[Vernacular Snapshot Album of an Automobile Trip Through the American Southwest]

[Various locations in Texas Or Oklahoma, Arizona, and Nevada, 1940. Near fine.. [25] leaves, illustrated with eighty-eight black-and-white photographs in corner mounts, about 3 x 4 inches or slightly larger. Contemporary brown cloth photograph album, title stamped in silver on front cover, reading, "Snaps." Minor wear at spine ends and corners. Two empty mounts, but internally very clean. An evocative mid-century vernacular photograph album comprised of clear, artfully-composed, and well-developed photographs documenting a road trip which appears to begin in Texas or Oklahoma and head west to Nevada, at least in part along U.S. Route 66. The first shot in the album is a single oil derrick. Thereafter, the images capture the sparseness of the western landscape through numerous images of the Grand Canyon and other vistas, along with early shots of the Hoover Dam, various motels and missions, a single shot of downtown Reno, and ending with several pictures of the travelers on a ski or mountain lift, likely around Lake Tahoe. A well-produced and captivating album of travel memorializing the roadside along the most famous stretch of road in the United States, and emblematic of the mid-century American propensity for exploring the American West.