It seems like no matter how hard publishers try to make history books comprehensive, they always end up leaving some important stuff out. But at last, one textbook company is dedicating some attention to a pivotal event that has been excluded from too many historical narratives. McGraw-Hill’s new history textbook will include a chapter on the time McGraw and Hill took the greatest road trip of all time.
Finally! This is long overdue.
The new chapter, entitled “The Trip Of A Lifetime,” will cover the post-graduation road trip that began one sunny day in 1974 when James H. McGraw and John A. Hill piled into McGraw’s Plymouth Duster with nothing but a couple changes of clothes, a Polaroid camera, some camping gear, and a Thomas Guide road atlas.
In the ensuing months, they wound through the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, across the Badlands of South Dakota, over the Rockies, and down the coast of California on a journey that brought the two best friends across the country and closer together than ever. Now this remarkable story is finally being told in McGraw Hill’s American History, 1800s-2000s textbook for grades nine to 12.
According to the company, the brand-new chapter goes into thorough detail about the unforgettable adventures that McGraw and Hill had on their epic trip, with passages on several seminal moments, including when the pair went swing-dancing with the locals in Wyoming, as well as the time Hill had to carry a blind-drunk McGraw out of a bar in Nebraska. Additional insets in the chapter feature primary source accounts of when the pair dropped acid near Santa Cruz and almost got arrested and when their car broke down somewhere in Iowa and they got help from a friendly biker named Skratch.
An excerpt from the chapter was included in the promotional materials for the forthcoming history textbook. Check it out!
Wow! Seems like the new chapter in McGraw-Hill’s history book is sure to provide students with a fascinating look at one of the greatest road trips of all time and the incredible friendship forged along the way.
