Beware of Trailerites

Trailer Show at the headquarters of the Automobile Club of Southern California, c. 1936.  The many-portholed Good Ship Lollipop in the foreground is an Airfloat, the menacing trailer to the left is an Airstream.

In this Age of McMansions it's hard to believe that our government once feared trailerites---people who take to the travel trailer life---but that's exactly what happened in 1937.  Although trailers were not a new phenomenon, they suddenly burst forth onto our pop culture that year---featured in anything from radio shows to movies---from novels to social commentary.  Trailer manufacturing had grown exponentially since 1935, and suddenly it seemed everyone was considering selling everything and hitting the road---or for the first time owning their 'home' outright, albeit one clad in leatherette that had be waxed regularly.  Surveys were taken and it was concluded that there was a potential that half of the United States would be living in trailers by 1950.  The degradation of our social mores was duly trotted out, but the real concern was the bottom dropping out on the property tax base.

A much used trailer, possibly a small and once elegant Kauneel of Kauneel & Son, Bay City Michigan.

The likely ignition for the explosive interest in trailers was the passage of the Social Security Act in 1935.  Now empty-nesters of modest means had an income to augment the sale or renting out of their home---enough to winter in Florida or the desert Southwest and summer at some sylvan retreat.  Itinerant workers had long been trailerites, and that only increased as the economy recovered enough to offer sporadic good employment around the country.  By the end of the decade even some transitory farm workers had scraped together enough money for a used trailer, and the term 'trailer trash' was firmly  placed in the popular lexicon.

"Mr And Mrs H.F. Trumpbour live in a travel trailer." 1941

Despite the often heard sales pitch of a modern three room apartment on wheels! trailer life in the 1930s was generally short of one modern ideal: a bathroom.  Only the most luxurious trailers had bathing facilities, and if equipped with a toilet is was likely to be a chemical john---in need of being taken out as regularly as the garbage.  Communal showers and laundry tubs made the trailering life best suited for the relaxed and gregarious.  Heating and cooking was by oil, refrigeration was usually by ice or occasionally household current or kerosene.  'Bottled gas' (propane) didn't become a common trailer utility until after World War II.  The upside was a certain doll-house-like convenience, low heating costs and often beautifully paneled interiors---not to mention that all-important mobility.  New job prospects in far away places?  Hate your neighbors?  Move.

Trailer courts and motor courts often joined forces in the late 1930s

By the late 1930s, gracefully banked pavement coast to coast and four lane boulevards between some cities eased the tension new trailerites had over dragging their homes around with them.  Places to park for the night or the month were popping up everywhere---anything from resorts to kitsch to local eyesores.  A lag in popular interest was momentary, for once Europe fell into war and America was called on to supply the Allies, trailers became important housing for suddenly burgeoning industry.  The demand increased dramatically after Pearl Harbor when trailer manufacturing became a critical war industry as the government tried to ease a now-acute housing shortage that continued to plague America throughout the 1940s.  Trailers, for better or for worse, were now a permanent part of America's social and physical landscape.

Roar With Gilmore

Tuesday morning my husband and I found ourselves some forty-five miles from Yosemite Valley---why would we not take such a detour?  It was a beautiful winter's morn, warm and dry enough not to make icy roads a big issue.

It had been some twenty years since I drove this stretch of CA 41.  It's one of the few remaining 1930s highways that hasn't been 'improved', with deeply banked curves to cradle a car along its way.  At its other end, between Atascadero and Morro Bay, CA 41 has recently been upgraded---which means it was nominally widened and the curves flattened.  I haven't the faintest idea why the latter is an improvement, since anyone who drove it regularly before (I had) and since notices that a car now wants to lean more towards the shoulder on a curve than it used to.  The natural track of a car is forward, and a flatter surface is only going to encourage that---much to the danger of bicyclists that supposedly most of the improvements were made for.

Back at the other end of the highway, we climbed over several 5 to 6,000 foot passes on our way to Yosemite Valley.  The declines between each pass are fairly small until the last, so the overall effect is a considerable gain in elevation from the floor of the San Joaquin Valley.  It's by no means a toilsome drive---unless it's high summer and there are a million other cars coming and going---but it is a mild to moderate workout for any car.

 1937 Hudson on Highway 41 during the Gilmore-Yosemite Economy Run

Which reminded of the 1930s Gilmore-Yosemite Economy Runs from Gilmore Stadium in Los Angeles to Yosemite Valley.  Gilmore was a Southern California petroleum company, and like most oil companies of that era they associated themselves with aircraft and race cars---Gilmore so much so that they built a stadium where CBS Television City now stands and invented midget car racing.  Hence Roar With Gilmore.

Starlets Betty Grable and Lucille Ball in a midget

racer at Gilmore Stadium, c. 1935 

Once you've drained your audience of all their adrenaline, you might as well soothe them with the purr of a motor off on some vacation.  However the Gilmore-Yosemite Economy Run wasn't a May Day drive but a January adventure over roads then minimally maintained in winter---at least for the last 45 of its 306.5 miles.

