Use Restrictions

The copyright and related rights status of this collection have not been evaluated (See http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/CNE/1.0/)

Access Restrictions

There are no access restrictions.

Preferred Citation

Vacation trip in the new Chevrolet scrapbook, C0253, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries.

Acquisition Information

Purchased by George Mason University Libraries before 2008.

Processing Information

Processing completed by Elizabeth Beckman in April 2015. EAD markup completed by Elizabeth Beckman in April 2015. Finding aid updated by Amanda Menjivar in January 2024.

Historical Information

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.

Scope and Content

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 actor Jimmy Stewart at the southwest waterfront in Washington, D.C., where he was filming The FBI Story .

Arrangement

This is a single item collection. The scrapbook was created chronologically from October 18th to November 4, 1958.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Scrapbooks
• Stewart, James, 1908-1997
• Transportation -- United States
• Washington (D.C.)