Road Show: Travel Papers in American Literature (Introduction Part 2)PDF
This exhibition celebrates the American love of travel and adventure in both literary works and the real-life journeys that have inspired our most beloved travel narratives. Exploring American literary archives as well as printed and published works, Road Show reveals how travel is recorded, marked, and documented in Beinecke Library’s American collections. Passports and visas, postcards and letters, travel guides and language lessons—these and other archival documents attest to the physical, emotional, and intellectual experiences of moving through unfamiliar places, encountering new landscapes and people, and exploring different ways of life and world views. Literary manuscripts, travelers’ notebooks, and recorded reminiscences allow us to consider and explore travel’s capacity for activating the imagination and igniting creativity. Artworks, photographs, and published books provide opportunities to consider the many ways artists and writers transform their own activities and human interactions on the road into works of art that both document and generate an aesthetic experience of journeying.
Citations
Eugene O’Neill, Wolf Lake, Adirondacks, 1933, Eugene O’Neill Papers
Jean Toomer, Passport, 1926, Jean Toomer Papers
James Weldon Johnson, French lessons prepared for Grace Nail Johnson, undated, James Weldon & Grace Nail Johnson Papers
Laura Davidson, Wanderlust, Boston: 2016
Ludwig Bemelmans, letter to Pascal Covici, [August 1961], Ludwig Bemelmans Letters Collection
Richard Wright, List of Paris bars and restaurants, with explanatory notes, undated; Reader’s card, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, 1953-54, Richard Wright Papers
Karl Baedeker, Greece; Handbook for Travelers, Leipzig: K. Baedeker, 1909, H.D.’s copy with the poet’s annotations, H. D. Papers
H.D., Travel Photo Album, undated, H. D. Papers
Little Journeys in Colorado, issued by Passenger Traffic Department, Rock Island Lines, [Colorado: Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway Company, 1924]
Lynn Morley Bell, Scrapbook of a trip around the world, 1934 May-November
Gerald and Sara Murphy with Ada and Archibald MacLeish, Vienna, Austria, 1927, Gerald and Sara Murphy Papers
Alldrerige Studio, cabinet card photograph of boy on bicycle, Wallingford, CT, [1895], Randolph Linsley Simpson African American Collection
How to Do It on a Bicycle, compliments of North Pacific Cycle Co., Portland and Tacoma,
[Portland, Oregon?, between 1892 and 1900?]
John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America, New York: Viking Press, [1962]
Langston Hughes, The Big Sea: An Autobiography, New York: A. A. Knopf, 1940
John Muir, A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1916
Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, New York: Random House, 2015
Objects
Eugene O’Neill in Carlotta’s diary
YCAL MSS 123 Box 84 folder 1501
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Jean Toomer Passport
JWJ MSS 1Box 65 Folder 1490
DL: https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/2065818
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JWJ French lessons for GNJ
JWJ MSS 49 Box 92 folder 758
DL: https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/16862303
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Laura Davidson, Wanderlust
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Ludwig Bemelmans letter
Gen MSS 686 Box 1 folder 4
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Richard Wright List of Paris Bars with explanatory note
JWJ 3.117.1875
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Baedeker–Greece handbook for travelers
Za D721 Zz909K
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H. D. Album
YCAL MSS 24 Box53 Folder 1349
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Little Journeys in California
Zm L72135
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Little Journeys in Colorado
Zc49 924Li
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Lynn Morley Bell Album
YCAL MSS 712
DL: https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/16862772
***
Murphys and MacLeishes in Vienna
YCAL MSS 468 box29 folder 561
DL: https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/10604143
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Richard Wright Bibliotheque Nationale Card
JWJ MSS 3 box 117 folder 1864
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Richard Wright Notes on Paris Bars
JWJ MSS 3 box 117 folder1875
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Photo of boy on Bicycle—large cabinet card
JWJ MSS 54 Box 9 folder241
DL: https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/2002293
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How to Do It on a Bicycle
Zc74 892ho
***
Steinbeck, Travels with Charley
Za St345 962T
***
Langston Hughes, The Big Sea
JWJ Zan H874 940b
***
John Muir, A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf
Za M896 916t
***
Gloria Steinnem, My Life on the Road
Za St3498 2015M
