A "f ascinating slice of rarely considered American history" ( Booklist )âthe story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edisonâwhose annual summer sojourns introduced the road trip to our culture and made the automobile an essential part of modern life. In 1914 Henry Ford and naturalist John Burroughs visited Thomas Edison in Florida and toured the Everglades. The following year Ford, Edison, and tire maker Harvey Firestone joined together on a summer camping trip and decided to call themselves the Vagabonds. They would continue their summer road trips until 1925, when they announced that their fame made it too difficult for them to carry on.Although the Vagabonds traveled with an entourage of chefs, butlers, and others, this elite fraternity also had a serious purpose: to examine the conditions of America's roadways and improve the practicality of automobile travel. Cars were unreliable and the roads were even worse. But newspaper coverage of these trips was extensive, and as cars and roads improved, the summer trip by automobile soon became a desired element of American life. The Vagabonds is "a portrait of America's burgeoning love affair with the automobile" (NPR) but it also sheds light on the important relationship between the older Edison and the younger Ford, who once worked for the famous inventor. The road trips made the automobile ubiquitous and magnified Ford's reputation, even as Edison's diminished. The automobile would transform the American landscape, the American economy, and the American way of life and Guinn brings this seminal moment in history to vivid life.
- 320 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
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Subtopic
North American HistoryIndex
HistoryTable of contents
- Cover
- Dedication
- Prologue: Paris, MichiganâMid-August 1923
- Chapter One: 1914
- Chapter Two: 1915
- Chapter Three: 1916
- Chapter Four: 1918
- Chapter Five: 1919
- Chapter Six: 1920
- Chapter Seven: 1921
- Chapter Eight: Interlude: November 1921âJune 1923
- Chapter Nine: 1923
- Chapter Ten: 1924
- Chapter Eleven: Jep Bisbee Is Famous
- Photographs
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Photo Credits
- Copyright
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Yes, you can access The Vagabonds by Jeff Guinn in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & North American History. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.