Frances Toor's Motorist Guide to Mexico (1938)
Pages out of the Guide
Another advertisement and a plug for her own studio apartments in her own guide.
An example of an advertisment from the 1930s. Featuring businesses and locations from Mexico and the guide.
An example of Toor giving the Mesoamerican name for the locations she's mentioning. Here is shown its Aztec name.
Toor lists more information for those searching for more information on Mexican cultural matters.
An example of unit conversion in the guide. As Mexico uses the Metric system and the US uses the Imperial system.
An example of nature and sightseeing in the guide. As well as the use of photography.
More out of the Guide
An example of a Mexican bullfighting is featured in the guide.
A interesting page, it is a list of reasutrants in Mexico City and on the right page you can see the previous owner of this book underlined the "Lady Baltimore" listing the name "Enrique". Cleary a suggestion was given for a performer or cook who worked there.
Two maps of the Mexican highway system.
A page showing the murals one can all around Mexico City commissioned by the government.
An example of a native in their own garb shown in the guide.
Pages listing places of interest in Mexico City, ranging from clubs to stores.
A page showing pronunciation aids for Americans attempting to pronounce the Spanish and Mesoamerican city names they might encounter.
The City of Puebla is featured with its own highway map and a picture of a prominent Cathedral.
The Motorist Guide as a Window into the Past
The Motorist Guide to Mexico made by Frances Toor in 1938 gives us not only an insight into culutural and tourist hotspots in Mexico during the 1930s-40s, but valuable information on US-Mexico relations and international influence in Mexico. It also timestamps the current progress made by the Mexican government to create a modern highway system running the length of the country. The Mexico you get from Frances Toor is one that has opened to the world stage. With several embassies and clubs of different nations and cultures given accommodations in Mexico City, it shows a Mexico that has joined the world stage. It shows the infrastructure has developed greatly in the past 20 years with the highway system coming into prominence along side the already existing railroad. Which means automobiles are coming into relevance in both the Mexican nation and the bordering US to affect their infrastructure and internal policy. Toor also gives a glimpse into how Americans viewed Mexico in the 1930s, she states that Mexico is now a safe nation and the highways are free of bandits. The Mexica State has been in turmoil for quite some time and she is assuring Americans that Mexico has entered a time of peace. The modern idea of tourism also comes into play with restaurants, motels, hotels, attractions cropping up in Mexico around this time. Tourism now becomes large enough to affect the whole nations GDP, with cities like Merida, Veracruz, and Mexico City becoming hotspots for Americans wanting to visit their southern neighbor.
The Motorist Guide to Mexico is exactly what is says, it is a thorough and detailed tourist guide of Mexico via its highways system. Packed to the brim with detail about every large and small city connected by the highway that a tourist would want to see. It also includes maps galore, with maps detailing the streets of Mexico City, Veracruz, Puebla, and more. Also a map of the entire highway system, from Laredo to Oaxaca, as well as statewide maps. It includes conversions for both currency as well as units of measurement. With Mexico being linguistically Spanish and the United States being linguistically English, there bodes a problem, but Toor solved it with pronunciation aids and short phrases to aid the American tourist. As a guide it has pictures, recommendations, advertisements, and listed places of interest for those who want to eat, sleep, or shop in Mexico. It is a by-the-book guide and one that shows the origins of modern tourism.
The Cover of the Guide
The cover itself is very basic in style with the art being a simplistic image of Mexico with a highway included. It most likely was just a mass-printed image stamped on the cover of each book. This book in the collection shows the wear and tear the volume has endured over the years.
The measurements and page numbers are 21x 12 cm, 340 pgs, 26 maps. It is a simple handheld guide perfect for a glovebox.
This cover shows what the artwork would have looked like at production. Without a century bearing down on it the colors are clear and the detail is fine and noticeable.
The Guide showing the Mexican Identity
The guide shows that every consideration of this has been set as language, pronunciation, accommodations, destination, culture, and local attractions have been thought over. Advertisements in the format of products appear showing off hotels and restaurants for tourists interested. The interaction between Americans and Mexicans became more common and business between the two was now the everyday custom.
The Author
Frances Toor born in 1890, became a prominent American Anthropologist who focused on our neighbor to the South, Mexico. She would write more on Mexico including travel guides, cultural studies, literature, and on art. She would live in Mexico City and publish in New York City.
More by Frances Toor
Frances Toor’s Guide to Mexico. 1937. R.M. McBride.
Festivals and Folkways of Italy. New York: Crown Publishers, 1953.
A Treasury of Mexican Folkways : the Customs, Myths, Folklore, Traditions, Beliefs, Fiestas, Dances, and Songs of the Mexican People. New York: Crown Publishers, 1947.
New Guide to Mexico. New York: Crown Publishers, 1952.
Further Reading on the Subject
Routes of Compromise: Building Roads and Shaping the Nation in Mexico by ISBN: 9781496204035Publication Date: 2017-12-01In Routes of Compromise Michael K. Bess studies the social, economic, and political implications of road building and state formation in Mexico through a comparative analysis of Nuevo León and Veracruz from the 1920s to the 1950s.
The Business of Leisure: Tourism History in Latin America and the Caribbean by ISBN: 9781496213228Publication Date: 2021-01-01The Business of Leisure critically surveys a wide selection of travel practices, places, and time periods in considering the development of the hospitality industry in Latin America and the Caribbean. Considering tourism from early sojourners to contemporary dark tourism thrill seekers, contributors to The Business of Leisure examine key economic, political, social, and environmental issues.
Negotiating Paradise: U.S. Tourism and Empire in Twentieth-Century Latin America by ISBN: 1469605538Publication Date: 2014-06-24Accounts of U.S. empire building in Latin America typically portray politically and economically powerful North Americans descending on their southerly neighbors to engage in lopsided negotiations. Dennis Merrill's comparative history of U.S. tourism in Latin America in the twentieth century demonstrates that empire is a more textured, variable, and interactive system of inequality and resistance than commonly assumed.
The Enormous Vogue of Things Mexican: Cultural Relations between the United States and Mexico, 1920-1935 by ISBN: 0817389199Publication Date: 2015-01-14The Enormous Vogue of Things Mexican traces the evolution of cultural relations between the United States and Mexico from 1920 to 1935, identifying the individuals, institutions, and themes that made up this fascinating chapter in the history of the two countries.
