The Vagabonds

by Jeff Guinn

  Robert Conot offers a plausible suggestion: Conot, p. 407.

  In one undated, handwritten memorandum: Benson Ford Research Center, Acc. 1630, Box 3.

  CHAPTER TWO: 1915

  Anytime I write about history taking place in California, I always begin my research at the amazing California Historical Society on Mission Street in San Francisco. The staff there is incredibly knowledgeable and helpful. Rebecca Baker, archivist at the Luther Burbank Home and Gardens in Santa Rosa, went out of her way to meet with me and provide critical background on Burbank and the Vagabonds’ visit to him there. Kevin Hallaran, former archivist at the Riverside Metropolitan Museum, had valuable insights to offer. At Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcalá, Tony Falcon was a walking history book. Brian Butko, director of publications for the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh, proved to be an invaluable resource regarding early roads in America. And in this chapter and every other in the book, assistance and advice from the staff at the Henry Ford Museum’s Benson Ford Research Center was critical.

  As a useful gauge of national interest in all things Edison and Ford, note the number of newspapers cited that carried wire-service stories about them at the expositions and in Los Angeles and Santa Rosa.

  Thomas Edison set off by train: New York Times, 10/12 and 10/15/1915; Bellingham (Washington) News, 10/15/1915.

  it was delightfully beyond the imaginations of most: Stross, pp. 1–2, 44–45.

  Their telegram read: Benson Ford Research Center, Acc. 1630, Box 4.

  A frenzied public greeting for the inventor: Aberdeen (North Dakota) Daily News, 10/18/1915; San Jose Mercury Herald, 10/19/1915.

  they were ensconced at the Inside Inn: San Jose Mercury Herald, 10/19/1915.

  The smallest details of their day made print: Morning Oregonian, 10/20/1915; Los Angeles Times, 10/20/1915; San Francisco Chronicle, 10/20/1915.

  San Francisco’s telegraph operators hosted a dinner: Idaho Daily Statesman, 10/20/1915; Nevada State Journal, 10/20/1915.

  While Edison toured the ship: San Francisco Chronicle, 10/21/1915.

  He especially disdained anyone identified as an expert: Bryson, p. 251.

  What wasn’t written about: Benson Ford Research Center, Acc. 423, Box 1; Douglas Brinkley, Wheels for the World, pp. 165–69; Watts, pp. 179–198.

  Ford had long believed: Watts, pp. 225–27; Brinkley, pp. 191–92; Neil Baldwin, Henry Ford and the Jews: The Mass Production of Hate, pp. 45–52.

  In contrast, two weeks after the Lusitania sinking: Baldwin, Edison: Inventing the Century, p. 344.

  a company magazine distributed to employees: Lewis, pp. 48–50.

  Ford gloried in that freedom: San Francisco Chronicle, 10/21/1915.

  Edison Day on Thursday: San Francisco Chronicle, 10/21 and 10/22/1915; Los Angeles Times, 10/20/15; San Jose Mercury Herald, 10/24/1915.

  Edison, Ford, and Firestone took a late morning train: Rebecca Baker interview; Cleburne (Texas) Morning Review, 10/23/1915; Dallas Morning News, 10/23/1915.

  Edison wasn’t as lucky: San Jose Mercury Herald, 10/24/1915; San Jose Evening News, 10/25/1915.

  Edison’s seminal contribution to the motion picture industry: Baldwin, Edison: Inventing the Century, p. 297; Conot, p. 394.

  When the party arrived at the studio: Brauer, p. 28.

  there were very few cars: Duncan and Burns, pp. 15–16.

  Inconveniently for motorists: James J. Flink, America Adopts the Automobile, 1895–1910, p. 179, 183, 185.

  For those whose cars boasted speedometers: Ibid., p. 188; David LaChance, Hemmings Motor News, September 2010.

  or even the number or name of the roads themselves: Brian Butko interview; Duncan and Burns, p. 31.

  a persuasive description of why travelers should stop: Touring San Diego County, Automobile Club of Southern California, 1915.

  As soon as word of their arrival reached the Exposition: The San Diego newspapers of the era covered Edison Day with comprehensive zeal. This section is mostly based on stories in the San Diego Union, 10/29 and 10/30/1915. The exception is noted next.

  “You may know all about a flivver car”: San Diego Sun, 10/20/1915.

  That night, Firestone hosted a dinner: Brauer, p. 30.

  Before Edison left, he had a suggestion: Ibid.

  They would be “the Vagabonds”: If there is a definitive record of when they chose this nickname, I’ve been unable to find it. That’s why I write “then or not long after.”

