Scrapbook of an African-American Family’s 1947 Road Trip from New York Through Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula
- Eleven double-sided scrapbook pages measuring 7 x 11 inches, containing forty-five 2 ½ x 3 ½ inch photographs, six postcards,
- United States and Canada , 1947
United States and Canada, 1947. Eleven double-sided scrapbook pages measuring 7 x 11 inches, containing forty-five 2 ½ x 3 ½ inch photographs, six postcards, four maps, four guides, and nine typed pages. Scrapbook pages fragile with significant marginal damage; scrapbook contents generally excellent.. A scrapbook documenting an African-American family’s road trip during July and August of 1947, which took them from Dutchess County, New York, through Quebec and New Brunswick, and then Maine and Cape Cod. The scrapbook contains photographs of the family and scenery on the trip, starting at Norrie State Park in Dutchess County, then Quebec, Gaspé, Moncton’s Magnetic Hill in New Brunswick, down the coast of Maine, and finally a friend’s house in Marstons Mills on Cape Cod. It also includes postcards from various locations; maps of New York, Quebec, Canada’s Maritimes and Eastern Quebec, and New England; tourist guides to Quebec, Gaspé, Moncton, and the Cape; several retyped articles from the Toronto Globe and Mail; and a list of hotels in the Gaspé.
For an African-American family traveling during the Jim Crow era, this trip would have taken significant planning. Canada was not exempt from anti-Black discrimination, at both legal and social levels; the car had solved the problem of segregated, inferior public transportation, but not the problem of finding a restaurant or hotel along one’s route that would actually serve Black patrons, or even a safe place to stop and use the restroom. Victor Hugo Green’s Negro Motorist Green Book—a guidebook for food, lodging, and services that were friendly to African-Americans—did not include Canada until its 1949 edition. The family likely used it for the US leg of their trip, but would have had to rely on other tactics for the Canadian leg.
For an African-American family traveling during the Jim Crow era, this trip would have taken significant planning. Canada was not exempt from anti-Black discrimination, at both legal and social levels; the car had solved the problem of segregated, inferior public transportation, but not the problem of finding a restaurant or hotel along one’s route that would actually serve Black patrons, or even a safe place to stop and use the restroom. Victor Hugo Green’s Negro Motorist Green Book—a guidebook for food, lodging, and services that were friendly to African-Americans—did not include Canada until its 1949 edition. The family likely used it for the US leg of their trip, but would have had to rely on other tactics for the Canadian leg.