy such books. In fact, I’m guessing that it’s pretty much why the book was written. I strongly suspect that Jett would have heard some complaints had she not included Colter and others of equal fame, but there are numerous places we can read about those folks. I did not count them, but understand there are more than eighty women profiled in Aprons Away. Every one of them deserves to be here, and their stories deserve to be told. Jett has uncovered some very interesting women and has done a nice job of sharing their collected stories. I was familiar with well under half, maybe no more than a quarter, before meeting them in this book. New knowledge is a good thing.
Aprons Away Women’s Work on Route 66, Cheryl Eichar Jett, Reedy Press (April 1, 2026), 6 x 9 inches, 224 pages, ISBN 978-1681066349
Available through Amazon.
This book, just like its subject, is bright, colorful, eye-catching, and informative. That subject, quite obviously, is the 25-year-old 
Museum founder Tod Swormstedt provided a welcome page and an introduction, and his influence is evident throughout. It’s a given that some of the information presented in Roberts’ text came from Tod and others. To me, it seems almost as obvious that a guy so adept at organizing walls, rooms, and buildings filled with signs would have a hand in organizing sign-filled pages, and I have a strong hunch that he might have suggested a few targets for Grilli’s camera.
As Tod describes in the introduction, the book consists of three sections. The first describes what the museum is. It begins with some statistics, such as size (40,000 sq ft), oldest sign (155 years), and tallest sign (21 ft). That is followed by “A Founder’s Vision” (written by Tod), some words about the museum’s mission and its relationship with the community, and recognition of some of the many individuals who have been instrumental in the museum’s development and ongoing operation.
The second section concerns signs in general. There is a condensed history of signs in America that starts with carved and painted signs and progresses through materials like glass and plastic. The major changes electricity brought and the development of various illumination methods are covered. The section concludes with a glossary of sign types and the techniques and materials used in their construction.
I first became aware of the museum with the 2005 opening of its original Walnut Hills location. To someone not involved with the sign business in any way, it seemed to me that this wonderful new attraction had magically appeared, fully formed, in my city overnight. However, we all know that’s not how things work, and I soon learned about some, but far from all, of the work behind that magic. The first part of section three nicely covers the period between forming a board of directors in 1999, incorporating as a non-profit in 2000, and that delightful grand opening on April 28, 2005. This is also where I found more photos of Tod wearing a tie (3) than I’d ever seen before.
That first home in Essex Studios in the Walnut Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati was outgrown before it was occupied. Behind-the-scenes coverage continues as the current location in Camp Washington is acquired and made ready for another grand opening in June 2012. Central to “A Founder’s Vision” was the desire to not just display signs but to tell the story of American signage. Two envisioned methods for doing that were a Letter Wall showing the evolution of sign lettering and a faux street where signs were displayed in period-appropriate settings. A short Letter Wall existed at Essex, and some signs were sort of arranged as if they were on a street, but the backing was mostly plain white walls. In the new location, there was room to create proper versions of these two features. A much longer Letter Wall was constructed at the entrance to the main display area, and a Main Street was built with various storefronts lining both sides. To add another layer of realism, a diverse group of sign painters known as Letterheads descended on the museum to add signs to windows and doors to augment the big signs hanging on the storefronts and standing in the street. The store windows serve as natural display locations for items like painter kits and books.
The Letterheads and the museum have a wonderful relationship that is well documented in the book. The museum hosted the group’s 40th and 50th reunions in 2015 and 2025, and the group added murals and other features to the museum each time. When the museum expanded and Main Street doubled in length in 2024, the Letterheads returned to work their magic on the new storefronts. The Letterhead story is just one of many that show how the museum is appreciated by sign makers as well as sign fans.
There is something akin to a fourth section spread throughout the book. It is made up of things called “Sign Stories”, which are like sidebars in that they are standalone and not tied to the main flow of the book. But each is at least one full page, and some fill a two-page spread. Most describe a sign or group of signs in the museum’s collection. They typically provide a date and original location and identify the sign material and type. Then the page is filled with details about the sign’s original owner, its acquisition, or some other truly interesting aspect of the sign. I didn’t count them, but there’s a bunch. Enough to believe that some people might think the book worthy of purchase if these were all it contained.
That title may look familiar. If so, one reason might be the similarly named Route 66: The First 100 Years, reviewed 
Route 66: 100 Years is an anthology edited by Jim Hinckley of 
Like the beginning pages of many books about historic highways, the introduction includes tales of how the early automobile roads followed native trails, animal migration paths, and train tracks. And it talks about the impact that the popularity of bicycles had on the desire for and development of roads outside of cities toward the end of the 19th century. What makes it a little different from most similar writings is that it provides some details about organizations and specific events during road development during this era of pedal-powered transportation.
The state chapters appear in geographic sequence, east to west, which is the direction most people travel the route. Together, they provide a sort of combination travel guide and history lesson. I’m not talking about a travel guide with turn-by-turn directions, motel phone numbers, and such. However, most towns along the route are mentioned — and US 66 was a great connector of small towns — along with numerous points of interest. There is usually some history given about each town and POI, and there is plenty of history about the route itself.
The book is definitely well-illustrated. I don’t believe there is a single page, besides the index and authors’ bios, without at least one image. These include modern and period photographs, postcards, advertising brochures, and other items. Joe Sonderman supplied some of those postcards and brochures, as did big-time collectors Mike Ward and Steve Rider. I was extremely pleased to see a photo from the collection of the late Laurel Kane included. Many of the modern photos were taken by Jim Hinckley and his wife, Judy. I saw no photos from either Rhys Martin or Greg Hasman, although I know both are excellent photographers. I did see photos from Shutterstock, Alamy, and Getty. I thought both situations were curious, but the final product comes off well.
The quality of the book is quite good. Color and black-and-white images show nicely on the heavyweight glossy pages, and the layout serves them well. All have descriptive cut lines that include source credits. There are numerous sidebars, most with their own images, providing extra information outside of the main text flow.
The individual states that carried US 66 account for eight chapters. The book has nine. Dries Bessels, a resident of the Netherlands, authored a chapter named “Renaissance”. Dries has guided multiple tours down the length of Route 66 and provides an outside-the-country view of the historic road. The “renaissance” he writes about is its emergence as a travel destination for both Americans and foreigners after being bypassed and decommissioned. America, essentially spared the devastation that WWII brought to Europe, was the land of dreams to post-war Europeans, and Route 66 was a tangible thing that rolled right through those dreams. Today, Route 66 is still regarded as a way to experience a diverse range of America.
Frogman is a horror movie. I’m pretty sure the last horror movie that I paid to see in a theater was The Exorcist in 1973. I did that because I liked the book. I went to see Frogman because I liked the festival.
