Commemorating 100 Years of the RV

For almost as long as there have been automobiles, recreational vehicles have been traversing America

  • By Jim Morrison
  • Smithsonian.com, August 25, 2010, Subscribe
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A large Class A motorohome
The recreational vehicle turn 100 years old this year. According to the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association, about 8.2 million households now own RVs. (Photograph from the collections of Al Hesselbart and the RV/MH Hall of Fame and Museum)

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Every December 15, Kevin Ewert and Angie Kaphan celebrate a “nomadiversary,” the anniversary of wedding their lives to their wanderlust. They sit down at home, wherever they are, and decide whether to spend another year motoring in their 40-foot recreational vehicle.

Their romance with the road began six years ago, when they bought an RV to go to Burning Man, the annual temporary community of alternative culture in the Nevada desert. They soon started taking weekend trips and, after trading up to a bigger RV, motored from San Jose to Denver and then up to Mount Rushmore, Deadwood, Sturgis, Devil’s Tower and through Yellowstone. They loved the adventure, and Ewert, who builds web applications, was able to maintain regular work hours, just as he’d done at home in San Jose.

So they sold everything, including their home in San Jose, where they’d met, bought an even bigger RV, and hit the road full time, modern-day nomads in a high-tech covered wagon. “What we’re doing with the RV is blazing our own trail and getting out there and seeing all these places,” Ewert says. “I think it’s a very iconic American thing.”

The recreational vehicle turns 100 years old this year. According to the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association, about 8.2 million households now own RVs. They travel for 26 days and an average of 4,500 miles annually, according to a 2005 University of Michigan study. The institute estimates about 450,000 of them are full-time RVers like Ewert and Kaphan.

Drivers began making camping alterations to cars almost as soon as they were introduced. The first RV was Pierce-Arrow’s Touring Landau, which debuted at Madison Square Garden in 1910. The Landau had a back seat that folded into a bed, a chamber pot toilet and a sink that folded down from the back of the seat of the chauffeur, who was connected to his passengers via telephone. Camping trailers made by Los Angeles Trailer Works and Auto-Kamp Trailers also rolled off the assembly line beginning in 1910. Soon, dozens of manufacturers were producing what were then called auto campers, according to Al Hesselbart, the historian at the RV Museum and Hall of Fame in Elkhart, Indiana, a city that produces 60 percent of the RVs manufactured in the United States today.

As automobiles became more reliable, people traveled more and more. The rise in popularity of the national parks attracted travelers who demanded more campsites. David Woodworth—a former Baptist preacher who once owned 50 RVs built between 1914 and 1937, but sold many of them to the RV Museum—says in 1922 you could visit a campground in Denver that had 800 campsites, a nine-hole golf course, a hair salon and a movie theater.

The Tin Can Tourists, named because they heated tin cans of food on gasoline stoves by the roadside, formed the first camping club in the United States, holding their inaugural rally in Florida in 1919 and growing to 150,000 members by the mid-1930s. They had an initiation; an official song, “The More We Get Together;” and a secret handshake.

Another group of famous men, the self-styled Vagabonds—Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone and naturalist John Burroughs—caravaned in cars for annual camping trips from 1913 to 1924, drawing national attention. Their trips were widely covered by the media and evoked a desire in others to go car camping (regular folks certainly didn’t have their means). They brought with them a custom Lincoln truck outfitted as a camp kitchen. While they slept in tents, their widely chronicled adventures helped promote car camping and the RV lifestyle. Later, CBS News correspondent Charles Kuralt captured the romance of life on the road with reports that started in 1967, wearing out motor homes by covering more than a million miles over the next 25 years in his “On the Road” series. “There’s just something about taking your home with you, stopping wherever you want to and being in the comfort of your own home, being able to cook your own meals, that has really appealed to people,” Woodworth says.


Every December 15, Kevin Ewert and Angie Kaphan celebrate a “nomadiversary,” the anniversary of wedding their lives to their wanderlust. They sit down at home, wherever they are, and decide whether to spend another year motoring in their 40-foot recreational vehicle.

Their romance with the road began six years ago, when they bought an RV to go to Burning Man, the annual temporary community of alternative culture in the Nevada desert. They soon started taking weekend trips and, after trading up to a bigger RV, motored from San Jose to Denver and then up to Mount Rushmore, Deadwood, Sturgis, Devil’s Tower and through Yellowstone. They loved the adventure, and Ewert, who builds web applications, was able to maintain regular work hours, just as he’d done at home in San Jose.

So they sold everything, including their home in San Jose, where they’d met, bought an even bigger RV, and hit the road full time, modern-day nomads in a high-tech covered wagon. “What we’re doing with the RV is blazing our own trail and getting out there and seeing all these places,” Ewert says. “I think it’s a very iconic American thing.”

The recreational vehicle turns 100 years old this year. According to the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association, about 8.2 million households now own RVs. They travel for 26 days and an average of 4,500 miles annually, according to a 2005 University of Michigan study. The institute estimates about 450,000 of them are full-time RVers like Ewert and Kaphan.

