FROM DAY TO DAY WITH THE PURNELL'S ON A WESTERN TOUR: July - 1934 [Cover Title - Original Typescript Travel Narrative Illustrated by Real Photographs]

1934. About 100 thin, white paper leaves, each approximately 11" x 8." Hand-illustrated title page in front followed by a combination of typed entries and leaves mounted with original photographs, commercial photographs, various ephemeral articles (brochures, menus, etc...) all to rectos only. Contents loose from a perished binder or album of some kind. Some scattered edge toning and wear. Many binding holes reinforced at left margins. Overall contents clean, well preserved. Good or better overall.

An original typescript travel narrative of some 8,500 words (conservatively), illustrated by dozens of souvenir photos and 30 original vernacular snapshots documenting the automobile trip of a Purnell family from the Philadelphia-area to Yellowstone and back during July of 1934. The travel log spans July 7 - July 31 and entries suggest they traveled nearly 5,000 miles in a period Buick (though we are unable to discern its model year).

It begins with the family, which appears to have three members, George, Caryolyn, and Elizabeth (Betty) driving through Eastern Pennsylvania en route to Yellwostone via a southern route which included St. Louis, Kansas City, and Denver. Stops for meals and frequent vehicle maintenance figure heavily into the typed entries, as well as their judgements of various towns and cities encountered on the journey:

"We left Indianapolis 8.25 A.M. ; spedometer at 59575. The weather was semi-hazy and warm, but not hot. At Stilesville we bought gas and oil and had the fan well oiled. Terre Haute was the largest city en route, but not very impressive. We stopped for a salad lunch at noon at Benwood Hotel, Effingham, Ill. ; thence through a rather uninteresting, flat farm country to St. Louis, Mo., arriving at Jefferson Hotel about 3.30 P.M. East St. Louis, Ill., across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, from what we saw of it, would easily take firsts prize as the world's shabbiest town." (July 9, 1934)

The family spends several days in Yellowstone, dutifully recording entries on their activities (the journal seems to be maintained mostly by Carolyn, the wife / mother of the family) before heading back east on a northern route which takes them through Chicago where they visit and likewise record their impressions of the 1934 Century of Progress (World's Fair).

In all an uncommoonly detailed and well illustrated vernacular record of travel by automobile in the American West during the Depression-era.