1920s–1940s Photo Album of California Auto Tourism, a Soap Box Derby, and a Billboard in Tennessee Warning of “NO JOBS in California”.
United States: c. 1890s–1940s. Photo album measuring 7 x 10 inches containing fifty-three photographs: two tintypes (c. 1890s and 1920s), six RPPCs, and forty-five modern photographs. Photographs mainly measure 4 x 6 inches and smaller. Conditions vary; some with wrinkling and damage, especially to corners and edges; others Fine. Overall excellent. Item #Cat332
A photo album of an unknown couple. Early shots include two tintypes which appear to be turn of the century to 1920s, and six real photo postcards, dating to the 1920s at the latest based on stampboxes. The RPPCs include portraits, shots from a farm, and a souvenir photo from Brooklyn. Later shots are likely WWII-era, showing several men posing in military uniforms.
The album is highlighted by its photographs of Californian auto tourism and a Soap Box Derby event, likely also in California. Identifiable tourist locations include Bear Canyon Campground in Altadena and Cedarpines Park in the San Bernardino mountains; people pose with the car in deep snow and at the campside, and shots show the car with luggage strapped to the outside and filling up at a Shell. One Cedarpines photo is dated, captioned “Winter ‘28”. Later auto tourism shots—with what appears to be a 1940s model car—show the car at a Los Angeles mechanic with a teardrop camper and a boat on top, and later parked at a beach with the camper set up, with manuscript verso indicating that the location is Mexico. Alongside these photographs is a shot of a Depression-era billboard reading “NO JOBS in California / KEEP OUT / 6 MEN FOR EVERY JOB / NO STATE RELIEF AVAILABLE FOR NON-RESIDENTS”; on the verso, it is captioned “1929 / This sign was posted in Tennessee”.
Soap Box Derby is a Depression-era invention, beginning in 1934 in Dayton, Ohio, and quickly becoming a national phenomenon. Derby shots in this album appear to be Californian or at least to highlight Californian entrants: the cars pictured are sponsored by Siminow Bros., a Los Angeles gas station and mechanic. These include the cars being towed in, the line for the inspection station, the starting line, and action shots.
Highlighting two very different forms of car-based recreation, the album is of interest to historians of the car in American leisure in the period surrounding the Great Depression.
Price: $600.00