The A.L.A. Automobile Green Book Official Touring Guide is an early version of what we now know as AAA tour guides, with maps, travel information, and directions. These were published from c. 1920 through the 1940s and apparently into the 1950s.
This 1924 Volume 2 had 924 pages in small type with turn-by-turn directions for trips between major towns across the Mid-Atlantic, plus Central Canada and Florida, and trunk lines to New England and the West.
This 46-page extract from the 1924 edition, provided courtesy of Roger Labaw, includes general information, representative advertisements, sample pages from each section, and listings for travel from Trenton, N.J.
The book also included summaries of state automotive laws. For example, the general speed limit for New Jersey was a maximum of 12 miles per hour in built up sections, and 30 miles per hour in open country – but reducing to 8 miles per hour on sharp curves and 15 miles per hour at intersecting roads.
== View the 1924 A.L.A. Automotive Green Book extract (PDF) ==
Touring Guide
In an age before highway name and numbered interstates, the directions in the Green Book were town to town, including “at garage: turn right,” or “take the curve between church and cemetery,” or, in Hightstown, “Pass fountain watering trough (at right) in reverse fork and bear left on Main St.”
Our area of New Jersey was represented by Trenton, which had detailed route directions to ten different destinations (and separate directions for each return trip):
- Asbury Park (43 miles, 2 routes – One-third macadam, balance gravel)
- Atlantic City (75 miles, via Bordentown and Mt. Holly)
- Long Branch (45 miles, via Freehold)
- Lakewood (37 miles, via Bordentown and New Egypt)
- Philadelphia, Pa. (34 miles, via ferry in Camden),
- Easton, Pa. (55 miles, via Flemington and bridge at Milford, toll 15 to 25 cents)
- Delaware Water Gap, Pa. (74 miles, All macadam, bitulithic and concrete, bridge toll 25 cents)
- Morristown (54 miles, via Pennington and Flemington)
- New Brunswick (32 miles, via Mercerville and Hightstown)
- New York City (54 miles, via New Brunswick and ferry from Perth Amboy to Staten Island)
For example, the directions north from Trenton started by passing through Hopewell Township:
- 0.0 TRENTON. Warren and State Sts. Go north on Warren St. (A left turn if coming from Philadelphia.)
- 0.3 Cross railroad and bridge.
- 0.4 Washington monument on right. Turn left with trolley, on Pennington Ave.
- 0.5 Cross railroad.
- 1.0 Cross railroad.
- 1.5 Straight ahead, passing on right of Odd Fellows’ Home.
- 2.8 Brookfield. Straight ahead.
- 4.2 Ewingville. Straight ahead.
- 7.0 Pennington. Main St. and Delaware Ave. Straight ahead.
- 8.5 Turn left across viaduct over railroads and soon bear right.
- 9.9 Go under railroad.
- 10.4 Marshall Corner straight ahead.
- 12.6 Woodsville. Straight ahead.
- 13.6 New Market. Straight ahead.
- 15.2 Rocktown. Bad curves.
- 16.8 Ringoes. Fork; bear right.
- 17.9 Larison Corner. Turn left across bridge.
- 20.3 Copper Hill. Bad curves
- 22.6 Cross railroad .
- 22.9 Flemington. Main St. and Bloomfield Ave. Straight ahead.
- 23.0 Bear to right at monument on Branch St.
- 24.5 Turn left.
- 24.8 Cross railroad.
- 25.4 Turn right across viaduct over railroads.
- 22.5 Flemington Junction. Cross tow bridges and turn left.
Travelling
For a sense of the travel experience of the time, the 1924 Green Book had two advertisements for trips to Florida.
The Clyde Line offered to take your car by ship to Charlestown, S.C. or Jacksonville, Fla. with the promise that “good roads lead from these centers to all points throughout the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida.”
And the Automotive Green Book offered a “personally conducted” tour for you to drive your car from as far north as Boston (depart Dec. 3) down to Jacksonville (arrive Dec. 16) and St. Petersburg (arrive Dec. 19). The previous four tours had “demonstrated that owners may drive their own cars over the road and stop at the best hotels enroute at a cost below that of transportation of car and passengers by rail or boat.”
And just in case, “Expert mechanics accompany the tours and each car is inspected daily and kept in good running condition. Not a spring has been broken on any tour and but few tire changes have been necessary. Every noon and night stop has been made on time and the cars have all arrived at the finish in good condition.”
Maps
To find your town in the book, you could look it up in the index of cities and towns, or use the fold-out map in the back, which had a geographical map on one side and an outline key map on the other. The book also had section maps of the states, and some maps of major cities.
For example, the Mercer County section of the central New Jersey map showed the river road from Trenton Junction north to Washingtons Crossing and Lambertville; plus the north road from Trenton through Ewingville and Pennington, then forking northwest to Woodsville and Ringoes, or northeast to Glen Moore, Hopewell (and Mt. Rose), and Blawenburg.
- See this route in earlier post on 1920s Hopewell Road Maps
Automobile Legal Association (A.L.A.)
The A.L.A. Automobile Green Book actually was a product of the Automobile Legal Association, which was founded around 1907 to provide what we think of as AAA-like motorist services, plus the addition of legal support for these new automobiles sharing the roads.
There were then three editions of these books, each for $3.00:
- Volume 1 – Covering New England, the Maritime Provinces, and trunk lines west through Buffalo to Chicago.
