How the yellow school bus became an iconic symbol in America

They arrived in a kaleidoscope of colors, but one won. For decades, the American school bus has maintained such a standard look that “school bus yellow” is national shorthand for its deep, glossy hue. No act of Congress mandated the color, with its slight orange tint. Rather, a 1939 conference of transportation officials from all U.S. states (then 48) chose the shade for its visibility as one of the first safety standards. At their peak in the 1980s, the yellow buses took more than 60% of U.S. students to school. The metal-bodied school bus got its start in rural America. Georgia car dealer Albert Luce designed it to carry cement workers, then marketed it to schools when the company turned it down. It was impeccable timing as school districts replaced one-room neighborhood schoolhouses with larger ones much farther apart. That consolidation gave rise to the school bus. “I don’t think you could’ve had one without the other,” says Matt Anderson, head transportation curator at the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Dearborn, Michigan, which houses Luce’s 1927 bus. Decades later, buses helped desegregate schools, hauling Black and white children across the…