CALIFORNIA TO CHICAGO BY FORD MODEL T OUTDOOR ADVENTURE PHOTO ALBUM 1919-1923
Item #1668
Substantial vernacular photograph album documenting a socially lively and mobile circle of family and friends in California and Chicago between 1919 and 1923, with strong content relating to early automobile touring, outdoor recreation, women outdoors, California beach culture, Big Bear, Santa Monica / Ocean Park, and urban sightseeing.
The album measures 15 5/8” x 10 3/4” and contains 383 photographs mounted across 33 leaves / 66 pages, with six blank leaves at the rear. The photographs vary in size, with many panoramic and snapshot-format images. Bound in patterned cloth covers with cord tie binding.
The album opens in March 1919 at Pacoima Canyon, California, with the handwritten caption “three months before prohibition,” and follows the group through a wide range of California locations and activities: Ocean Park / Santa Monica beaches, Balboa Park, Big Bear, canyons, cabins, rivers, lakes, wooded areas, logged landscapes, gardens, and suburban homes. The final portion shifts to Chicago in August 1923, with views of city buildings, elevated or rooftop scenes, zoo photographs including a polar bear, and group portraits of men in suits. One image is captioned “Clarendon Beach, Chicago 8/1/23,” and another includes the teasing caption “What’s the attraction.”
The California material is especially rich. The photographer records friends and family swimming, hiking, fishing, climbing boulders, sitting in canoes, lounging at cabins, walking along beaches, and posing theatrically in mountain and desert landscapes. Big Bear is a particular highlight, with multiple images of swimmers, cabins, lake views, fishermen, dogs, and encounters with tame bears. One striking photograph shows a man standing on a boulder above the lake, captioned “Big Bear July 1921,” while another portrait of a swimmer is captioned “Big Bear also Barbara’s / July 1921.”
Automobiles appear throughout, suggesting that the car was central to the group’s movement through California and possibly across the country. Several images show what appears to be a Ford Model T, along with another earlier brass-era automobile. These photographs place the album within the expanding culture of middle-class automobile touring in the years just after World War I, when roads, leisure travel, and outdoor recreation were becoming increasingly intertwined.
The album is notable for its tone as well as its scope. Formal portraits of family and friends in residential settings are interspersed with exuberant beach scenes, comic poses, mountain photographs, prankish tableaux, and candid moments of travel. Women appear frequently and actively: swimming, hiking, posing in wide-brimmed hats, climbing rocks, standing on beaches, and participating fully in the group’s outdoor life. The result is a vivid record of postwar leisure, mobility, and social performance in California and beyond.
Locations named or suggested include Pacoima Canyon, Ocean Park, Santa Monica, Balboa Park, Big Bear, Clarendon Beach, and Chicago Zoo. Other unidentified houses, beaches, lakes, riverbanks, roads, cabins, and mountain views may reward further research.
One photograph is missing from a page where the mount/torn paper remains. The album shows expected wear from age and handling, with some looseness and wear to the covers and pages, but remains a rich and unusually extensive visual record.
A compelling album for collections focused on vernacular photography, California history, early automobile travel, women and outdoor recreation, Big Bear, Santa Monica / Ocean Park, Chicago, leisure culture, and post-World War I American mobility.
Price: $600.00