On the Road - 3
Letter from Gladys to Franz J. Emmerich, 1914 August 8
Letter to Franz J. Emmerich (Reading, Pennsylvania) from Gladys, who is traveling on the train from Washington, D.C. to New Orleans, Louisiana. Topics include description and travel.
DeGolyer Library, Manuscript Collection, A2002.0027c
Purchase, 2001
Effie Price Gladding (1865-1947)
Across the continent by the Lincoln highway
New York: Brentano’s, 1915
“From the Pacific to the Atlantic by the Lincoln Highway, with California and the Virginias and Maryland thrown in for good measure! What a tour it has been!” Many people recorded their experiences on the Lincoln Highway, especially women. Gladding’s book discusses transcontinental travel driving west to east. She notes, “The Wyoming desert has a sharper and more vivid coloring than that of Nevada. The tableland is more rolling and the mountains are farther away.” Meanwhile she notes that “the trail across Nevada could be marked by Whiskey bottles if by no others signs.” Book is dedicated to lovers of the open road and the flying wheel.
DeGolyer Library, General Collection, HE351.L7 G55 1915
City & County of Denver: Distributed by the Tourist Bureau
Enjoy your vacation Denver way: short scenic trips from Denver into the Colorado Rockies
Denver: City & County of Denver: Distributed by the Tourist Bureau, c1916
Guidebook advertising “where to stay…what to see…how to get there.” Colorado was a popular destination for early automobilists. In this piece Denver touts itself as the gateway to the national parks and offers a variety of travel options and routes for those arriving via trolley or auto. The back cover features an ad “to the well to-do family, come live in Denver,” for the comfort and beauty.
DeGolyer Library, Pamphlet Collection, F784.D43 E55
Henrietta [Heacock?], (compiler)
“Safety First on Your Trip to California”
1916 June
Created for Elisabeth by Henrietta, this elaborate and amusing scrapbook was prepared as a present for a girl’s trip by train to California. The entire book was compiled from different periodicals’ humorous clippings, cartoons, and illustrations, combined to form chapters. Some of the chapter headings: “The Way to Travel,” “The Gateway to the West,” “Are You an Optimist.” The album allowed Elisabeth (and future owners) to enjoy contemporary “railroad humor” while passing the time. It is a valuable reflection of railroad culture in American life.
DeGolyer Library, Manuscript Collection, A2022.0007c
Purchase, 2022
Lida Dean Lorimer Potter [1899? - ]
The Lorimers go west: June 1918
New York: Spiral Press, 1968
An account written by Lida Dean Lorimer Potter discussing how the Lormiers traversed 550 miles from Sidney, Iowa, to Denver, Colorado, in five days by car. Her father was invited to preach as a summer replacement for the Reverend Nona L. Brooks at the Divine Science Center in Denver. So the family packed up their second-hand 1915 Ford and made the journey to Colorado. Lida was nineteen years old at the time. Lida describes the challenge of packing up the car, wishing for a U-Haul had they been available. “It took some ingenuity to stow away two tents, bedding, a small kerosene stove, extra gasoline and water… cooking and eating paraphernalia, and clothes for five people.” Speaking of clothing, Lida notes that “mother always wore a hat, of course, sort of a toque with loops of ribbon, on this trip.”
DeGolyer Library, Pamphlet Collection, GV1023.P67 1968
Caroline Poole (1885-1932)
A modern prairie schooner on the trans-continental trail: the story of a motor trip
San Francisco: John Henry Nash, 1919
Recounts her automobile trip from Pasadena to Colorado Springs “in a trusty old Packard Six of 1913,” which she dubbed the Schooner Sallie. Caroline traveled with her chauffeur and her maid. In addition to her photographs and descriptions of stops, Caroline includes in the appendix a list of the contents of her grub box. Nothing says road trip like some road trip snacks. By the end of her 157 mile journey, Schooner Sallie, “recorded somewhat over nineteen hundred miles…looked trim and shipshape in spite of all she had been through, with the remarkable record of but two tire bruises, a broken gear shifting rod and one broken grease cup, to show for it.”
DeGolyer Library, General Collection, Folio GV1024 .P66
Chandler Motor Car Company
The new Chandler motor car: mechanical description & specifications
Cleveland, Ohio: Chandler Motor Car Co., 1919
Brochure describing the new series Chandler and featuring a woman on the cover. The Chandler Motor Car Company produced automobiles in the United States of America during the 1910s and 1920s.
DeGolyer Library Pamphlet Collection, TL215.C443 C43 1919
Photomobile Tourist Co.
The photomobilist tourist: Oregon, Washington, Idaho
Seattle: Photomobile Tourist Co., c1919
Guidebook for car travel in the Pacific Northwest modeled on the popular Photo-Auto Guides which Rand McNally had purchased the sole publishing rights in 1910 from Gardner S. Chapin. The Photomobilist includes: maps within the text, an index, and extensive photos and tourist information for the locales the early motorist would visit. Photos are arranged like movie film strips, offering a contemporary record of all the crossroads, garages, hotels, parking areas, towns, and cities that an early traveler would have seen driving across the Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.
DeGolyer Library, General Collection, GV1024.P55 1919