Visual Materials

Photograph album of an automobile road trip from Chicago to Arizona

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Description: An album of 116 photographs with handwritten captions documenting a 1935 automobile excursion from Chicago, Illinois, to Boulder Dam (later Hoover Dam) in Arizona. The unidentified young, male photographer and his companions crossed the Great Plains to Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, then proceeded to southern Utah and northern Arizona to visit other national parks including Zion, Bryce Canyon, and Grand Canyon. Photographs depict scenery and natural wonders such as geysers and mud pots in Yellowstone, as well as corn fields in Iowa and wheat fields in Nebraska. The travelers are also seen fishing, camping and hiking along the way. The album also includes scenes in Chicago and seven images of their wrecked automobile after a crash in Wyoming.
Type: Visual Materials(Opens in new tab)
Production date: 1935.
Call number: photCL 682
Provenance

Photograph album of automobile road trips across the United States and into Mexico

Visual Materials

An album of 296 snapshot photographs documenting two excursions by automobile across the United States and into Mexico in the late 1930s by a group of young men who appear to have been students at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Worcester, Massachusetts. The first trip, in July and August of 1937, includes numerous scenes in Washington, D.C., Tennessee, Alabama, Texas, Mexico, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Utah, Wyoming, and New York. Their travels involved stops at the Tennessee Valley Authority power station at Muscle Shoals, Alabama; Carlsbad Caverns National Park; Grand Canyon National Park; Boulder Dam; Death Valley; Sequoia and Yosemite national parks; Yellowstone National Park; and Niagara Falls. In Mexico, they toured the capital and saw a bullfight. The majority of photographs have handwritten captions in white pencil describing locations. Other images depict collegiate sports, including track and golf, and some mountain climbing. Another western excursion in 1938 includes visits to the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas, Colorado locations, and another visit to Yosemite National Park. The remaining photographs consist of views of the WPI campus, the destructive impact of the 1938 New England hurricane, and stops at unidentified hydroelectric engineering sites.

photCL 651

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Travel album of road trip to national parks of the West

Visual Materials

A travel album of 465 photographs, which the compiler called "1947 Trip West, 6,860 miles," on the first page. The photographs of this automobile road trip include natural scenery, motels, and roadside attractions across the United States, including Ohio, Wisconsin, and Kansas, with a focus on the national parks and monuments in the West. The photographs are a mixture of commercially produced images copyrighted to "Sanborn" and snapshots by the traveler, with several pages devoted to the Grand Canyon and Petrified Forest in Arizona, Bryce Canyon and Zion in Utah, Yellowstone in Wyoming, and the Badlands in South Dakota. Most photographs are captioned, and some captions include detailed descriptions of events or places. Of note are examples of "indian villages" designed for tourists, such as buildings identified as "Indian pueblo, Wisconsin Dells" with a sign advertising times for an "indian dance, free admission," and a tipi-shaped gas station in Lawrence, Kansas.

photCL 674

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Photograph album of an automobile road trip titled "Trip West 1928,", (bulk 1928)

Visual Materials

A photograph album documenting an automobile trip taken by friends across the western United States (with excursions into Canada and Tijuana, Mexico), during the summer of 1928. The first page is titled "Trip West 1928" and includes an image of an automobile covered with travel decals captioned: "Home after 10,000 miles." Photographs show the travelers visited many national parks, including Crater Lake, Yellowstone, Glacier, and Yosemite, as well as other tourist attractions such as Garden of the Gods, Pikes Peak, Catalina Island, Hollywood, the Redwood Highway, Vancouver, and Canada's Waterton National Park. Some images show the unidentified young men dealing with automobile trouble, hiking in the mountains, camping, and posing with an "old" and "new" car. The majority of the snapshots were taken in the West, but there are some images of tourist attractions in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, all identified in handwritten captions. The album has three pages titled "My Pals" for autographs; several men and women signed their names and home towns, dated between 1929 and 1933.

photCL 657

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Album of photographs of a trip in the American West and Lake Mohonk, New York

Visual Materials

An album with 58 commercial photographs of various scenic locations in the American West and New York, chiefly containing 1-2 images per page. Locations consist of: Colorado (pages 1-8); Utah (pages 9-11); California including Lake Tahoe (page 12), San Francisco including Chinatown (page 13); Oakland (page 14), Berkeley (page 15), the Hotel Del Monte in Monterey, California (page 16); Geyser Canyon in Sonoma County (page 17), Yosemite (pages 19-27), and Mariposa Grove (pages 28-29); the mountains of Mount Shasta and Mount Tacoma (page 30) and Mount Hood (page 31); Yellowstone (pages 32-40); and Mohonk Lake, New York (pages 41-46). Views of Yosemite show El Capitan, Cathedral Spires, Royal Arches, Mirror Lake, Bridal Veil Falls, Vernal Falls, Nevada Falls, and Glacier Point. Views of Yellowstone show Mammoth Springs Hotel, Minerva Terrace, Golden Gate Canyon, Obsidian Cliffs, Hell's Half Acre, Morning Glory Spring, Old Faithful, Splendid Geyser, Sulphur Mountain, Lower Falls, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon Hotel. Views in Colorado include Manitou Springs, the Garden of the Gods, Denver, Georgetown, Curecanti Needle, and the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas. Most of the Utah photographs are the work of C. R. Savage, some of the Colorado photographs are by William Henry Jackson, some of the Yellowstone photographs are by F. Jay Haynes, the Oregon photographs are by Isaac Grundy Davidson, the Tahoe Photographs are by R. J. Waters, and most of the rest are by I. W. Taber.

photCL 158

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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

Grand Canyon of Arizona : from Hermit Rim Road

Visual Materials

Image of an eye-level landscape view from a ledge on Hermit Rim Road on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, overlooking brush and trees in the foreground, and the Grand Canyon and Colorado River in the distance.

priJLC_VIEW_000705

Photograph album of an automobile road trip from Chicago to Arizona

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Photograph album of automobile road trips across the United States and into Mexico

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