[Vernacular Photograph Album Documenting a 1939 Steamer Trip from New York to South America and the Caribbean]

[Various places, including Curaçao, Panama, Venezuela, Colombia, 1939. Very good.. 110 original photographs, plus five commercial prints. Oblong octavo album, limp leatherette covers, string-tied at gutter. Light wear at edges of album and album leaves. Photos affixed directly to album leaves; manuscript captions throughout. A few fading or blurry shots, but mostly clear images. A well-kept vernacular travel album of well over 100 original photographs that document a 1939 cruise taken by a married couple from New York to Colombia. The Mennells left New York on June 9, 1939, aboard Grace Lines S.S. Santa Elena, and returned approximately three weeks later. Passengers lazed about the shipboard pool until they reached Curaçao, before travelling along the coast of Venezuela, and stopping at Baranquillo and Cartagena in Colombia. On their return voyage they stopped at the Atlantic coast of the Panama Canal and Jamaica. The album contains a series of interesting images from each locale, with street and landscape scenes, images of locals at work and at leisure, architecture, inland day trips, and more. It also documents onboard activities, including a rather raucous fancy dress party. An interesting and cohesive album of prewar steamer travel to the Caribbean and northern coast of South America.