Fast Motor Routes between New England and the South, the West and Atlantic Coast via the New Castle-Pennsville Ferry

Clever marketing from a ferry company and AAA for the 1939 World’s Fair.

This somewhat unusual assortment of road maps was compiled, copyrighted, and published in 1939 by the American Automobile Association, expressly for the Delaware-New Jersey Ferry Company. The firm, operating a ferry between New Castle, Delaware, and Pennsville, New Jersey, wanted to advertise its water route over the Delaware River to the throngs of tourists traveling the Atlantic coast to New York’s 1939 World’s Fair.

The primary image presents the road network of the East Coast between Savannah and Portland. The New Castle-Pennsville Ferry and Cape Charles Little Creek Ferry are called out as particularly advantageous. An inset of the Florida panhandle shows that an information bureau is maintained in Miami, reflecting a high concentration of potential customers. To the right, a heavily stylized strip map shows ‘The Fastest Route between New York and the National Capital’.

The New Castle-Pennsville ferry (labeled in red) is well-situated on the presented thoroughfare (competing highways are conspicuously omitted), though the image also highlights the severe need for the bridge that would ultimately lead to the ferry’s demise. The verso shows a third map of the main routes between Norfolk and New York, as well as information about the rates, duration, and boats of the two ferries presented. The clever pictorial covers position the New Castle-Pennsville ferry as the focal point between North and East (top) and South and West (bottom).