Sedans of each model from each auto manufacturer were used. For example, in 1936 Studebaker entered their Dictator (a name that would be changed in 1938 for obvious reasons), Commander and President.  After each car was inspected to insure that it was strictly factory stock, the hood was sealed shut---a thought that surely sent a chill down the spine of many 1930s motorists.  Then each car was loaded with passengers and luggage---after each piece and person was weighed.  This was an economy test that was the antithesis of our modern EPA computerized testing.

1939 Packard.  

Earle C. Anthony was not only the biggest Packard dealer in Los Angeles, 

he also owned the powerhouse radio station KFI.

The passenger in the front seat of each car was from a competing manufacturer so to police the driver against actions like coasting, although it's unclear whether cars equipped with free wheeling were allowed to use the feature or not.  Free wheeling was an automatic vacuum clutch that essentially put the car into neutral any time the foot was off the gas, putting such an equipped car at a gas-saving advantage.

1939 Willys-Overlands lead the way out of Gilmore Stadium

Climbing the three lane Ridge Route Alternate (US 99)

The cars already faced two minor passes, the Caheunga and Newhall, before they reached Castaic on US 99 and the formidable Ridge Route Alternate.  Opened in October of 1933, it was a huge advancement in motoring to Bakersfield, but it offered its own perils---mainly long relatively straight gradients at up six percent.  Keeping pace while climbing Five Mile Canyon was probably the biggest challenge of the trip.  That pesky front passenger and check points along the way made sure any one car wasn't dropping behind to save a little gas.

The Ridge Route Alternate had already been widened from two to three lanes---the third being the infamous Suicide Lane down the middle, used to pass slow moving traffic in either direction.  Within a few years the Grapevine section would be widened again to four lanes with the mother of all concrete freeway barriers down the middle to keep runaway trucks and cars from plowing into oncoming traffic.

Down the three lane Grapevine and cruising towards Bakersfield on US 99

The long gentle downgrade from the Grapevine to Bakersfield undoubtedly recovered the miles per gallon lost in the previous hundred miles.  The drive was very economical up to Fresno, where all cars stopped to be refueled and calculated before heading into the Sierras on CA 41.

Above Oakhurst the cars again faced relatively steep grades, but the curves and weather conditions didn't allow for the top speed of 45 MPH.  Lost traction on slippery roads and variable speeds while climbing would do their best to rob the cars of their miles per gallon.

Entering Yosemite at Wawona Gate on Highway 41

Studebaker rolled into Yosemite Valley and out with the Gilmore-Yosemite trophy cups in the three major categories in 1936.  Their six cylinder Dictator averaged 24.24 MPG, the larger six cylinder Commander 23 MPG and the eight cylinder President 20.35 MPG.  These were good numbers for the era, but they weren't the highest miles per gallon rated in the run.  Gilmore chose to award by the old fashioned, railroad-centric ton mileage moved per gallon, giving larger fully loaded cars an advantage.  The small for its era four cylinder Willys had the highest mileage at 33.21 MPG, while both the six cylinder Graham and Chevrolet averaged over 25 MPG.  In the end, the public was more interested in the initial cost of a car and how much it cost to operate (miles per gallon), not how efficiently it moved its own weight plus a load.  Depending on how a car fared, a manufacturer could claim a win either by the trophy it received or the actual mileage it attained on the run.  Studebaker could finally do both in 1940 when their new lightweight six cylinder Champion with overdrive attained 29.19 MPG while their Commander and President once again won trophies.

Gilmore was bought out in the summer of 1940 by Socony-Vacuum (Mobil Oil) and the event was revamped into the Mobilgas Economy Run, a much more ambitious three day event from Los Angeles to the Grand Canyon via Death Valley, Las Vegas and Boulder Dam.  By the late 1950s the route was stretched all the way to Kansas City, and the event was rife with corporate politics and shenanigans.  Professional drivers had taken over years before and the back seat passengers and their luggage were left on the side of the road.  The heavily larded Big Three (GM-Ford-Chrysler) were so embarrassed by Studebaker and Nash-Rambler's vastly superior mileage that they successfully lobbied to put those cars into their own condescending class.  The proliferation of imported cars in the 1960s further eroded American automakers confidence in the event as good publicity and so the concept  was abandoned after the 1968 Economy Run.

Studebaker Wins The 1952 Mobilgas Economy Run

Channelized for Your Viewing Pleasure

After I made the posting of 'Stationized' radio dials last week, this Hoffman television came up on eBay.  Hoffman was a postwar California radio and television manufacturer. 

Having never seen this model before, I studied it and the description---not noticing any particularly interesting about it until I saw a word in the accompanying ad copy: "Channelized".

Looking closer at the channel selector, I then noticed it had but two numbers out of 12, and those two numbers were accompanied by call letters.

