America On the Move (Including the Obamas)
This warm, warm summer has prompted vacationers to seek the cool as well as new (and old) attractions. Even the First Family is exploring new vistas. Could they include the *Chelsea Clinton's wedding on July 31st?
The Smithsonian National Museum of American History presents an online exhibit, America On the Move. The Transportation Before 1876 section explores "the ways that improved American transportation networks that helped create new links within the country. See how the nation’s growing numbers of steamships, roads, canals, and railroads — including the first transcontinental railroad in 1869 — created skeins of connection in the nation. Take a look at a map of America in 1876 — the country’s centennial year — and see how the transportation systems had developed into an increasingly national network."
"In the 19th century, as the United States spread across the continent, transportation systems helped connect the growing nation. First rivers and roads and then canals and railroads moved travelers and agricultural and manufactured goods between farms, towns, and cities. Transportation links helped create a set of distinct local and regional economies. They also contributed to the sectional jealousies and rivalries that set the stage for the Civil War. Not until the end of the century would transportation networks form a national economy."Community Dreams
It’s a bright May day in 1876 in Santa Cruz, California. You’re in the middle of a celebration: a crowd of citizens comes out to see the Jupiter locomotive delivered. People are celebrating the connection of Santa Cruz to Watsonville, and the national railroad network. A railroad promoter is talking to a local family, a locomotive engineer stands nearby, and the whistle of a train is heard in the background.
A Railroad Comes to Town
By the 1870s, iron rails ran coast-to-coast, connecting more of the interior of the United States than ever before. Towns and cities now could flourish away from the coasts and waterways that had been America’s main transportation networks. Food and manufactured goods could be distributed nationally. Railroads created new social, political, and economic ties among people spread across thousands of miles. To many Americans, a railroad connection promised new prosperity and new opportunities.
In Santa Cruz, California, businessmen and politicians fought to bring a railroad to town, dreaming of a boom in industry that would make their city the equal of San Francisco. Many local people invested in the proposed Santa Cruz Railroad, and after years of politicking and financial maneuvers, a 15-mile line was completed in 1876. It connected Santa Cruz to the farming town of Watsonville, which was served by California’s principal railroad, the Southern Pacific.
Family Camping
The Cate family is on vacation at Decatur Motor Camp, York Beach, on the southern coast of Maine. It’s late afternoon and the Cates are settling down after their day. Mrs. Cate and her daughter are preparing dinner in the trailer; Mr. Cate is relaxing with a magazine in a sling chair. Visitors can peer inside their Trav-L-Coach and see the ingenious design of this 1930s mode of travel.
At Home on the Road
In the 1930s, as more and more Americans enjoyed paid vacations and access to automobiles, many families purchased or made house trailers. Ads promoted trailer life as a way to strengthen family ties through the pleasures of a vacation on the road. Trailers built in the 1930s were scaled-down versions of a home, with foldout beds, stoves, sinks, and other amenities that let a family travel without having to pay for a hotel or meals. Although taking the housekeeping on the road often meant that women did not have much of a holiday, trailers provided a way for hundreds of thousands of people to take vacations.
Every summer in the late 1930s and 1940s, the Cate family of New Hampshire towed their Trav-L-Coach house trailer to York Beach on the southern coast of Maine. They stayed at one of the thousands of trailer camps that sprang up around the country to accommodate this new form of tourism. There, like other middle-class families, they spent a week in a vacation cottage on wheels.
Editor's Note: The Obama family is spending part of their vacation at Arcadia National Park in Maine. The Centennial Initiative of 2016 will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service. With $181,640 in contributions from Eastern National, Acadia Partners for Science and Learning, and Friends of Acadia, Acadia National Park qualified for a federal matching grant of $181,000 and launched its own project in the summer of 2008, titled “Centennial Challenge: Engaging Youth.”
*Speaking about youth (or not so-young-youth), could be Obamas be attending Chelsea Clinton's wedding on July 31st?
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