The Record-Setting Trips: By Auto from Coast to Coast, 1909-1916
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.26 (598 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0804743967 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 336 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2014-09-26 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
The book is well written, and the photographs are superb.” James A. In his new book, he makes eight motorcar treks across America’s vastness come alive. Nobody has covered early transcontinental auto trips as well as McConnell, and I suspect nobody will supersede his efforts. Ward, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. As his title indicates, these trips either set speed records or were so unusualraces, military experiments, tourist jaunts, or commercial toursthat they stood apart from earlier transcontinental efforts, and he has some colorful characters to talk about
The later trips chronicled in this book reflected the remarkable developments in automobile technology and durability, and demonstrated the automobile's recreational, military, and commercial possibilities as well. Earlier coast-to-coast trips (described in the author's Coast-to-Coast by Automobile: The Pioneering Trips, 1899-1908 (Stanford, 2000) were also attention-grabbing events, but it was not until Pennsylvania lumberman Jacob Murdock became the first man to drive his family across the continent, that the average American began to see the automobile as a useful, practical means of traveling long distances. Murdock's trip ended the period when automakers (and others) would sponsor a cross-country trip merely to prove that it could be done. Our familiarity with modern interstate highways only increases our wonder that in the early twentiet
Midwest Book Review said A welcome contribution to Automotive History. The Record-Setting Trips: By Auto From Coast To Coast, 1909-1916 by automotive history expert Curt McConnell is a lavishly illustrated history of the dawn of cross-continental automotive travel by the general public. This was an era in which cross-country expeditions were made simply to prove that they could be done -- and to persuade the American public that the automobile was a safe, effective, and desirable form of transportation. Few roads connec