Drivers began making camping alterations to cars almost as soon as they were introduced. The first RV was Pierce-Arrow’s Touring Landau, which debuted at Madison Square Garden in 1910. The Landau had a back seat that folded into a bed, a chamber pot toilet and a sink that folded down from the back of the seat of the chauffeur, who was connected to his passengers via telephone. Camping trailers made by Los Angeles Trailer Works and Auto-Kamp Trailers also rolled off the assembly line beginning in 1910. Soon, dozens of manufacturers were producing what were then called auto campers, according to Al Hesselbart, the historian at the RV Museum and Hall of Fame in Elkhart, Indiana, a city that produces 60 percent of the RVs manufactured in the United States today.

As automobiles became more reliable, people traveled more and more. The rise in popularity of the national parks attracted travelers who demanded more campsites. David Woodworth—a former Baptist preacher who once owned 50 RVs built between 1914 and 1937, but sold many of them to the RV Museum—says in 1922 you could visit a campground in Denver that had 800 campsites, a nine-hole golf course, a hair salon and a movie theater.

The Tin Can Tourists, named because they heated tin cans of food on gasoline stoves by the roadside, formed the first camping club in the United States, holding their inaugural rally in Florida in 1919 and growing to 150,000 members by the mid-1930s. They had an initiation; an official song, “The More We Get Together;” and a secret handshake.

Another group of famous men, the self-styled Vagabonds—Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone and naturalist John Burroughs—caravaned in cars for annual camping trips from 1913 to 1924, drawing national attention. Their trips were widely covered by the media and evoked a desire in others to go car camping (regular folks certainly didn’t have their means). They brought with them a custom Lincoln truck outfitted as a camp kitchen. While they slept in tents, their widely chronicled adventures helped promote car camping and the RV lifestyle. Later, CBS News correspondent Charles Kuralt captured the romance of life on the road with reports that started in 1967, wearing out motor homes by covering more than a million miles over the next 25 years in his “On the Road” series. “There’s just something about taking your home with you, stopping wherever you want to and being in the comfort of your own home, being able to cook your own meals, that has really appealed to people,” Woodworth says.

The crash of 1929 and the Depression dampened the popularity of RVs, although some people used travel trailers, which could be purchased for $500 to $1,000, as inexpensive homes. Rationing during World War II stopped production of RVs for consumer use, although some companies converted to wartime manufacturing, making units that served as mobile hospitals, prisoner transports and morgues.

After the war, the returning GIs and their young families craved inexpensive ways to vacation. The burgeoning interstate highway system offered a way to go far fast and that combination spurred a second RV boom that lasted through the 1960s.

Motorized RVs started to become popular in the late 1950s, but they were expensive luxury items that were far less popular than trailers. That changed in 1967 when Winnebago began mass-producing what it advertised as “America’s first family of motor homes,” five models from 16 to 27 feet long, which sold for as little as $5,000. By then, refrigeration was a staple of RVs, according to Hesselbart, who wrote The Dumb Things Sold Just Like That, a history of the RV industry.

“The evolution of the RV has pretty much followed technology,” Woodworth says. “RVs have always been as comfortable as they can be for the time period.”

As RVs became more sophisticated, Hesselbart says, they attracted a new breed of enthusiasts interested less in camping and more in destinations, like Disney World and Branson, Missouri. Today, it seems that only your budget limits the comforts of an RV. Modern motor homes have convection ovens, microwaves, garbage disposals, washers and dryers, king-size beds, heated baths and showers and, of course, satellite dishes.

“RVs have changed, but the reason people RV has been constant the whole time,” Woodworth says. “You can stop right where you are and be at home.”

Ewert chose an RV that features an office. It’s a simple life, he says. Everything they own travels with them. They consume less and use fewer resources than they did living in a house, even though the gas guzzlers get only eight miles a gallon. They have a strict flip-flops and shorts dress code. They’ve fallen in love with places like Moab and discovered the joys of southern California after being northern California snobs for so long. And they don’t miss having a house somewhere to anchor them. They may not be able to afford a house in Malibu down the street from Cher’s place, but they can afford to camp there with a million-dollar view out their windows. They’ve developed a network of friends on the road and created NuRvers.com, a Web site for younger RV full-timers (Ewert is 47; Kaphan is 38).

Asked about their discussion on the next December 15, Ewert says he expects they’ll make the same choice they have made the past three years—to stay on the road. “We’re both just really happy with what we’re doing,” he says. “We’re evangelical about this lifestyle because it offers so many new and exciting things.”


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Comments (19)

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My oldest son sent the link to this article. You see, I, too, travel full time in my 27' Class C RV. I am living my dream of seeing the USA after retiring as a university professor and many years as a K-12 classroom teacher.

I am beginning my fourth year and I would not trade my life for another. I sold, gave away, trashed all my belongings and trappings of my old life path and "hit the road!" I travel with my Jack-Russel Terrier, Ali. I began with certain ideas about how and where I was going to travel but some of those have changed as I am learning about my new life.

