Selected excerpts (1921 - 1988) from Galloping Bungalows
by David A. Thornburg, Shoestring Press Inc., Connecticut, 1991:
“Indeed motor-camping is the only way in which many people can afford to travel at all.”
—Elon Jessup, The Motor Camping Book, 1921
“A census last Sunday on the Daniel Webster Highway of Laconia [New Hampshire] disclosed that 20 per cent of passenger automobiles, exclusive of local about-town motors, were equipped with camping paraphernalia.”
—The Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 19, 1924
“The most conspicuous thing in the West now is the sign, Free Municipal Camp Ground. Almost every city, town, and hamlet, from the Dakotas to the Pacific, maintains such a campground, and is in constant use.”
—The Nation, September 14, 1924
“Five years ago the trailer was just a convenience for motor-tourists, an overnight shelter usually made in the back lot at home, into a sort of mobile bedroom limping along behind the family’s battered runabout.”
—Literary Digest, November 14, 1936
“The trailer industry is a young one and you are not limited to many standardized designs, shapes, colors or sizes.”
—Popular Mechanics, December 1936
“At first . . . the trailer was just something different in camping. Then people discovered you live in them.”
—Fortune, March 1937
“Beyond question the trailer is the most excitingly portentous gadget at hand today.”
—Fortune, March 1937
“The trailer generated its own wild enthusiasts.”
—Harpers, April 1938
“[Trailers offer] a delightful combination of security and vagabondism.”
—Trailer Topics, August 1939
“The trailer is a hybrid of the aeroplane, automobile and house in construction and engineering.”
—Trailer Topics, June 1940
During the twenties and thirties, thousands of people designed and built their own trailers. This Ohio model, photographed in Washington D.C., in 1941, sports a clerestory roof and dropped entryway. (p. 115)
“In the year 2000 a.d. many of today’s Spartans will still be in daily use.”
—Spartan Trailercoach ad, Trailer Life, September 1948
“Living in a trailer is a lot of fun. There is always a sort of picnic feel, for one thing. A sort of holiday air. It makes you feel you’re living on a perpetual vacation, even if you’re not. You’re much closer to the outdoors than you are in a house.”
—James Jones, author of From Here to Eternity, 1951
“There was hardly an order that we received in those days that didn’ t have some special request. Could this be built in, or that?” We built in so many gadgets . . .”
—Airstream founder Wally Byam, in Trailer Travel Here and Abroad, 1960
“Of course we didn’t think of ourselves as pioneers in those days — we were too busy just trying to make a living.”
—Joseph Flora of Trotwood Trailers, in conversation, March 1988
“You mean there are people who don’t like trailerites?” —Ruth Bowlus, widow of William Hawley Bowlus, 1988