I've never heard of let alone seen this before, but it's not all that surprising since Hoffman was derived from the prewar Mission Bell radio company, and they did at times 'Stationize' their dials.  I have one from circa 1938.

Both Channelized stations are in San Francisco. This television was located in Pleasanton, CA---an interior East Bay city---so it never went far in its lifetime. That there are only two stations instead of three tells us that this set was actually sold in the fall of 1949 because Channel 4 KRON-TV is not represented.  It didn't start broadcasting until Novemeber 15, 1949.  KGO-TV started broadcasting on May 5th, 1949, while KPIX was the first commercial television station in the Bay Area, having started broadcasts on December 22, 1948.

I'm curious about this dial plate.  Was it meant to be embossed with new channels as they came on?  Did the factory supply the local dealer with pre-embossed rings or did the factory supply some sort of stamping machine so they could to it themselves?  That this one was never stamped with KRON suggests they were stamped at the factory---or this set never went back to the dealer for servicing. 

Hoffman's main gimmick was their EasyVision screen filter---which offered a jaundiced view of the world.  Rather unpleasant color aside, it did increase the contrast of the image in an era where television was more in shades of gray than black and white.

Don't Touch That Dial---I'm Perfectly Well Adjusted!

Today I give a shout out to the lovely and talented Ms. Tattered and Lost---the woman who launched me as yet another Babe in Blogland.  On the 15th of January her blog Tattered and Lost EPHEMERA featured a vintage magazine ad with Shirley Temple extolling the virtues of a 1936 Grunow Teledial console radio.  The idea, of course, was that the Teledial was so easy to use even a child could tune a station in perfectly---the unintended irony being that Miss Temple was perhaps the most precocious child of her era.

This posting led to an email conversation between Ms. Tattered and Lost and myself about my collection of vintage California radios with the station call letters printed directly on the dial.  I sent her some dial images and gave her some historical evolution of the stations listed, as well as the passing phenomenon of the 'Stationized' dial.  She was strangely fascinated and asked if she could use my ramble as a post---and so, after some tweaking, the rest is---uh, history:


When Herb Bell’s mother complained that she couldn’t read the typically tiny dials found on early 1930s radios, he set out to do something about it. After all, he could---being co-founder of California’s own Packard Bell radios. He picked up on the latest 1935 trend of the full view round ‘airplane’ type dial but enlarged the size so he could print the station call letters above the frequency numbers. Their trademarked ‘Stationized’ dials were soon mimicked by many other California radio manufacturers.

The first image is from a late 1936 Packard Bell.  You'll see some of the stations are in a larger font than the others, which indicates higher powered stations like KFI Los Angeles.  KPO San Francisco would become KNBR (NBc Radio) in the 1950s.  At 1560kc, W6AXI Bakersfield was above the commercial broadcast band at the time (550-1550kc) and therefore was stuck with an amateur’s call letters despite having a wide and eager audience for their high fidelity signal. Back in 1933, W6AXI was the audio source for the first regularly scheduled mechanical television broadcasts on the West Coast. A high school student sat before a broiling bank of lights and read the news from the evening paper.

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  The second image is of a 1936 Tiffany Tone dial, which incorporates a few stations from farther east, such as WFAA Dallas and Crosley Radio’s 500,000 watt superstation WLW Cincinnati. The lower short wave portion of the dial shows the principal cities and countries where short wave broadcasts originated.

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The third image is of a 1937 Gilfillan 'Radio Log Dial'. This dial omits W6AXI, perhaps because of its experimental status.  The dial does favor KGU Honolulu, however—so it’s likely Gilfillan had a distributor in Hawaii. Water greatly increases the range of AM broadcasts, so Hawaiians could take advantage of dials marked with KFI, KNX and KPO. I've also discovered that Gilfillan actually had different call letter dials for different markets on their little late 1930s Plastikon radios—such as one for the Salt Lake region, one for Seattle, etc.  It's interesting they'd made the effort---and they must have advertised the fact, as it would be a good gimmick for a cheap plastic radio.

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The fourth image is of a circa 1938 Tiffany Tone dial, showing the call letter change from experimental W6AXI to commercial KPMC (Pioneer Mercantile Company) when the broadcast band was increased up to 1600kc.



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The fifth image is of a circa 1940 Remler. While most California radio manufacturers were based in Los Angeles, Remler was based in San Francisco, so it isn’t surprising their station list is mostly concerned with the Bay Area. Note the position of KQW San Jose on the dial.

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Lastly, a Paramount dial, circa 1946.  I believe this a rebranding of Remler, as once again the station list favors Northern California.  KQW San Jose has been moved down to 740kc—its first step in becoming a high powered station, completed with its rebranding as KCBS about ten years later.

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When civilian electronics production resumed after World War II, the majority of California radio manufacturers continued profiting from their military contracts due to the nascent Cold War. Within five years most ceased their consumer operations, unable or unwilling to compete on a nationwide scale. Only Packard Bell stuck with their trademark ‘Stationized’ dials into the early 1950s before vying for a share of the national market.