The Story of Trailer and It's Actors; As a Mobile Home Case _ Nur Gülgör Thesis

28. Woodmansey, A. (2022). Recreational Vehicles: A
World History 1872–1939. Pen & Sword Books Limited.
29. ii
Manufacturing Co., Lockport. He placed ads in the neighborhood to sell the
car. On the one hand, camping tours for touristic purposes became popular
in the last quarter of the 19th century. The most well-known of these was
Yellowstone, the first national park in the world. Sam M. Wilson and William
Wallace Wylie ran a traveling enterprise in the park with movable tent camps.
They also offered a somewhat private escorted journey for four people over
twelve days in a cozy, self-contained vehicle with a driver with McMaster’s
camping cars. The sleeping cabins proved to be far more comfortable than the
company’s previous use of tents for tourists in bad weather. 28
Alongside McMaster’s multi-production camping vehicle venture,
some travelers of the time produced their own personal vehicles and went
on trips with them. These custom-made cars are the first trailer examples
before the motor vehicles in America. They were produced individually and
there are usually no photos in the archives. Even so, the trailer owners made
drawings of their mobile homes and published them as “house on wheels”
in the newspapers and magazines of the period. The traveler family Lasley
made a 4-year trip from Washington to New York in their mobile cabin starting
in 1894. The “house on wheels” of the Lasley family was the most classical
visualization of a chimney house placed on four wheels. In 1896, a Kansas
carpenter built a “summer house on wheels” for his unhealthy wife to travel to
the Rocky Mountains yearly. The family doctor advised that the builder’s wife
should get some fresh air the idea came from. The car was lightweight and of
simple construction. A year later, Jonathan Olson from Altoona, Pennsylvania,
decided to travel the world for pleasure in a wagon. His vehicle consisted of
three luxuriously built rooms with a separate kitchen, bedroom, and pantry,
with a sliding door on one side. However, whether he started or finished
his journey is unknown. 29 Olson’s drawing of the interior section reveals the
difference in the idea compared to other drawings of the period. Instead of
drawing the wagon from the outside like a vehicle, he visualized the story of
the place he lives inside. This is the first example in America of how domestic
life can be reproduced on a wheeled vehicle for travelers.
Figure 10 (left): Lasley’s “houses on wheels” drawing in
1897.
Figure 11 (right): Jonathan Olson’s “houses of wheels”
drawing in 1897. Woodmansey, A. (2022). Recreational
Vehicles: A World History 1872–1939.
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