The Fruehauf Trailer Company was incorporated in 1918 in Detroit, Michigan by August Fruehauf, a blacksmith and carriage builder. In 1914 he had been asked by a neighbor to build a trailer to haul a boat behind a Ford Model T, this trailer was so successful he was soon asked to build more trailers to haul lumber. Business boomed over the next four years, and Fruehauf Trailer Company was established. The popularity of the trailers increased as the company made several innovations to the traile...

The Fruehauf Trailer Company Records focus mainly on the public side of the company's activities. The collection contains advertising materials such as product literature, product manuals, color samples, stickers and signs, branch locations and information, and photographs spanning from the early 1930s into the 1960s. The collection also contains company materials from the 1930s and 1940s such as annual reports, handouts to employees, greeting cards, instructive materials, and newsletters.