Mobile Homes: The Hot Housing Trend of the 1950s and ’60s _ Old US Nostalgia

A mobile home (also known as a park home, trailer, trailer home, house trailer, static caravan, RV, residential caravan, motorhome or simply caravan) is a prefabricated structure, built in a factory on a permanently attached chassis before being transported to site (either by being towed or on a trailer).

In the United States, this form of housing goes back to the early years of cars and motorized highway travel. It was derived from the travel trailer, a small unit with wheels attached permanently, often used for camping or extended travel.

However, in the 1950s, the homes began to be marketed primarily as an inexpensive form of housing designed to be set up and left in a location for long periods of time or even permanently installed with a masonry foundation. Previously, units had been eight feet or less in width, but in 1956, the 10-foot (3 m) wide home (“ten-wide”) was introduced, along with the new term “mobile home”. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the homes were made even longer and wider, making the mobility of the units more difficult.

Here below is a set of amazing photos that shows people with their mobile homes in the 1950s and 1960s.