CARS, CARS, and CARS

Our July 20 post focused on a Bullis book published in 1903 that chronicled a car trip through a portion of western United States. This week we dug around some more and came up with three more books about cars, and if you haven't stopped by the Bulis Room to take a closer look at The West from a Car Window, we hope that these other books will lure you in.

First, we found The Car That Went Abroad, Motoring Through the Golden Age,  written by Albert Bigelow Paine, illustrated from drawings by Walter Hale, and published in 1921 by Harper. "Abroad" means France, and looking at the list of places that automobile visited, it's tires barely had a chance to cool down from one side trip before it was on to the next.

Second, this book popped up on our search: By Camel and Car to the Peacock Throne by E. Alexander Powell, published in 1923 by Garden City Publishing Co.  What makes this book especially interesting to those of us in Upstate New York is that Mr. Powell was a native of Syracuse. He was born there in 1879 and was on the Syracuse Journal staff from 1898-1899.  At the beginning of World War I he was a war correspondent, and due to his neutral position was allowed on both sides of the battle lines. When the US entered the war in 1917, he was commissioned as a captain in US military intelligence. Following the war through1954, he had a successful career as an adventure and travel writer. This book is one of the 20 he wrote during that time. (Wikipedia, "E. Alexander Powell")

The third book we found is from a second-world-war timeframe: The Automobile User's Guide (with wartime suggestions on how to get the most out of your car and make it last longer : a practical operating manual for automobile owners and their families. General Motors Corporation authored and published this book in 1940. Although times and cars have changed in the last 72 years, there are still some good, practical ideas and lots of nostalgia between the covers of this book. 

There's still time for car trips this summer, and in between your travels, we hope you'll stop by and let us show you these interesting (and fun-to-read) books.