On the Road - 6
Vacuum Oil Company
Correct lubrication for the automobile
New York: Vacuum Oil Co., Inc., c1925
An automotive maintenance and repair guide featuring, on the cover, a woman driving the automobile. “If you want your automobile to run smoothly and powerfully, to use less gas and oil, if you want fewer repairs and great satisfaction, you will find this book a real help and guide toward accomplishing these things.”
DeGolyer Library, Pamphlet Collection, TL152.V33 1925
Winifred Hawkridge Dixon (1884-1937)
Westward hoboes: ups and downs of frontier motoring
New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1925
“Boston Women are Auto Adventurers.” – Star Tribune, 1922. Winifred Dixon shipped her car from Boston to Galveston, and from there motored through the Rio Grande region and home to Hub City. According to Dixon, “people who confine their driving to perfect boulevards and the city roads have no idea of the exhilarating game motoring really is.” In Westward Hoboes she describes her experiences exploring over 10,500 miles with her friend Katharine Thaxter. “On the onset we did not plan to make the journey by automobile…We planned to drift, to sketch and write when the spirit moved.”
DeGolyer Library, General Collection, F595.D62 1925
Collection of automotive sales literature
1926-1927
Advertisement for the Kalamazoo Tourist sedan featuring a comfortable bed a night, standard on Ford chassis. “Women drivers heartily endorse the K-S Telegage because of the added confidence it brings on the road and because of its accuracy, which they have learned to rely on; made to order seat covers for all cars from the Brazil Rubber Company.”
DeGolyer Library, Manuscript Collection, A2010.0041c
Purchase, 2010
Mildred Mary Easter Petre Bruce (1895-1990)
Nine thousand miles in eight weeks: being an account of an epic journey by motor car through eleven countries and two continents
London: H. Cranton, 1927
The Hon. Mrs. Mildred Victor Bruce was a British record-breaking racing motorist, speedboat racer, and aviator in the 1920s-1930s. This work recounts her tour of nine thousand miles in eleven different counties over the course of eight weeks in an automobile. “I suppose that they had never before seen a woman driving a motor-car at Meknes; and, as a matter of fact throughout our tour in every country except France my presence at the wheel seemed to be a matter for wonderment.”
DeGolyer Library, General Collection, G490.B78 1927
Caroline Coler (1879-1948)
Touring the United States: 20,000 miles in an auto
Alamo, Texas: News, 1928
“Nothing tends so much to enlarge the mind as traveling, that is, making a visit to other towns, cities, or countries, besides these in which we were born and education.” –Dr. I. Watts. Caroline Coler and her husband sold their newspaper business in Sidney, Nebraska, in the fall of 1926 after 22 years in business. They decided to spend the next year traveling and resting. After exploring the “grandest mountains; broadest plains; wonderful rivers; the greatest educational system; greatest wealth; the most beautiful and varied scenery; the happiest and most blessed citizenship in the wide world,” Caroline returned to the field of journalism as the editor for the Alamo News in Alamo, Texas.
DeGolyer Library, General Collection, E169.C67 1928
Russell Partridge Brockbank (1913-1979) comp.
Motoring through Punch 1900-1970
London: Punch; Newton Abbot, David & Charles, [1970]
Russell Brockbank (1913–1979) was a cartoonist born in Niagara Falls, Ontario. He moved to England in 1929. Brockbank was best known for his motoring, motor racing and aviation cartoons. Punch, or The London Charivari was a British weekly magazine of humor and satire. Brockbank’s association with Punch lasted over 30 years, and he was art editor from 1949 to 1960. Many of the early cartoons featuring women and automobile involve instances of speeding and policemen. In one particular cartoon from the 1930s, a taxi-driver swerves to avoid a collision stating “D’you want the ‘ole road to yourself?” To which the woman replies “I’ve as much right to the road as you have.”
DeGolyer Library, General Collection, Folio NC1478.B7