Oblong Quarto album (ca. 18,4x30 cm). 50 card stock leaves. With 242 mounted and one loosely attached original gelatin silver photos from ca. 15,1x10,1 cm (6 x 4 in) to 6,9x11,5 cm (2 ¾ x 4 ½ in). Most photos with period typewritten captions on paper labels (in English) attached to the mounts. Period full cloth album fastened with a string, paper label of the “B-3 MAYFAIR. Made by Eastman Kodak Co.” on the inner side of the rear cover; about twenty-one photos missing, several photos with mild silvering and slightly loose, but overall a very good album with strong, interesting photos.

Historically interesting extensive collection of original gelatin silver photographs illustrating two early 1930s car trips from Wisconsin to Texas. The compiler was apparently a Wisconsin female resident who traveled with her friends and – on different legs of the journey – visited her acquaintances (“Alice Galbraith,” “Marion,” “Francis Jansky,” etc.). The photos are complemented by typewritten entries, providing brief notes on the events and encounters during the trips.

The photographs track both the 1933 and 1935 journeys from Illinois. On the earlier trip, the travelers drove to Oklahoma, then to Missouri, and after exploring the Arbuckle Mountains, continued to San Antonio, Texas. There, they visited notable sites such as Kelly Field and Mission San Jose before heading south into Mexico, reaching as far as Monterrey. On the second journey, the travelers passed through Arkansas before entering Texas. They explored Hearne, Buffalo, Edinburgh, San Juan, and Port Isabel, crossed the Mexican border at Matamoros, and began their journey back home.

The album contains 243 original gelatin silver photographs, including ca. fifty lively vernacular photos of the travelers taking “the first airplane ride” in San Antonio Airport, posing with planes at Kelly Field, “crossing the Mississippi on the Ferry,” smiling alongside an African-American maid from the “John Fax Home in Marshall, Texas,” showing off their car (with clearly visible Wisconsin license plate), exploring the monkey island & Governor’s Palace, and enjoying a rodeo show in SA. The other interesting candid urban scenes portray a Mexican goatherd with a flock of goats near Saltillo, “Nigger ‘Gals’ of Arkansas” posing for the photographs, two Negro boys, aka “Chocolate Drops of Tennessee” smiling in ragged clothes, etc.

Over sixty excellent photos were taken during the travelers’ stay in San Antonio and show local missions (Mission San Jose, Mission San Francisco de Espada, Mission of the Immaculate Conception), National Shrine of the Little Flower, Our Lady of the Lake Church & College, the Alamo (courtyard & paddock), Governor’s Palace, Sunken Garden, “Boy Scout Lodge,” Breckenridge Park Zoo, Fort Sam Houston, Olmos Dam, Jefferson High School, etc. The other interesting photos from the “Texas” series portray Hearne (“Bridges over Brazos River”), Edinberg (“Palm Trees near Edinburg,” “The Bryan Home,” “Old Southern Home,”), San Juan (“Home and Rock Garden”), Port Isabel (“Light House”), Marshall (“The John Fax Home”), San Benito (“Park,” “Patio of the Verhalen Home,” “Nursery at the Fax Home, etc.), Corpus-Christi (“The Causeway,” “Port of Corpus Christi,” “Fish Boats”), and Austin (“Capitol of Texas”).

About ten well-executed photos of Mexico show El Obispado and Palacio Federal in Monterey, National Park in Matamoros, “Mountains on the way to Saltillo,” the travelers getting into their car in front of a Sombrero shop, and two men in a bull-drawn carriage heading to Monterrey.  

The rest of the photos mostly include general views of Illinois (Rochelle, Springfield, Elkville), Oklahoma (Miami), Missouri (St. Louis, Florissant, Devils Elbow), and Arkansas (Forest City, Little Rock, Devall’s Bluff). The album closes with eighteen lively photographs capturing the compiler and her friends on Paramount Pictures movie set, drinking by the bonfire, resting & having fun. Overall, historically interesting collection of two early 1930s car trips from Illinois to San Antonio, Texas.