1907 Rand McNally Photo Auto Maps and Guide Book New York to Albany / Facsimile

This black-and-white facsimile reproduces Photo-Auto Maps: New York to Albany and Saratoga Springs, Saratoga Springs to Albany and New York, compiled by Gardner S. Chapin and Arthur H. Schumacher, copyrighted in 1907 by G.S. Chapin of Chicago and published by the Motor Car Supply Co. and the Automobile Supply Co. of Chicago. The Photo-Auto guides are among the most ingenious and visually distinctive American road books of the early automobile era — predecessors to modern turn-by-turn navigation by nearly a century. Published at a moment when paved interstate highways did not yet exist, road signs were rare, and most travelers between major cities still relied on the railroad, the guides were designed to give the pioneering motorist everything needed to find the way: an actual photograph of every turn along the route, paired with a topographical outline of the road showing railroad crossings, bridges, schoolhouses, and other landmarks, with accurate distances between each waypoint. Summary of Contents The guide documents the route between New York City and Saratoga Springs in both directions, with the return journey treated as a separate sequence rather than simply reversed — an essential feature, since intersections look entirely different when approached from the opposite direction. Each turn or decision point is illustrated with a photograph showing the road as the driver would actually see it, with arrows or annotations indicating which way to go, accompanied by descriptive notes and cumulative mileage. Together with the topographical outline, the photographs guide the motorist through the Hudson River Valley corridor — past river towns, farms, and the early estates of the Hudson Highlands, up through Albany, and on to the Saratoga Springs resort district that drew wealthy New Yorkers north each summer for the racing season and the mineral baths. An essential reference for historians of early American motoring and tourism, collectors of antiquarian road guides and automobile ephemera, researchers of pre—World War I Hudson Valley landscapes, and anyone interested in how the first generation of American drivers learned to navigate a country whose roads had been built for horses, not cars. 6" x 9". Black and white. Paperback Satisfaction guaranteed or you can send it back. …