[Road Trips]

Chronicling a cross-country road trip, this charming scrapbook follows a family of four traversing the United States in a 1938 Oldsmobile from August 22nd to September 13th in 1947. The album consists of photographs with handwritten captions, two handwritten pages detailing location and time-logs of stops, a map of their route, and a brief, typed account of the journey. Beginning in Woodbury, New Jersey, the map shows the path taken, horizontally bisecting the country to the Southwest, through the south, and returning back to the starting point.

This album provides a glimpse into the era of the Great American road trip just before its heyday. Traveling in a 1938 Oldsmobile touring sedan, this family of four is made up of the two daughters, Margaret and Betty, the mother “Trude,” and the unnamed bespectacled father who is most likely the documentarian and driver. They exemplify the average family of the period – one of the thousands of cross country auto trips that took place afforded by advancements to automobile technology and the beginnings of the extensive highway system.