Faculty

John A. Jakle

John Jakle
  • Emeritus Professor of Geography
    and of Landscape Architecture
  • Research Interests:
    Historical and cultural geography of North America
    Urban social geography
    Travel and Tourism
  • Office: 314 Davenport Hall
  • Phone: 217-333-6860
  • E-mail: jjakle@illinois.edu
John Jakle, professor of Geography at the University of Illinois, pursues a diverse set of interests across urban, historical, and cultural geography. He is essentially a landscape historian focused on America’s evolving built environments, concerned with both their functional and aesthetic aspects. He holds an adjunct appointment in the Department of Landscape Architecture at Illinois. His courses attract students primarily from the design disciplines--architecture, architectural history, urban and regional planning, and landscape architecture.

He has authored/coauthored ten books and numerous professional papers.

His work on small towns produced The American Small Town: Twentieth-century Place Images (Archon, 1982) and Common Houses in America’s Small Towns: The Atlantic Seaboard to the Mississippi Valley (University of Georgia Press, 1989). The former book explores the symbolisms of small town life, especially as reflected in the built environment. The latter focuses on vernacular domestic architecture as cue to regional and local character or sense of place.

His small town interests have led him into historic preservation planning as a consultant. Various of his Ph.D. students have pursued careers in planning. One is director of the Jo Daviess County Historical Society and Museum (Galena, Illinois), three operate their own consulting firms (in Charlotte, Portland, Oregon and Seattle), and two are employed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. John Jakle has served on the Illinois Historic Sites Council and has chaired the University of Illinois’ Architecture Design Review Committee and its Historic Sites Committee.

His work on commercial vernacular architecture grew out of an interest in travel and tourism. Images of the Ohio Valley: A Historical Geography of Travel, 1740 to 1860 (Oxford University Press, 1977) and The Tourist: Travel in Twentieth-century North America (University of Nebraska Press, 1985) both explore tourism’s place implications, especially the creation and use of tourist attractions. Recent focus on the American roadside has produced three books--The Gas Station in America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994) and The Motel in America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996) and Fast Food: Roadside Restaurants in the Automobile Age (Johns Hopkins University Press, forthcoming 1999).

His work on landscape visualization is condensed in two volumes--Human Spatial Behavior: A Social Geography (Duxbury Press, 1976; reprinted by Waveland Press, 1985) and The Visual Elements of Landscape (University of Massachusetts Press, 1987). Focus is on how landscapes communicate as visual displays--on what attracts attention, is easily "read," and readily remembered. Forthcoming are books on public outdoor illumination and nighttime conception of landscape and place. Another book, Derelict Landscapes: The Wasting of America’s Built Environment (Rowman and Littlefield, 1992) focuses on how Americans "read" dereliction in landscape (the results of disinvestment, underutilization, abandonment, and degradation). At issue is the recycling or rehabilitation of old landscapes such as depressed small town main streets and central city neighborhoods.

John Jakle is a teacher. His classes variously focus on America’s changing rural and urban landscapes. Former students currently teach at the following universities and colleges--Appalachia State University, Cerritos College, Louisiana Tech., Montevalo University, National University of Ireland, Northern Arizona University, University of Maine, University of North Carolina (Charlotte), University of North Dakota, University of South Carolina, University of Texas (Arlington).

Courses

Research In Progress

  • Picturing City Lights in Postcard Art
  • City Lights: Illuminating the American Night
  • Parking Space: Landscape and Place in Modern America (with Keith A. Sculle)

Recent Publications

Books Authored

Fast Food: Roadside Restaurants in the Automobile Age (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999) (with Keith A. Sculle).

The Motel in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996) (with Keith A. Sculle and Jefferson Rogers).

The Gas Station in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994) (with Keith A. Sculle).

Derelict Landscapes: The Wasting of America's Built Environment (Savage, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1992) (with David Wilson).

Common Houses in America's Small Towns: The Atlantic Seaboard to the Mississippi Valley (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1989) (with Robert Bastian and Douglas Meyer).

The Visual Elements of Landscape (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1987).

The Tourist: Travel in Twentieth Century North America (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1985).

The American Small Town: Twentieth Century Place Images (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1982).

Images of the Ohio Valley: A Historical Geography of Travel, 1740 to 1860 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977).

Human Spatial Behavior: A Social Geography (North Scituate, MA: Duxbury Press, division of Wadsworth, 1976); (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1985); 315 pp. (with Stanley Brunn and Curtis Roseman).

Books Edited

Proceedings of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 7 (Washington, D.C.: 1975), 316 pp.

Chapters in Books

"Changing Mosaic: Travelers' Impressions of the National Road," in Karl Raitz (ed.). The National Road (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).

"Terre Haute to Effingham," in Karl Raitz (ed.). A Guide to The National Road (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).

"Small Towns as Historical Places: A Symbolic Interactionist Approach to Structuration Theory through the Study of Landscape," in David Wilson and James O. Huff, Marginalized Places and Populations: A Structurationist Agenda (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994), pp. 61-83.

"Images of the Ohio Valley Reconsidered: Lessons from Nicholas Cresswell and Reuben Gold Thwaites" in Robert L. Reid (ed.). Always A River (Bloomington: Indiana University Press 1991), 32-66.

"Social Stereotypes and Place Images: People on the TransAppalachian Frontier as Viewed by Travelers," in Leo Zonn (ed.), Place Images in the Media, (Savage, MO: Rowman and Littlefield, 1991), 83-103.