  CHAPTER THREE: 1916

  he agreed to a visit from Rosika Schwimmer: Paul Israel and Leonard DeGraaf interviews; Brinkley, pp. 194–98; Smoot, pp. 130–31; Renehan, p. 285; Clara Barrus, ed., The Heart of Burroughs’s Journals, p. 286; Frank Ernest Hill and Allan Nevins, “Henry Ford and His Peace Ship,” American Heritage, February 1958; Benson Ford Research Center, Acc. 1157, Box 1.

  In March 1916 Ford was nettled: Benson Ford Research Center, Acc. 1630, Box 5.

  Though he proclaimed himself uninterested: Baldwin, Henry Ford and the Jews, p. 68; Watts, pp. 240–43.

  The great newspapers of the Midwest: John Tebbel, An American Dynasty, pp. 92–100; Robert Lacey, Ford: The Men and the Machine, pp. 197–99.

  On July 15, one of Ford’s assistants: Benson Ford Research Center, Acc. 1630, Box 5.

  Ford’s publicity gift was an instinctive knack: David Halberstam, The Reckoning, p. 68.

  Edison understood the press: Paul Israel interview; DeGraaf, pp. xxvii–xviii; Baldwin, pp. 28–31; Conot, pp. 8–10; Stross, p. 4.

  A ubiquitous wire story found Edison emphasizing: Boston Post, 8/28/1916.

  he wired a last-minute appeal: Benson Ford Research Center, Acc. 1630, Box 5.

  Firestone’s staff began setting up camp: Brauer, p. 37.

  even the best roads were poorly marked: Brian Butko interview.

  Farmers whose acres included pleasant roadside: Warren James Belasco, Americans on the Road: From Autocamp to Motel, pp. 74–76.

  he was even less pleased to see them: New York Times, 8/30 and 9/24/1916.

  their crotchety host stood to the side: Barrus, ed., p. 295.

  he’d decided not to go: Harvey S. Firestone with Samuel Crowther, Men and Rubber: The Story of Business, p. 196.

  A telegram from Ford’s assistant Ernest Liebold followed: Benson Ford Research Center, Acc. 1630, Box 5.

  A wire service story reported: New York Times, 9/1/1916.

  Burroughs’s mood was good enough: Firestone with Crowther, p. 200.

  Firestone stayed at the hotel, too: Ibid., p. 198.

  But what awaited them instead was a telegram: Benson Ford Research Center, Acc. 1630, Box 5.

  but reserved all public credit for himself: Israel, p. 195.

  Instead, he offered a ringing political endorsement: Detroit Free Press, 9/4/1916.

  There was a ferry ride: Brauer, p. 53.

  Burroughs learned that his wife, Ursula, had died: Renehan, pp. 290–91.

  he’d accept no personal profit: Lacey, p. 156. But Lacey later points out in Ford: The Men and the Machine that it seems likely that Ford did earn substantial personal profit from war-related manufacturing.

  Rather than restate Edison’s message in a typed letter: Benson Ford Research Center, Acc. 1630, Box 5.

  CHAPTER FOUR: 1918

  It’s interesting to contrast the accounts of the 1918 trip kept by John Burroughs and Harvey Firestone. Both mostly accentuate the positive, though Burroughs is open about his dislike of the South. But they still offer day-to-day descriptions of the journey, particularly the crowds that routinely gathered and sometimes proved troublesome. I relied a great deal on both trip journals in writing this chapter, and rather than cite each a hundred times over and extend these chapter notes by way too many pages, I’ll note that with one exception, every otherwise unattributed quote comes from either the Burroughs or the Firestone manuscript. (The exception is Burroughs’s quote that “Millionaires add to the health and well-being of all,” which is found on
page 199 of Edward J. Renehan Jr.’s excellent John Burroughs: An American Naturalist.)

  Edison approached his Naval Advisory Board responsibilities: Albion, pp. 99–102; Conot, pp. 414–18; Israel, pp. 450–51; Stross, pp. 259–60.

  the best-known and most direct of which was the Lincoln Highway: Brian Butko interview.

  Henry Ford understood the publicity potential: Lewis, 223. There are several excellent Ford biographies, and as various chapter notes indicate I’ve made use of them all in my research. But Lewis’s is my favorite by far.

  he granted an interview to the city press: Pittsburgh Press, 8/17, 18, and 19/1918; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 8/18 and 19/1918.

