Manuscripts
Journal of an automobile trip through the United States and Canada
Image not available
You might also be interested in
Image not available
Journal of a cross country automobile trip through the United States
Manuscripts
This journal entitled "The Log of the Dodge," documents an automobile trip by an unidentified party of individuals taken during the summer of 1926. The group started their journey in Brea, California, in June and traveled to Washington, DC. They then traveled up the Atlantic coast to New York and Niagara Falls and back to Brea. The diary provides detailed descriptions of various tourist destinations, the repairs on the automobile, and the cost, mileage covered, money spent on meals and supplies, and comments on people and landscapes. The journal is written in two notebooks.
mssHM 83971
Image not available
Photograph album of automobile trips through the West and Mexico
Visual Materials
A photograph album containing 128 photographs documenting two separate excursions by automobile, one undertaken in 1937 and the other in 1939. The first trip appears to have been taken by a family group of five who may have lived in Iowa or Missouri. Their trip photographs are all captioned, and include images of their group and the car, the roads, the sights they visited, and sometimes motels or cabins. They traveled through Texas, New Mexico (including Laguna Pueblo), Arizona, and California, where they visited numerous locations. They are seen at stops in and between Los Angeles and San Francisco, including missions, Hollywood, and three snapshots taken at the Huntington Library. A typed record of the miles traveled, gas used, and cabins they stayed in is pasted to the back of the album. The 1939 trip features mostly photographs of Texas, including parks, landmarks, and visits to friends' houses. They also visited Mexico, including a bullfighting ring, and New Orleans, Louisiana. One photograph of a wooden shack in Arkansas is captioned indicating it is an African American dwelling.
photCL 640
Image not available
Robert B. Blair, Arthur Jones, and Fred Jones automobile travel photographs
Visual Materials
The 82 photographs in this volume document an automobile trip taken by Blair, the Jones brothers, and possibly one or two other men or women, in October 1919, from South Dakota to the Pacific coast of Oregon. The party traveled in two cars, a 1918 Ford Model T, which they called "Russian Thistle Mollie" and a similar vehicle they called "Kactus Kate." During the trip, these motorists cross South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and Washington before reaching the Columbia River Highway in Oregon, which they follow to the Pacific Ocean. The images document drivers in open cars, rough dirt or gravel roads, automotive breakdowns, and driving through the aftermath of a blizzard near Deer Lodge, Montana. Besides photographs of automobiles and travelers, images show mountain vistas, a mine, a picnic lunch served from the car's running board, ferries and bridges, and ranches near the Yellowstone River. The photographs have handwritten captions in red ink in the margins, and are sleeved in mylar pages held in a binder.
photCL 613
Image not available
Agnes Gallicker diary of an automobile trip from Iowa to the Pacific Coast
Manuscripts
Diary kept by Agnes Gallicker as she and seven friends drove from Iowa across the Great Plains to the Pacific Coast from June to August of 1924. Most of the women were inexperienced drivers, and Agnes makes frequent references to the difficulties of automobile travel, including punctured tires and other mechanical failures, avoiding a "speed cop," and navigating often unpaved or damaged roadways. Agnes herself was a confident driver, and on her days off from driving noted that "my suggestions (driving from the backseat) were well (?) received." Agnes also describes a variety of fellow motorists they met along the way, including three young Dutchmen who helped them with car troubles at different stops along their route. Some encounters were less successful, and Agnes's motto became "Don't pick up with strange men." The diary opens on June 12, the day the women departed from their homes in Iowa. They spent much of their time traveling along the Lincoln Highway and spent each night camping out. In Iowa they passed through Marshalltown and Ledges State Park before driving quickly through Nebraska. Agnes noted with some awe their first view of the Rocky Mountains from Goodrich, Colorado. They also passed through Denver (where Agnes and another of the girls were "looked upon as Indians - People came out...to gawk at us"), Bear Creek Canyon, Colorado Springs, Big Thompson Canyon, and Rocky Mountain National Park, and hiked to Bear Lake (June 25). In Wyoming they drove through Laramie and stopped for a picnic after leaving Fort Steele. "Any place was as good as the other so we ate out on a desert," Agnes wrote, adding that "sand storms [are] similar to Iowa snow storms" (June 27). In Utah they saw Ogden and Salt Lake City (they missed some of the Mormon sites due to arriving on a Sunday, but eventually saw an organ concert at the Tabernacle), and in Idaho drove from Boise to The Dalles along the Columbia River. After ferrying across the Willamette River, they drove down to California, where they saw Mount Shasta and stopped in Redding, Stockton, Buck Meadows (near Yosemite, where Agnes did not go), and Oakland, and saw the Presidio Recruiting Station in San Francisco, went wading in the Pacific Ocean, and passed by U.C. Berkeley. When they tried to pay a portion of a car repair bill in pennies, Agnes wrote that the attendant told them "Californians don't care for pennies - they throw them away. Rich!!". The women then drove north toward Oregon, passing Mount Siskiyou and stopping at Klamath Falls and Crater Lake. In Washington they saw Mount Rainier National Park, Seattle, Snoqualmie Falls, and Spokane, and took a day trip to Victoria, British Columbia. In early August they began their trip home, and Agnes' diary describes touring the State Prison and Anaconda Reduction Works in Montana (Aug.4), spending two days at Yellowstone National Park (Aug.6-7), and driving through the Badlands to the Red River Valley. Her diary ends on August 17, when they were near the Elk River.
mssHM 78235
Image not available
Journal of a trip to California
Manuscripts
The journal chronicles a couple's six-month trip from Waukegan, Illinois through Colorado, Utah, and Mexico, to California, August 1920 to February 1921. The entries discuss: train travel, automobile travel, the couple's activities between Salt Lake City, Utah, and Los Angeles, California, visits to Tijuana and Mexicali, Mexico, San Diego, Long Beach, Venice, Hollywood, and Pasadena, California (with a visit to Busch Gardens). The journal contains 40 gelatin silver photographs taken during the trip. Following the trip narrative, the journal includes a listing of houses they bought from 1921 to 1926.
mssHM 84009
Image not available
My journal in Canada and the United States
Manuscripts
Woodroffee details his travels throughout Canada, Michigan, Virginia, and Maryland. He talks about his visit to General McClellan's Union Headquarters and witnesses the Battle of Antietam. The diary includes some photographs, including two of dead Confederate soldiers at Antietam. With auction description.
mssHM 52574