Were they Escapees?

[Alie&Jim's Carrilite]

Pretty nice old newsreel floating that's around on a couple of different forums.

http://www.rvvideos.com/2007/02/rving-in-1937-as-seen-on-movie-theater.html

Just wondering if any of the old-timers here remember those days!

[sandsys]

My late father-in-law once told me about his sister taking him to visit his brother working in a CCC camp near Blackduck, MN. They stayed at an auto camp en route. I wish now I had asked for details about that camp but I was so enjoying his stories that I didn't want to interrupt his flow.

 

Linda Sand

[Kirk W]

Since that story is from 1937 I doubt that there are many here who would remember then, although there could be one or two who had been born then. I do remember some travel trailers that looked close to that, but by the 1950's that type of travel had fallen off a little.

 

I notice that story says that there may be a million people in them, which might have been true late in the depression years as 37 was the start of the economic boom of the WWII years. The number in RVs seemed to fall off in the war years, probably related to the rise in home ownership. From what I remember seeing there was a rise in popularity in the late 50's with a major boom in the 70's & 80's but most of those were vacation folks. My guess is that the past 20 or so years has brought a pretty steady rise in RVs as full-time homes. Over the years I have seen many discussions of how many people reside in RVs and hear lots of numbers. The census bureau has never shown anywhere near that many, but I wonder if they really know?