  The rest of the camp was up around eight: Brauer, pp. 61–101. As with all other of the Vagabonds’ trips (with the exception of the Everglades debacle in 1914, which he chose not to include), Norman Brauer’s There to Breathe the Beauty account of 1918 includes helpful day-to-day summaries of how far the travelers drove, where they stopped, when they got up the next morning, and other bits of information all apparently gleaned from the same Burroughs and Firestone 1918 trip diaries that I found so helpful. (Brauer’s source notes are limited to a bibliography.) I’m noting the Brauer chapters here rather than list individual page citations for purposes of brevity. There to Breathe the Beauty was published privately, and very few copies remain available at around $200–$300. If you want to own every word printed about the Vagabonds and their trips, it should be part of your collection.

  since 1805, when millwright Oliver Evans attempted: Clay McShane, Down the Asphalt Path: The Automobile and the American City, pp. 81–82.

  finding gasoline was a challenge: Flink, pp. 234–42; Daniel Yergin, The Prize, pp. 111, 209; Duncan and Burns, p. 77; Brinkley, pp. 57–58; Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex, p. 27; Wells, pp. 173–86.

  The Summit Hotel was a wonder: Amanda Voithofer interview; the Voithofer family now owns the Summit Hotel. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 8/21/1918.

  Firestone envisioned better, longer-lasting tires: Firestone’s Men and Rubber includes lengthy, technical accounts of his efforts to design and market a better tire. There are too many pages and excerpts to cite list. The book is readily available.

  Edison pointedly got out of his car: Ford wasn’t about to snatch candy away from Edison.

  There was a hiccup in Tazewell: Interview with Terry W. Mullins, regional historian and former Tazewell city official.

  The first well-tended American roads were toll “turnpikes”: Frederic J. Wood, The Turnpikes of New England, pp. 1–2, 191, 256–59.

  These were popularly known as “shunpikes”: Interview with Matthew Powers, director of the Woodstock, Vermont, Historical Society.

  The questions from the press in Bristol were pointed: Washington Post, Concord (North Carolina) Daily Tribune, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Charlotte Observer, all 8/28/1918. Firestone’s trip diary doesn’t mention Ford and the Senate primary at all. Burroughs refers to it only once in his description of Ford and Edison musing about politics over a campfire.

  Ford took further steps to separate himself: Lewis, p. 98.

  Ford went to a factory where Camel cigarettes were packaged: Winston-Salem Journal, 8/30/1918. I have no idea why Ford, who hated smoking so much, deigned to visit a plant where cigarettes were made. Maybe he was pragmatic enough to realize that smokers bought cars, too.

  Edison spent his early afternoon: Winston-Salem Twin City Daily Sentinel, 8/30/1918.

  First came the race for the Senate: Lewis, pp. 98–99.

  he was determined to be the sole controlling voice: Ibid., pp. 102–3.

  Ford never repaid it: Ibid., p. 96. Luckily for Ford, the government chose never to request the promised refund, and the press and public simply assumed that he’d done as he’d promised.

  CHAPTER FIVE: 1919

  Events in America during 1919 deserve an entire book, and fortunately there’s a fine one on the subject. I highly recommend Ann Hagedorn’s Savage Peace: Hope and Fear in America, 1919.

  Even the 1918 flu pandemic: John M. Barry, The Great Influenza, pp. 5–6, 170, 208.

  Beginning in Seattle in early February: Hagedorn, p. 86.

  Race-related riots erupted: Ibid., pp. 314–22.

  American women determined to gain: Ibid., p. 126.

  It was not in the nature of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford’s friendship: Benson Ford Research Center, Acc. 1630, Box 5.

  a Rochester, New York, attorney named George B. Selden: Hiram Percy Maxim, Horseless Carriage Days, p. 3; Watts, pp. 161–63, 166–69, 172; Miller, pp. 61–65, 249–50, 284–86; Brinkley, pp. 142–44; Benson Ford Research Center, Acc. 423, Box 1.

  It began with the trial’s venue: Tebbel, pp. 92–100; Reynold M. Wik, “Henry Ford and the Agricultural Depression of 1920–1921, Agricultural History, January 1955; Watts, pp. 265–71; Lewis, pp. 104–8; Robert Kreipke, Faces of Henry Ford, p. 75; Bryan, pp. 25–26; Brinkley, pp. 244–48; Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, 7/22/1919; Lexington Kentucky Herald, 7/23/1919; San Jose Mercury Herald, 7/25/1919; Benson Ford Research Center, Acc. 1117, Box 1.

  Edison received a telegram from Ernest Liebold: Thomas Edison National Historical Park archive.

  Out of the inky blackness: Oregon Daily Journal, 8/9/1919.

  Firestone recalled it in his memoir: Firestone with Crowther, pp. 224–27; Albion, p. 114; Smoot, pp. 167–71.

  Press speculation pegged the overall value: New York Times, 6/24/23.

  not much of that accrued to the inventor himself: Stross, pp. 181–83, 187, 189–93, 276–77; Firestone with Crowther, p. 3; DeGraaf, p. 86, 100–108, 118–19, 122–45, 148–61; Peter Carlson, “Fat Cats and Vagabonds,” American History Magazine, August 2013.

