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Visual Activity for Chapter 23

COLORADO FILLING STATION AND GAS PUMP

By 1929, when Conoco (Continental Oil Company) produced this lavish map featuring Colorado's spectacular mountains, nearly every oil company was supplying road maps as part of its campaign to boost tourism. This appealing drive-through station is a far cry from the first retail outlets for gas — blacksmith shops and hardware stores, the same places individuals bought kerosene for their lamps. Because motorists did not trust what they could not see, companies in the 1910s introduced glass-cylinder, gravity-flow gas pumps. Map: History Colorado (ID #G4311.P2); pump: History Colorado (ID #79.165.5).

Question 23.3

READING THE IMAGE: What does this road map and accompanying image of a gravity-flow gasoline pump tell us about American consumer culture on the eve of the Great Depression?

Question 23.4

CONNECTIONS: Does the road map accurately reflect the economic direction of the U.S. economy in 1929?