



~ Saul Zalesch


World Tours 1931

Catalog, gallery


Why It's Interesting

This 1931 catalog from Armstrong Educational Tours, Baylor University, Waco, TX, offered fabulous–and incredibly long–tours to Europe, the Middle East, and Northern Africa.  Most of the tours lasted more than 60 days; some more than 90.  The idea of Americans going away for the entire summer seems odd now but was, of course, normal for the affluent before air conditioning became common.  The tours for adults ranged in price from $1475 for the “unusual tour” to $550 deluxe [or $445 first class] for a 28-day post-Rotary Convention tour around Europe.  Seven student tours cost between $495 [40 days] and $860 [54 days; and a European extension could be added for another $255].

This catalog is one of a number of items I have acquired to make the point that not everyone in America was poor during the Great Depression.  Historians already know this down deep, of course, but studies continue to focus primarily upon the horrendous suffering endured by a large [but unknown] percentage of Americans [including my grandparents and parents].  This focus parallels the way that early studies of Realism looked almost exclusively at paintings of the poor and the marginal, ignoring artists like Tissot, Bacon, and Stewart.