The Robert W. Schoening papers are primarily of interest due to their detailed description of his cross-country automobile trips and extensive traveling through the western United States from 1919 to 1921. Other writings reveal period attitudes towards capitalism, patriotism, and industrialism. The collection includes original manuscripts and correspondence as well as digitized images of these works created by Schoening's family.
The collection also includes a series of digitized photographs from Schoening's trip out west circa 1919 and collected materials related to the Saginaw Cigar Manufacturers and local life in Saginaw and Flint, Michigan.
Robert W. Schoening was born in Germany on September 13, 1878 to Charles and Lena Pettit Schoening and married Elizabeth (Lizzie) Maud Frazer in Port Huron, Michigan on June 18, 1902. He worked as a laborer, mechanic, shop foreman, factory superintendent, and a traveling salesman in his lifetime.
In 1919 he was offered a position as a salesman in the western United States; he and his wife subsequently drove from Saginaw, Michigan to Portland, Oregon along the Yellowstone Trail transcontinental automobile route and spent the ensuing year and a half traveling around the Pacific Northwest, California, Nevada, and Utah. The couple returned to Michigan in 1921 (partially by way of the Lincoln Highway) and Schoening produced several manuscripts (perhaps intended for publication in different magazines) that detailed their experiences on the road, with descriptions of places they visited (including Flint, Chicago, Reno, Salt Lake City, and Yellowstone), their daily routine in driving and camping, and the often tenuous conditions of the roads and highways.
In addition to his travelogues, Schoening was an aspiring author (at one point he sought publishing advice from author James Oliver Curwood) and wrote philosophical, economic, and practical essays as well as a novel (Red Biz) that explored conditions and relationships in an early twentieth century factory and which he sought to have published shortly before his death on June 3, 1923 in Saginaw, Michigan.
