Of Car Camping & National Parks...

The Road - Car Camping 2015

Since I'm gearing up for my second solo cross-country driving vacation, I've been exploring potential solutions to problems I encountered last year. Two other people I know are also in the process of turning their cars into campers. This seems to be the season for car camping inspirations and I thought I'd write a little about the history of car camping. It doesn't hurt that a fellow Enthusiast recently posed the question about the history of car camping, looking specifically for resources to read. I almost pulled a Hermione and dumped probably way more information than she wanted on Facebook. Since I couldn't quote the actual sources, I'm taking the time to dig through the archives of my brain and write a cohesive history.

Car camping started when the first mass produced automobiles rolled off the assembly line and with the establishment of the first national parks. Writings and photographic evidence often showcase the Ford Model T and other later cars as the first automobiles used for camping. Ford himself uses his cars to plan road trips all along the Eastern Seaboard and through the Florida Everglades between 1914 and 1924. However, he didn't actually camp in the car. Ford along with an entourage that included Thomas Edison, John Burroughs, Harvey Firestone and assistants setup in monogrammed canvas tents ("Ford and Edison's Excellent Camping Adventures" by History News).

Robert Sterling Yard in
Yosemite National Park,
circa 1920

They were other vacationers during this time that camped from their cars, especially in the early formation of national parks. The most authentic introductory reading to understanding the interconnection of cars, camping and national parks is to read the works of Robert Sterling Yard, an American writer, journalist and activist who helped develop the National Park Service a hundred years ago. In 1919, Yard wrote,

"The same reading which will prepare you to enjoy to the full the message of our national parks will invest your neighborhood hills at home, your creek and river and prairie, your vacation valleys, the landscapes through your car window, even your wayside ditch, with living interest" (The Book of the National Parks, 8). 

Time and time again, Yard emphasizes the exploration and views of our national parks from the standard "car-window." Yard even discusses the development of different types of camps, from those "hotel-camps" of canvas tents and swimming pools to "those who prefer the quite retirement and the tradition of old fashioned camp life" (1919, 51-52). Earlier in a 1917 publication of Top of the Continent, Yard describes several occasions in which people camped in the national parks with their cars:

"One evening Uncle Billy took Mrs Jefferson and Aunt Jame to a dance at the hotel while Uncle Tom stayed in camp with the children. They found the pleasantest of neighbors among the campers, many of whom brought their cars with them and camped all summer, returning year after year" (Yard 1917, 168-169).

If you haven't read Robert Yard's writings before, I highly recommend them and most can be read for free on Google Books or located at your local library. Though I am often amazed at the imagery Yard's writing conjures, sometimes there nothing that speaks as well as a photograph.

Photograph Source from www.shorpy.com

The photograph on the left is a circa 1920 Harris&Ewing glass negative picture taken in the Washington, D.C. area. The caption for the photograph reads, "Dr. A.A. Foster and family of Dallas, Texas, in auto tourist camp." A great site for other original photographs is the Rocky Mountains National Park's Vintage Camping website. There are also plenty of Pinterest boards devoted to the vintage camping theme.

1916 Patent 1,196,309

For more information about the early history of automobile camping, Stephen Mark wrote a quick article with some great pictures called Save the Auto Camps! However, if you are looking for something more source documented, I suggest David Leroy Harmon's retrospective paper from Iowa State University, American Camp Culture: A History of Recreational Vehicle Development and Leisure Camping in the United States, 1890-1960 (2001). Page 256 begins Harmon's works cited page where you will find many excellent sources to read.

Photograph Source PBS.org

For a good video that references car camping briefly in the larger scheme of national parks, check out Ken Burn's National Parks: America's Best Idea series. (You can stream it from Netflix.)

Below I've listed some of the readings I suggest for more information about car camping and national parks. My personal interests lies in pre-WWII history so I admittedly have better recommendations there. The post-WWII readings are VW van driven because that's what I grew up in. There are more sources out there of course, so don't forget to visit your local library or Amazon recommendations.

Suggested Readings for Early Automobile Camping:

• Motoring West: Automobile Pioneers, 1900-1909 by Peter J. Biodgett (ed.), 2016
• Trails Begin where Rails End: Early-Day Motoring Adventures in the West and Southwest by Albert D. Manchester, 1987
• Americans on the Road: from Autocamp to Motel, 1910-1945 by Dr. Warren James Belasco, 1997
• See America First: Tourism and National Identity, 1880-1940 by Marguerite Shaffer, 2013

Suggested Readings for Post-WWII Automobile Camping

• Big Book of Camper Van by Steve Lumley, 2015 
• VW Camper Van: A Biography by Mike Harding, 2013
• Campervan Crazy: Travels with My Bus, a Tribute to the VW Camper and the People Who Drive Them by David Eccles, 2006

Complete List of Robert Sterling Yard's Works:

• The Publisher (1913)
• Glimpses of Our National Parks (1916)
• The Top of the Continent (1917)
• The Book of the National Parks (1919)
• The National Parks Portfolio (1921)
• Our Federal Lands: A Romance of American Development (1928)