A yearlong tribute to Trailer Life’s 75 years in print
Imagine a time before mobile phones, GPS navigation and satellite TV, or TV at all, for that matter. In July 1941, when the first issue of this magazine — originally named Western Trailer Life — appeared on newsstands and in subscribers’ mailboxes, the big news in RV technology was vacuum brakes, spun-glass insulation, and butane gas for cooking and heating. Of course, in 1941 the term “recreational vehicle” hadn’t been coined yet, much less “RV.” The preferred name was “trailer coach.”
![The July 1941 cover features the magazine’s original name, Western Trailer Life, and seven swimsuit models — “A Septette of Pulchritude” — at Treasure Island Trailer Park.](https://www.rv.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/TL-75-cover_1941-3D-254x300.jpg)
The July 1941 cover features the magazine’s original name, Western Trailer Life, and seven swimsuit models — “A Septette of Pulchritude” — at Treasure Island Trailer Park.
Filling the need for “a regularly issued publication devoted to trailer life and trailer travel,” the modest 20-page debut issue promotes the simple pleasures and cultural significance of what has evolved into the RV lifestyle. “The trailer coach mode of life is no longer a fad,” writes one of the initial contributors, “but well on the way to play as important a role in America … as the automobile.”
In classic ’40s style, one of the writers sports a fedora in his portrait and another looks a bit like Walt Disney. A couple of young women in vintage bathing suits adorn a layout for a Southern California trailer park, and a column for “the more attractive sex” suggests that “seersucker suits and sports clothes are the answer to the trailer woman’s prayer.”
The travel trailers featured in that first issue — Airfloat, Kozy Coach and Silver Dome, to name a few — are now the very definition of “retro.” Advertisements are similarly nostalgic with quaint catchphrases (a jack is “Simple, Safe and Satisfactory”) and old-school slogans (“Tomorrow’s Trailers Today!” proclaims one dealership).
To mark the 75th anniversary of the magazine now known as Trailer Life, we’re devoting a page in each issue this year to the publication’s long history and the parallel evolution of recreational vehicles from tin-can campers to contemporary travel trailers, fifth-wheels, truck campers, toy haulers and motorhomes — the retro RVs of tomorrow.