Road Show: Travel Papers in American Literature (Introduction Part 1) 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.
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Citations
Luggage tag, 1934, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas Papers
Shipboard photograph of Margaret Anderson, Louise Davidson, Madame Georgette LeBlanc, undated, Elizabeth Jenks Clark Collection of Margaret Anderson
Langston Hughes, Mexico, undated, Langston Hughes Papers
Langston Hughes, Some Travels of Langston Hughes world map, 1924-60, Langston Hughes Papers
Ezra Pound, Letter to Viola Baxter Jordan with map, 1949, Viola Baxter Jordan Papers
Kathryn Hulme, How’s the Road? San Francisco: Privately Printed [Jonck & Seeger], 1928
Baedeker Handbooks for Greece, Belgium and Holland, Paris, Berlin, Great Britain, various dates
Erica Van Horn, Rain [Clonmel, Tipperary, Ireland]: Coracle, 2009
H. Sargent Michaels, Photographic Automobile Map: A Carefully Compiled Series of Photographs of All Turns and Landmarks from Chicago to Milwaukee, Chicago: H. Sargent Michaels Company, c1905
Claude McKay traveling in Russia with Russian writers, 1920s, Claude McKay Papers
Jack Kerouac, “The Depression,” undated
Jack Kerouac, On the Road, New York: Viking Press, 1957
Terry Tempest Williams, travel planning calendar, undated, Terry Tempest Williams Papers
Lily Brooks-Dalton, Motorcycles I’ve Loved, New York: Riverhead, 2015
Nathan Asch, The Road: in Search of America, New York: Norton, [1937]
Erskine Caldwell, Around about America, drawings by Virginia M. Caldwell, New York: Farrar, Straus and Company, [1964]
Thomas D. Murphy, On Sunset Highways: A Book of Motor Rambles in California, Boston: L.C. Page & Company, c1921
Objects
Objects
Stein Luggage tag
YCAL MSS 76 box 140 folder 3300: https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/11/archival_objects/724001
DL: https://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/4742401
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Anderson shipboard photo
YCAL MSS 265 box19 folder 340
DL: https://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3530116
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Hughes Rowing photo
JWJ MSS 26 box 458 folder 11093
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Some travels of Langston Hughes Map
Langston Hughes map of travels
JWJ MSS 26 box 514 folder12785
DL https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/2018719
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Ezra Pound Hand Drawn Map
Letter to Viola Baxter Jordan
YCAL MSS 175 Box 3 Folder 87
DL: https://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3545500
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5 Baedekers – NOT collection material
left to right – Belgium, Paris, Berlin, Great Britain, Greece
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Kathryn Hulme, How’s the Road
Za H876 928H
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Car photo guide Chicago to Milwaukee
NLk32 P56
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Van Horn Book Mark – windshield wipers
Zab V3115 +989L II
DL: https://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3556859
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Kerouac, On the road mss page
YCAL MSS MISC Grp 1027 Item F-1
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On the road
Zab K459 957P
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Claude McKay photo
JWJ MSS 27 Box 18 folder 553
DL: https://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/4738941
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Terry Tempest Williams Calendar
WA MSS S-2700 Box 221
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Lily Brooks-Dalton, Motorcycles I have loved
Zac B7914 M86 2015
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Nathan Asch, The Road
Za As23 937R
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Erskine Caldwell, Around about America
Za C127 964A
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Thomas D. Murphy, On Sunset Highways
Zc72 915mub