"Landscapes Redesigned for the Automobile," in Michael Conzen (ed.) The Making of the American Landscape (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990), 293-310.

"The Geographer as Author: Writing Scholarly Books," in Martin S. Kenzer (ed.), On Becoming a Professional Geographer, Columbus: Merrill, 1989), 124-134.

"Images of Place: Symbolism and the Middle Western Metropolis," in Carl Patton and Barry Checkoway (eds.), The Metropolitan Midwest (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985), 74-103.

"The Illinois Landscape," in Ruth E. Knack (ed.), Preservation Illinois: A Guide to State and Local Resources (Springfield: Illinois Department of Conservation, 1977), 3-9.

"How to Read the Illinois Landscape," in Lachlan F. Blair and John A. Quinn (eds.), Historic Preservation: Setting, Legislation, and Techniques (Urbana: University of Illinois, Bureau of Urban and Regional Planning Research, 1977), 49-57.

"Why Covered Bridges? Toward the Management of Historic Landscapes: The Case of Parke County, Indiana," in Ralph E. Ehrenberg (ed.), Pattern and Process: Research in Historical Geography (Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1975), 193-201 (with Robert Janiskee).

Monographs and Bibliographies

American Common Houses: A Selected Bibliography of Vernacular Architecture, (Monticello, IL: Vance Bibliographies, A-574, 1981), 28 pp. (with Douglas Meyer and Robert Bastian).

Past Landscapes: A Bibliography for Historic Preservationists (A Revised Edition), (Monticello, IL: Vance Bibliographies, A-314, 1980), 68 pp. (with the assistance of Virginia Oliver).

The Testing of a House Typing System in Two Middle Western Counties: A Comparative Analysis of Rural Houses (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois, Department of Geography, Occasional Paper No. 11, 1976), 36 pp.

Ethnic and Racial Minorities in North America: A Selected Bibliography of the Geographical Literature (Monticello, IL: Council of Planning Librarians, 1973), 1973), 71 pp. (with the assistance of Cynthia Jakle).

The Spatial Dimensions of Social Organization: A Selected Bibliography for Urban Social Geography (Monticello, IL: Council of Planning Librarians, 1970), 50 pp.

Articles in Journals:

"The Highway in America," Bulletin, Illinois Geographical Society, vol. 38 (Fall 1996), 5-10.

"Toward a Geographical History of Indiana: Landscape and Place in the Historical Imagination." Indiana Magazine of History vol. 89 (Sept. 1993), 177-209.

"Abandonment in America: Lessons from the Cloverleaf Line," Pioneer America Society Transactions, Vol. 11 (1988), 1-8.

"Childhood on the Middle Border: Remembered Small Town America," Journal of Geography, Vol. 85 (1986), 159-163.

"Twentieth Century Revival Architecture: Housing the Gentry in a College Town," Journal of Cultural Geography, Vol. 5 (1984), 28-43.

"Touring by Automobile in 1932: The American West as Stereotype," Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 8 (1981), 534-549.

"Roadside Restaurants: The Evolution of Place-Product-Packaging," Journal of Cultural Geography, Vol. 3 (1982), 76-93.

"The Evolution of a Commercial Strip," Journal of Cultural Geography, Vol. 1 (1981), 13-25 (with Richard Mattson).

"Motel by the Roadside: America's Room for the Night," Journal of Cultural Geography, Vol. 1 (1981), 34-49.

"Historical Geography: Focus on the 'Geographic Past' and 'Historical Place'," Environmental Review, Vol. 4 (1980), 2-5.

"Good-bye to the Horse: The Transition from Horse-Related to Automobile-Related Businesses in an Urban Landscape," Pioneer America Society Proceedings, Vol. 2 (1979), 31-51 (with Richard Mattson).

"Cincinnati in the 1830's: A Cognitive Map of Traveler's Landscape Impressions," Environmental Review, Vol. 3 (1979), 2-10.

"The American Gasoline Station, 1920 to 1970," Journal of American Culture, Vol. 1 (1979), 521-542.

"Gasoline Stations in the Champaign-Urbana Landscape: 1920 to 1970," Bulletin, Illinois Geographical Society, Vol. 20 (1978), 3-15.

"In Pursuit of a Wild Goose: Historical Geography and the Geographic Past," Historical Geography Newsletter, Vol. 4 (1974), 13-16.

"A Historic Perspective on Rural Settlement: Comment," Agricultural History, Vol. 48 (1974), 26-30.

"Time, Space, and the Geographic Past: A Prospectus for a Historical Geography," American Historical Review, Vol. 77 (1972), 1084-1103.

"The Prejudicial Use of Space: School Assignment Strategies in the United States," Journal of Geography, Vol. 70 (1971), 105-109 (with Charles Christian and Curtis Roseman).

"The Dutch in Kalamazoo, Michigan: Spatial Barriers to Acculturation," Tijdschrift Voor Economishe En Sociale Geografie, Vol. 60 (1969), 441-460 (with James Wheeler).

"The Changing Residential Structure of the Dutch Population in Kalamazoo," Annals, Association of American Geographers, Vol. 59 (1969), 441-460 (with James Wheeler).

"Salt on the Ohio Valley Frontier, 1770-1820," Annals, Association of American Geographers, Vol. 59 (1969), 687-709.

"The American Bison and the Human Occupance of the Ohio Valley," Proceedings, American Philosophical Society, Vol. 112 (1968), 299-305.

"Salt-Derived Place Names in the Ohio Valley," Names, The Journal of the American Name Society, Vol. 16 (1968), 1-5.