Writers - 2

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America, first, fast & furious

Letitia Stockett (1884-1949)

America, first, fast & furious

Baltimore: Norman-Remington Co., 1930

Maria Letitia Stockett was an American author and English teacher. Starting out in Boston, Letitia took off across the country. “This volume is really instructive. It is replete with flora and fauna. It mentions by name the food, hotels and warns covertly against the bad ones.” She mentions in the beginning how many encouraged her and her companions to bring a pistol that their itinerary seemed “bold, daring, and rash—utterly rash.” For Letitia: “I would confront any man rather than a pistol.” So Ev, Kay, and Tish (Letitia) and their mascot Thomas P. Cat of Bailey Island packed up their Chrysler and set off on their trip.

DeGolyer Library, General Collection, F595 .S88 1930

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The Macadam Trail: ten thousand miles by motor coach

Mary Day Winn (1888-1965)

The Macadam Trail: ten thousand miles by motor coach

New York: A.A. Knopf, 1931

Mary Winn was a reporter and editor for the New York Herald Tribune’s magazine section. She authored Adam’s Rib and The Macadam Trail, which details her travels via motor bus across ten thousand miles and through thirty-four states. Winn recounts what they saw, what happened to her, and the characters she encountered including: “train bandits, Mormon elders, Kentucky colonels, movie actors, Mennonites, Pueblo Indians, Creole ladies, Forty-niners, Spaniards, sailors, cattle pinchers, penitents” and sophisticated New Yorkers. Thirty-four full-page illustrations and chapter headers are included by Mr. E.H. Suydam (illustrator).  She dedicated the book to her mother, “remembering the days when we rattled over California Hills.”

DeGolyer Library, General Collection, E169.W68

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Skimming Spain in five weeks by motor

Alice C.D. Riley (1867-1953)

Skimming Spain in five weeks by motor

Los Angeles: Saturday Night publishing company, 1931

Alice Cushing Donaldson Riley was an American author and arts club founder known for children’s poetry, stories, books, songs, and one-act plays.  In Skimming Spain Riley describes her first trip, entirely by motor, through the central part of Spain from Gibraltar to the Bay of Biscay from May 24-July 2, 1930. Using Michelin maps to chart her course, Riley along with her female traveling companion, Miss Eleanor Bissell of Pasadena, set out in an American Packard car. “We found roads good, people kind and courteous, rooms and beds clean…We think any American woman who wishes to see Spain can do it easily by motor.”

DeGolyer Library, General Collection, DP42.R6153 1931

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Green Mountains to Sierras

Zephine Humphrey (1874-1956)

Green Mountains to Sierras

New York: E.P. Dutton & Co. Inc., c1936

Harriette Zephine Humphrey Fahnestock was an American writer from Vermont. She was a prolific writer of fiction and essays with regional, nature, religious and travel themes. Green Mountains describes travel from Vermont to the Pacific sea, a circuitous continental loop via automobile. In the end, “in its own garage, the car rested securely, its mileage figures almost fourteen thousand higher” than when she embarked upon her journey. 

DeGolyer Library, General Collection, E169.H86 1936

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The wake of the prairie schooner

Irene Dakin Paden (1888-1974)

The wake of the prairie schooner

New York: The Macmillan Company, 1943

Irene Dakin Paden pursued the study of the history of the American West for more than forty years in Alameda, California. Together with her husband, Dr. William G. Paden, she spent many summers during the 1930s and 1940s seeking and following the 19th century emigrant trails that lead to California. Mrs. Paden kept copious notes of these explorations and during the winters carried out preparatory research for the following summer’s excursions.

DeGolyer Library, General Collection, F595 .P125

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Emily Post’s motor manners: the blue-booklet of traffic etiquette

Emily Post (1872-1960)

Emily Post’s motor manners: the blue-booklet of traffic etiquette

Washington D.C.: National Highway users Conference, c1949

Booklet on automobile driving, travel etiquette and safety by Emily Post. “A courteous lady will not ‘scold’ others raucously with her automobile horn any more than she would act like a ‘fishwife’ at a party!” Why should no distinction be made between men and women in motoring manners? “While gallantry is expected of all gentlemen, on the highway women drivers lose the ready identity of their sex and simply become ‘another driver.’” Should a gentleman who is driving light the cigarette for a lady beside him? “The answer is no! Safety is more important than chivalry.”

DeGolyer Library, Pamphlet Collection, GV1023.P66 1949

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A Year of American travel; narrative of personal experience

Jessie Benton Frémont (1824-1902)

A Year of American travel; narrative of personal experience

San Francisco: Book Club of California, 1960

Jessie Ann Benton Frémont was an American writer and political activist. She was the wife of explorer and adventurer John Charles Fremont, and followed her husband from assignment to assignment. Frémont published over fifty stories, articles, and essays, and she carried on a vast correspondence throughout her life. A Year of American Travel consists of her personal recollections during her trip to California in 1848.

DeGolyer Library, General Collection, Folio E166 .F9 1960

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A pioneer grandmother’s story of her life

Mariam Lawton Clayton (1885-1976)

A pioneer grandmother’s story of her life

Jericho, N.Y.: Exposition Press, c1971

Mariam Lawton Clayton was born August 8, 1885, to Wilber and Etta Lawton in Americus, Kansas. She was a high school teacher and a writer. Her works include: The Little Family, Pioneering in the Emerald City, and A Pioneer Grandmother’s Story.  The latter work follows Mariam from Kansas to New York, Idaho, and Montana at the turn of the century. Filled with the adventures and discoveries of “how it really was to be a pioneer woman,” Mariam’s text highlights the struggles, tragedies, along with the good people and fortune she encountered on her travels.

DeGolyer Library, General Collection, F595.C63 A3