I take my grandsons on two-week excursions; my family become more accepting of their vagabond mother and sibling; and I have new quilting friends (I make room for my quilting stash!) all over the USA. What more could I want in retirement? Only my next adventures will tell.

Posted by Barb Clark, PHD on January 28,2011 | 10:36 AM

We "Full Timed" for the best part of 12 years. It is a great way of life and you meet such nice people. Now that I am off the road I get a frequent case of Hitc Itch.

Posted by joepierce1988 on December 23,2010 | 06:21 PM

All these comments have inspired me to get an RV and get on the road. My wife thinks I'm crazy, but I've been telling her we need to sell the house and everything else and see what the U.S. has to offer. I think she's scared of all the unknowns and having two young kids, but I love everything about it. Any suggestions? Thanks!

Posted by Justin Peterson on November 14,2010 | 10:07 PM

How do children of full timers react to you going all over the United States and travaling?

Posted by Dee VanDervoort on November 1,2010 | 04:05 PM

What a wonderful story. I started RVing in 1980 and thought I was an old timer! I retired in 1999, and started full-timing after my wife died in 2002. Two years ago I started a little company called RV Directions. It features mapping points of interest supporting the needs of RVers. On our web site, www.rvdirections.info , we have a pictorial history of the last 100 years of RVing. Take a look - I think you'll find it quite interesting.

Posted by Don Borson on October 25,2010 | 09:11 AM

Our most memorable family excursion was a 2 month, 10,000 mile RV trip around the United States home schooling our 2 daughters. The connections that we made among far flung regions of our country from going up the Washington Monument to seeing the height of Crazy Horse, the New River Gorge Bridge and countless other large objects compared to the Washington Monument or looking for California Condors released in the Grand Canyon and seeing where they were hatched in Idaho, were best experienced by traveling the country by RV. Although my spouse and I had agreed we would never travel by RV when we were first married, we now agree immersing ourselves in RVing, if only for 2 months, was one of the best decisions we ever made.

Posted by Kate on October 22,2010 | 01:18 PM

My wife and I were married in 1962. We bought our first CAMPER in 1967. By then we had 3 children. We spent just about every week-end and vacation CAMPING. What a great way to raise a family. We went FULL TIME In 1991 after 33 yrs. with a Pennsylvania Power CO. We spent 13 years as FULL TIMERS and enjoyed every minute of it. We traveled in all of the lower 48 States and all of the Canadian Provinces. We were EASTERN DIRECTORS of the FULL TIMERS CHAPTER of a Nationally Known RV Club and FLORIDA STATE DIRECTORS for the Same Club. We also Hosted many Chapter, State, Regional and Special Event Rallys for them over the years. We stoped FULL TIMING in 2004 due to health problems and sold our RV in 2009 but I still get hitch-itch once in a while.
RVers ARE THE GREATEST!!

Posted by DICK & MARY WILSON on September 9,2010 | 08:36 PM

Tracy, the Frank Motor Homes info is fantastic! thanks for passing it on, I loved it!

Posted by Bob Reising on September 9,2010 | 02:20 PM

Actually, Frank Motor Homes began selling the first motor homes in 1961 and later sold the company which was renamed Travco in 1965. This was well before Winnebago produced their line of motor homes. Here is another brief history of motor homes: http://bit.ly/ca5Zz2

Posted by Tracy Wendt on September 6,2010 | 06:57 PM

You will never find more friendy & AND LOYAL Friends than those that RV & Camp. Think not, Try It.

Posted by Wayne V Thornton, Sr on September 2,2010 | 04:21 PM

I would think you have not looked far enough back into American History. Wouldn't the Conestoga Wagons used by those settling the West be the forst RVs?

Posted by Jeff Humfeld on September 2,2010 | 02:29 PM

We "Full Timed" for the best part of 12 years. It is a great way of life and you meet such nice people. Now that I am off the road I get a frequent case of Hitc Itch.

Posted by Dave Sheets on September 2,2010 | 11:47 AM

Yes, but the 'queen of them all" was the GMC Motor Home, a beautifully streamlined (kind of egg shaped) beauty that slept six (plus drivers' and floor space for a few more). Ours was a 2nd hand (but in great shape) orange behemoth (34 ft; we called it 'the great pumpkin) with all the trimming, including two closets, a shower and a comfortably private double bed (for mom and dad) aft, an engine run air compressor 'leveler', and air cooling/ heating units to make it comfortable in any weather. Our family (3 teens at the time) added a gas tank connected 110 watt generator under the bathroom floor, a double antenna CB radio and a matching orange TV hanging below a cabinet. Cost? $17,000 and we used it for 3 1/2 years, after which we sold it for exactly that same amount. Haven't really known such luxury since!

Posted by Rol Sharette on September 1,2010 | 07:04 PM

I sold my "sticks and bricks" eleven years ago and have been full-timing ever since. My current rig is a 31 ft Four-Winds trailer and a mint condition '82 Diesel Suburban.

I have worked as a camp host in state parks and met a lot of very interesting people from all over the world, some of whom have become very good friends.

There is no way I would go back to the "other world".

Posted by Paul Graham on September 1,2010 | 12:38 PM



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