  Ford ordered the camp cooks: Brauer, p. 119.

  Firestone responded by bedecking: Carlson, “Fat Cats and Vagabonds.”

  Burroughs, as usual, was the grumpiest: Barrus, ed., pp. 326–27; Renehan, pp. 274–75.

  But one night’s 1919 campfire conversation: Carlson, “Fat Cats and Vagabonds”; Renehan, pp. 275–76.

  historians have tried to determine its root cause: Baldwin, Henry Ford and the Jews, pp. 27–35, 327, 341–44, 376–90; Israel, pp. 444–45; Robert Casey interview.

  they were racist as well as antisemitic: Conot, p. 310.

  Edison attempted to qualify his mistrust of Jews: Baldwin, Edison: Inventing the Century, p. 334.

  The celebrated travelers spoke in favor of the proposed League of Nations: Houston Chronicle, 8/10/1919.

  CHAPTER SIX: 1920

  Warren James Belasco’s Americans on the Road is one of the most interesting books I’ve come across in years. Don’t let the frequent insertion of lists and individual facts and figures put you off. Among those I’ve read—and in researching this book, I read dozens—no one does a better job than Belasco capturing America’s headlong rush into a car-centric culture.

  Before hostilities commenced in Europe: Wik, “Henry Ford and the Agricultural Depression of 1920–1921”; Jeff Guinn, Go Down Together, p. 18.

  Burroughs was least affected: Barrus, ed., pp. 330–33.

  “We could not keep up with demand:” Firestone with Crowther, pp. 246–52.

  Thomas Edison endeavored to remove himself: Paul Israel and Leonard DeGraaf interviews; Israel, pp. 454–55; Stross, p. 273.

  Ford was distracted by sagging sales: Brinkley, pp. 257–62; Watts, pp. 273–75, p. 377; Benson Ford Research Center, Acc. 1117, Box 1; Lewis, pp. 136–38; Baldwin, Henry Ford and the Jews, pp. 95–107; Sheldon M. Novick, Honorable Justice: The Life of Oliver Wendell Holmes, pp. 132–33.

  In this description of the Independent’s antisemitic series, I chose not to include specific examples. The content was frankly offensive. For those who want to see for themselves, the articles are collected in The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem, which is available at several sites online.

  Meadowcroft sent an apologetic note: Thomas Edison National Historical Park archive.

&n
bsp; The economic slump of 1920 could not have come at a worse time: Lewis, pp. 108–12; Brinkley, pp. 264–72.

  As the number of car trips increased: Belasco, pp. 72–79; Paul S. Sutter, Driven Wild: How the Fight Against Automobiles Sparked the Modern Wilderness Movement, p. 30; Brian Butko interview.

  Ford had Liebold write and inquire: Benson Ford Research Center, Acc. 1630, Box 5.

  Burroughs recognized this himself: Renehan, p. 309.

  the gist was generally the same: After the Vagabonds’ 1924 visit with the president, the last line of the joke was reworked to, “And next you’re going to tell me that the little guy in the back seat is Calvin Coolidge.”

  she disliked Ford: Brent Newman interview.

  she took advantage of opportunities to torment Ford: Thomas Edison National Historical Park archive; Benson Ford Research Center, Acc. 1630, Box 5.

  On October 29, Meadowcroft wrote: Benson Ford Research Center, Acc. 1630, Box 5.

  On Tuesday, reporters and photographers received word: San Antonio Express, 11/17/1920; Kingston (New York) Daily Forum, 11/15/1920; Oregon Daily Journal, 11/16/1920; Washington Times, 11/18/1920; Firestone with Crowther, p. 227; Brauer, pp. 132–33.

  Burroughs was a genial host: Firestone with Crowther, pp. 227–28; Brauer, p. 140.

  Ford saw Burroughs again: Pittsburg (Kansas) Sun, 12/5/1920, article reprinted from the Toledo Times.

  Barrus tried taking Burroughs home: Renehan, pp. 312–13.

  The Republican ticket advocated tax cuts: Hagedorn, pp. 427–28.

  The country was now led by a president: Novick, pp. 334–35.

  CHAPTER SEVEN: 1921

  Warren G. Harding was a terrible president, but a master of publicity. On the first part of this trip, he completely outmaneuvered the Vagabonds. But afterward they got even.

  I’m especially grateful to Leonard DeGraaf at Thomas Edison National Historical Park for his help in locating documents used as references for the first portion of this chapter.

  Thomas Edison received an unwelcome letter: Thomas Edison National Historical Park archives.