George Mason University. Libraries. Special Collections & Archives
Special Collections & ArchivesApril 9, 2015
Finding aid prepared by Elizabeth Beckman
There are no restrictions on personal use. Permission to publish material from the Vacation trip in the new Chevrolet scrapbook must be obtained from Special Collections and Archives, George Mason University Libraries.
There are no access restrictions.
Vacation trip in the new Chevrolet scrapbook, C0253, Special Collections and Archives, George Mason University Libraries.
Purchased by George Mason University Libraries before 2008.
Processing completed by Elizabeth Beckman in April 2015. EAD markup completed by Elizabeth Beckman in April 2015.
Car travel became increasingly popular in the United States in the 1950s; with the advent of the interstate highway system in 1956, interstate car travel started to become even more efficient. Car manufacturers encouraged sightseeing and road trips as well. Chevrolets (the brand of car that the family who created this scrapbook drove) had a prominent place in American culture of the time. As her biography.com entry notes, popular singer Dinah Shore encouraged people to "See the USA in your Chevrolet" on the "Dinah Shore Chevy Show" from 1956 to the early 1960s.
This scrapbook documents an unidentified family's road trip from Arlington, Virginia, through states in New England and the Mid-Atlantic. The states visited included New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. The album largely consists of black and white photographic prints, but there are also tourist brochures from historic sites as well as a hand-drawn map on the front of the scrapbook. Some photos from after the road trip are also included. Perhaps the most notable section of the scrapbook contains photographs taken in early November (after the road trip) of Jimmy Stewart at the southwest waterfront in Washington, D.C., where he was filming "The FBI Story."
The scrapbook is arranged chronologically from October 18 to November 4, 1958.