Transport: Trailer Economics

Handily stealing a march on 1937’s automobile shows which will open at the end of October, Manhattan’s first big all-trailer show appeared last week in Manhattan’s ugly old brownstone 71st Regiment Armory. Twenty-four trailers, from a one-wheel duck hunter’s camp to de luxe three-wheelers with bath, were parked on the Armory floor; outside, too big to trundle through the Armory’s great doors, stood a shingle-roofed, imitation brick house on wheels. For seven days at the rate of about 100 an hour some 10,000 trailer-minded people leisurely examined the “future American home.”

Lowest priced completely furnished trailer was the Indian Trailer Corporation’s Papoose at $295. Sleeping four the 1,250-lb. two-wheeler has stove, heater, icebox and running water. Top price was $1,580 for the generator-equipped Martin EckO with electric refrigeration, ice cubes, shower, hot and cold running water. Refinements in some 1937 trailers include: chromium-plated bath tubs; porcelain vapor stoves; writing desks; radios; roomy wardrobes; fireplaces. But a trailer is still a trailer, confined by restrictions of various states to a maximum length of about 22 ft., width and height around 7 ft. A “two-room cottage” and a “five-room efficiency” trailer are both bound to be within these measurements. At night the rooms are used for sleeping, by day become dinettes, living rooms, etc. At slight additional expense awnings and folding chairs make a front porch.

To teach people to live in a space 7 ft. by 7 ft. the only U. S. licensed School of Trailer Economics accompanies the show. From a swank chocolate-colored trailer Captain Jose L. Misfud lectured to trailees on trailer commissary and linen, clothing and bedspread supply, oil and gasoline oven operation, trailer heating and sanitation.

Show Director A. B. Hopkins asserts that 1,000,000 people live in the 500,000 trailers of the U. S. In Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas and Wisconsin, there are trailer dental parlors, X-ray laboratories, classrooms, sound pictures and traveling theatres to carry modernity to their backwoods districts. Long Island police have a trailer equipped as a traveling arsenal. Slogan of last week’s show was “the trailer is here to stay,” and show officials optimistically foresaw the day when cities would pay as much attention to their trailer parks as to their airports—would have gas, water, electricity and sewage disposal facilities laid for instant connection to the trailer house.