- Volume 2 – Covering New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and District of Columbia – plus Central Canada and Florida, and trunk lines to New England and the West,
- Volume 3- Covering Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin and Michigan, with trunk lines to Southern and Eastern Resorts.
A.L.A. annual membership was $10.00, which covered one car, plus $9 more for each additional car. The membership form had fields for the name, residence address, home and office telephone numbers, car make, year, and model – and the engine number.
A.L.A. membership services included:
– Touring information – The annual A.L.A. Green Book, plus information on road conditions and detours, hotels and garages, camp sites, etc. The organization also prepared itineraries and routes for specific trips.
– Garage service – Free emergency road service, including repair of broken components, and free towing. The A.L.A. reported playing $80,000 in the previous year to its 1700 garages for rendering services to members.
– Legal coverage – Legal defense in criminal cases when charged with violations of automobile laws, and in civil suits when charged with property damage. This did not include services for bringing suits against others, or when charged with driving under the influence or manslaughter.
Automobilist Magazine
A.L.A. membership also included the monthly Automobilist magazine with new travel information and lists of officially appointed A.L.A. Garages and Attorneys.
The 1924 Garages list for New Jersey included the Broad Street Garage in Hopewell (also listed as providing service to Pennington) and Reading’s Garage at Elm & Union Sts. in Lambertville (also servicing Washington Crossing). Reading’s Garage was listed as open until 9 p.m., and the Broad Street Garage promised service day and night.
The Attorneys List for New Jersey included Horace G. Prall in Lambertville, W. C. Vanderwater in Princeton, and Hervey S. Moore in Trenton.
This 6-page extract includes sample A.L.A. pages and the listings for New Jersey.
== View the 1924 A.L.A. Automobilist magazine extract (PDF) ==
Other Travel Guides
The Negro Motorist Green-Book (1936 – 1967)
The Negro Motorist Green-Book was an annual guidebook for African-American travelers founded and published by New York City mailman Victor Hugo Green from 1936 to 1967. Over time, Green expanded from a New York focus to cover much of North America.
The Green Book became “the bible of black travel” during the era of Jim Crow laws, when open and often legally prescribed discrimination against African Americans and other non-whites was widespread. Green wrote this guide to identify services and places relatively friendly to African-Americans so they could find lodgings, businesses, and gas stations that would serve them along the road. Publication ended shortly after passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed the types of racial discrimination that made the Green Book necessary.
The 1946 edition had 84 pages, with listings then covering most of the states (but not Alaska or Hawaii). The seven pages for New Jersey listed 14 tourist homes and businesses in Trenton, and many more in Newark, Atlantic City, and Asbury Park.
It had limited display ads in the listings, plus a 15-page section highlighting the new 1946 Kaiser-Frazer, Studebaker, Hudson, and Crosley cars, with photos and text courtesy of the automakers.
The Green Book was featured in the 2018 movie, Green Book, in which a working-class Italian-American bouncer (Viggo Mortensen) becomes the driver for an African-American classical pianist (Mahershala Ali) on a tour of venues through the 1960s American South using the “The Negro Motorist Green Book.” The film won the 2019 Oscars for Best Picture, Supporting Actor, and Original Screenplay. (See IMDb).
It also has been the inspiration for a book, Driving the Green Book: A Road Trip Through the Living History of Black Resistance by Alvin Hall (2023), and two documentaries, The Green Book: Guide to Freedom (2019 – see IMDb) and Black Travel Across America from NatGeo (2023).
The Jewish Vacation Guide (from c1916)
The Jewish Vacation Guide was first published around 1916 by the Federation of Jewish Farmers of America. It listed “Hotels, Boarding Houses, and Rooming Houses Where Jews are Welcome” – a network of Jewish-owned or Jewish-friendly places where it was safe for Jews to eat, sleep, and travel. The guide also included other possible vacation needs for travelling safely in a sometimes hostile environment, including automobile repair, drugstores, grocers, tailors, cobblers, and photography studios.
Most of the lists were written in Yiddish. A large number of vacation sites were concentrated in the Catskill Mountains, as it developed as a Jewish vacation area with Jewish farmers remodeling their homes as boardinghouses or even building additional homes on their properties, which then began to turn into resorts.
The 1917 Guide had 50 pages, focusing on New York, but with a few listings in New Jersey, including a couple in Hightstown and a poultry farm in Woodbine.
The Jewish Vacation Guide also inspired the Negro Motorist Green Book. In the introduction to the Green Book, publisher Victor Greene credited the Jewish Guide for serving as a template for his book.
== View the 1924 A.L.A. Automotive Green Book extract (PDF) ==
== View the 1924 A.L.A. Automobilist magazine extract (PDF) ==
Please contact us if you have additional information or historic travel guides that we can archive and share.
More on Local Road Maps and Travel
Posts on local road maps and travel guides showing the development of the road infrastructure in the Hopewell Area.
- 1924 A.L.A. Automobile Green Book – Early touring guide with maps, travel information, and directions
- 1932 N. J. Driver’s Test Brochure – Q&A on traffic laws
- 1920s and 1962 Hopewell Road Maps – State and Township maps showing the original route of our Route 31 – through Pennington and forking at Marshall’s Corner
- Hopewell Valley Changes – 1962 & 1972 Road Maps – Township maps showing roads from new developments
- 1960s Hopewell Maps with Route 69 and I-95 – Esso maps showing the predecessor to our Route 31, and the plans for routing I-95 through the Hopewell Valley
