| Book Review | Indiana Magazine of History, 100.4

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to Indiana Magazine of History online. About 246 words from this article are provided below; about 516 words remain.

If you are a individual subscriber to Indiana Magazine of History, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a subscriber to Indiana Magazine of History, you can:: • subscribe here.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of Indiana Magazine of History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | Indiana Magazine of History, 100.4 | The History Cooperative

Reviews

The Record-Setting Trips By Auto from Coast to Coast, 1909–1916

By Curt McConnell

(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003. Pp. ix, 326. Illustrations, tables, appendix, notes, index. $60.00.)


In this work, automobile historian Curt McConnell explores what he calls the "the automobile's age of acceptance" by tracing a series of eight pioneering coast-to-coast journeys that took place between 1908 and World War I (p. 3).	1
Each of the trips chronicled had a specific purpose. The thirty-one-day journey undertaken in 1908 by seasoned racing driver Frank X. Zerbis, Private Malcolm E. Parrott, and Lieutenant B. B. Rosenthal had the ostensible goal of carrying a military dispatch from New York to San Francisco to demonstrate the potential strategic importance of the automobile to the army. A 1910 trip between the same two cities in an REO automobile was undertaken both to set a transcontinental speed record (ten days) and to boost REO's sales. The objective of a 1911 caravan of autoists "whose combined net worth was estimated at 100 million" (p. 70) was to be the first group of amateur drivers to motor literally from ocean to ocean. They began by edging their fleet of Premier autos into the waves at Atlantic City, then reversed course across the continent while making many publicity stops along the way—including one in Premier's home city of Indianapolis—before finally splashing their vehicles into the Pacific at Venice, California, in front of hundreds of spectators some forty-five days later.	. . .

There are about 516 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.