It worked. “Out of that automobile grew a friendship,” Ford wrote in his memoirs. “And it was a fine one.” Ford introduced Burroughs to two other titans of American industry: inventor Thomas Edison and tire manufacturer Harvey Firestone. Between 1914 and 1924, these influential men loaded their autos with camping gear and embarked on a series of historic road trips.
The self-titled “Vagabonds” toured the Everglades, the Adirondacks, the Catskills and the Smoky Mountains. They cruised down California’s sparkling coast and threaded through the maple forests of Vermont, reveling in the break from their duties as national powerbrokers. The annual forays into the wild lasted two weeks or longer.
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-americas-titans-industry-and-innovation-went-road-tripping-together-180957924/#icTF5U25Hx2pgstz.99
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