Old Dominion in 1916
/I enjoyed finding familiar scenes in Walter Hale’s drawings of sights in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia in the book We Discover the Old Dominion that was published in 1916. The text was written by his wife, Louise Closser Hale who was an American actress, playwright, and novelist.
The three sample images I picked from the book are places I have been in recent years. It was interesting to see how they looked in the time before World War I!
The first image is South Mountain (in Maryland). It’s now a rest stop on I-70; in 1916 there was a toll house there and the road was much more rustic.
The second is the Potomac at Harper’s Ferry – still a scenic spot today and part of the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.
The third is the White House. It looks very similar today --- although there are barricades and fences that weren’t in place in 1916.
Several other Hale books are available on Internet Archive as well: A Motor Car Divorce from 1906, Motor Journeys in 1912, and We discover New England from 1915. The vision of the couple traveling together and creating a book as a product of their experience is appealing – and provide of historical view of the places they saw. Walter Hale died in 1917. Louise Closser Hale continued writing (but not travel books) and went to Hollywood – portraying older women in movies until her death in 1933.
