Trailer-laboratory is latest U.S. weapon in war against syphilis. Washington, D.C. Aug. 23. Dr. L.E. Burney and Nurse Fran Miller of the new trailer-laboratory which has just been completed for the United States Public Health Service, interview a "patient" as the trailer arrives in Washington for exhibition. After a short stay here, the clinic-on-wheels , which is fully equipped in every respect, will travel to Georgia for use in a syphilis control project to be conducted there. 8/23/37

In the late 1910s, there were few gas stations, few paved roads, and no highways was a time that America’s leading historians call the beginning of modern RV. In 1920s people who traveled like this were referred to as 'tin can tourists'. As time progressed, trailers became attractive, comfortable and earned a new name "house trailer" in the 1930s and 1940s. In the late 1930s, during the Great Depression, FSA (Federal Farm Security Administration) built trailer camps to assist childless couples and families of one and two children in moving in areas where new factories were​ built, and labor was in demand. In 2005, FEMA provided temporary emergency housing using thousands of travel trailers.