Reviews for By Motor to the Golden Gate

The average rating for By Motor to the Golden Gate based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-08-24 00:00:00 Paul Dold It's a huge surprise to me that seven years before writing her classic etiquette books, Emily Post wrote a travelogue about a journey from New York City to San Francisco. This was no high society hop from mansion to 5-star hotel to country club, as was her life at home. This was road trip across America in 1915, a time when paved roads were only common in cities and on the coasts. She traveled with a female friend and her son who drove his car. The large, heavy, open European car is purposely not identified, but it appears in several photos. Many references are made to it during the journey, and we learn that the tires are solid and there's not a lot of clearance under the chassis. And parts for the car are of course difficult to come by in many locations. What was originally written as a travel journal designed to help others following in their footsteps, with advice on roads, sights, lodging, and dining, is now a historical documentation of the US 100 years ago. It's the portrait a more innocent time when crosscountry motoring was considerably rougher and less popular than it is today. Still, the travelers face the same challenges as moderns: how to find clean accommodations, where to eat and stock up on supplies, how to find their way between destinations, how to fix the car when it breaks down. However, they must address these challenges without cell phones, global positioning systems, AAA maps, and in some cases what we would call a road. Imagine needing to pack a shovel to pile rocks and dirt under the tires so the center of the car wouldn't hang up on the road, or fording streams with quicksand banks! We see many of the same characters that we'd see today when we travel: stuffy "townies" who think that their town is better than any other in the world, car mechanics who take pride in their work, newlyweds at Niagra Falls, non-travelers offering unsolicited travel advice. The cities and towns have changed to various degrees and it's fascinating to read about them. Colorado Springs, for example, was a gateway to the West, but at the same time was largely filled with tuberculosis patients in various states of treatment. About Santa Fe Ms. Post waxes poetic, looking back at its past, then forward in amazement to its future as a thriving metropolis. Taos is largely a Native American trading post, and Ms. Post describes it beautifully. She relates stories of Native culture in a very open-minded manner for her time and upbringing. Unfortunately she receives a less liberal education regarding Chinese culture in San Francisco. The descriptions of California will delight modern residents and visitors alike. Imagine needing a guide to pronounce Los Angeles, because most Easterners hadn't heard the words enough to get it right! The Mission Inn in Riverside hasn't changed much, and was one of their most expensive accommodations (3 rooms, baths, and food for $18.00). The 1915 Expositions in San Diego and San Francisco boggle the mind with their opulence, considering how little was preserved after the Expos. And Ms. Post, the quintessential New Yorker, does fall in love with San Francisco, describing it and Californians most charmingly. The final chapters provide additional advice for the 1915 traveler. One chapter is written by son and driver E.M. Post "To the Man who Drives," about vehicle choice, driving techniques, spare parts, and car maintenance. Ms. Post provides us with an account of all expenditures for planning purposes. She also writes an interesting chapter on appropriate clothing, based upon her successes and failures. Did you know that wearing an orange veil can prevent sunburn while holding your hat in place? (A most intriguing idea to try next time you're in an open vehicle in the desert all day without sunscreen!) Finally, there's a section of hand drawn maps for each portion of the journey, carefully marked with points of interest, mileage, and travel advice. This is the most engaging book I've read in a long time, and it is especially fun to read aloud while traveling. Travel and history buffs will enjoy it. Try to get the original 1916 edition.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-06-10 00:00:00 Ruth Locke While Baltimore-born Emily Post is known best for her encomiums on manners, she was also a tremendously gifted (and overlooked) Gilded Age author of both fiction and non-fiction, _By Motor to the Golden Gate_ being one of the best among the latter. It is a charming, insightful, and elegant work that is part memoir, part reportage, and part public history, about her intracontinental trek from New York to San Francisco by car in 1915. Its greatest value, in my opinion, is the snapshot it provides of America in the years immediately before it entered World War I, of only the sort that an especially trenchant and informed observer can provide. Post has a telling eye for detail and an infectious sense of humor that makes the work enjoyable and informative over an extended sitting or dipping into for a chapter or two. It is a must-read for historians of America during the period, for anyone interested in the Gilded Age on this side of the Atlantic, or for anyone who just appreciates wit and erudition. My reason for not giving the book 5 stars rests entirely upon the editing of this, the only available edition (McFarland & Co., 2004). The editor has done Post no favors in providing introductory material that is disorganized, footnotes that burden the text and are of questionable value, and, for all that, leave the text itself rife with proofing mistakes that should have been caught before the first note was written. Instead, the editor appears to be more in inserting her own problematic sense of what readers should know about Post and her adventure. By all means, read the book, but do yourself a favor by doing what eventually did and skip the ponderous editorial apparatus in favor of reading only Post's words. Doing so will lessen your time with the splendid Ms. Post, which is too bad, but, as she might say, at least that time will be cherce.