See America First: Travel Histories in the United States

Originally coined around 1906 the phrase "See America First" was meant to inspire Americans to travel the nation before boating and later jetting off to Europe. Seeing America first became a slogan for some rail lines that intentionally located stops outside of the emerging National Parks at the end of the 19th century. Moving into the 20th century with the advent of the car, the classic American road trip was born; though not all Americans are able to fully enjoy this new form of recreation as the realities of a segregated nation. This list collects titles that highlight some of that evolution in American recreational life and other tales from the American road. Also included are links to historic national parks brochures and New York Public Library's digitzed collection of Green Books

Updated June 4, 2025
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Fond du Lac Public Library
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Railroaded : the transcontinentals and the making of modern America
White, Richard
Paper Book
A new, incisive history of the transcontinental railroads and how theytransformed America in the decades after the Civil War. The transcontinental railroads of the late nineteenth century were the first corporate behemoths. Their attempts to generate profits from proliferating...
Traveling Black : a story of race and resistance
Bay, Mia
Ebook
The national parks : America's best idea : an illustrated history
Duncan, Dayton.
Paper Book
The companion volume to the twelve-hour PBS series from the acclaimed filmmaker behind The Civil War, Baseball, and The War. America's national parks spring from an idea as radical as the Declaration of Independence: that the nation's most magnificent and sacred...
The national parks America's best idea
Duncan, Dayton.
DVD
On the road, by Jack Kerouac
Evans, Robert C.
Ebook
Jack Kerouac's On the Road is one of the most famous works produced by a so-called ""beat"" writer-one of a group of nonconformists who shocked many of their contemporaries not only because of the works they produced but also because of the lives they lived. Initially attacked for its...
The journal, 1837-1861
Thoreau, Henry David
Paper Book
Henry David Thoreau's Journal was his life's work: the daily practice of writing that accompanied his daily walks, the workshop where he developed his books and essays, and a project in its own right--one of the most intensive explorations ever made of the everyday environment, the revolving...
Dust tracks on a road : an autobiography
Hurston, Zora Neale.
Paper Book
"I have been in Sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows with a harp and a sword in my hands." First published in 1942 at the crest of her popularity, this is Zora Neale Hurston's unrestrained account of her rise from childhood poverty...
https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/collections/9ea5d5b0-1117-0132-7932-58d385a7b928

New York Public Library\'s collection of the Motorists Greenbook. The Green Book was a travel guide that aimed to provide African Americans information about reliable businesses around the country between 1936 and 1967.

NYPL\'s Digital Collections is a living database featuring prints, photographs, maps, manuscripts, video, and more unique research materials.

https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/brochures/index.htm

A digital collection of brochures from the National Parks Service with travel information going back to 1912 for the National Parks in the United States. Collection not fully online. More complete digital coverage for guides dating to the 1920s and 1940s.


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