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Automobile Blue Book, Vol 3 1921

Started by chetbrz, September 18, 2016, 08:59:51 PM

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chetbrz

The standard road guide of America, Established 1901

I found this book in an antique store.  It is 965+ pages of turn by turn instructions for traveling routes in NJ, PA, MD, DEL,VA, WVA, DC, & surrounding areas including NY City, and the Catskill area.  I have never seen a book like this before.  It's a great look at the road system in 1921.  I think it would be great fun to research one of these routes that are detailed more by land marks then road names.   Very hard to follow trolley tracks that no longer exist or turn at a business that probably hasn't been around for the past 90 years.   What a great road trip to travel one of these listed routes and compare the way things have changed and marvel at the things that have not.   Unbelievable amount of information pointing out land marks and points of interest including abstracts of state motor vehicle laws for the Automobilists.  For instance; you needed a license to drive in NYC but not the rest of the state, the license fee was $2.00 with a renewal cost of a dollar in 1921.

Anyone else run across a book like this.  In 1921 there were 10 volumes covering the entire continental US.  Each Vol was priced at $4.00 each.  There was also a 'T' vol for long Distance Tours, city to city, coast to coast which was priced at $5.00.  My assumption is that these books were updated for each year.  Need to figure out when they stopped printing them.  Of course the internet knows all so it's time to search the WWW...

UPDATE:

The Official Automobile Blue Book, 1901–1929: Precursor to the American Road Map
John T. Bauer

Abstract

Navigating by automobile at the dawn of the twentieth century was difficult because maps appropriate for this new mode of transportation were scarce. An early solution to this problem was the route guide. Listing turn-by-turn directions between various cities, route guides helped early motorists navigate a network of unmarked, local roads. This paper focuses exclusively on the Official Automobile Blue Book, the earliest and most popular of the route guides. It contends that the Blue Book series was a precursor to the American road map because the volumes served two important functions of road maps and did so before road mapping matured into a full-fledged cartographic business. The Blue Book commercialized automobile touring and provided directional information, helping motorists navigate. Twelve Blue Book volumes, covering 1901 to 1929, form the primary sources for this research. After examining the series' use, content, and history, the paper places the Official Automobile Blue Book within the larger context of the history of road mapping.

Cheers Chet...
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