1 Americans couldn’t read enough about the Vagabonds and their car adventures. Edison (left) and Ford dominated press coverage, and until his death in March, 1921, white-bearded naturalist John Burroughs was almost as popular.
1 Americans couldn’t read enough about the Vagabonds and their car adventures. Edison (left) and Ford dominated press coverage, and until his death in March, 1921, white-bearded naturalist John Burroughs was almost as popular.
2 The Vagabonds’ route from Fort Myers to the Everglades in 1914 included long stretches of splashing through deep pools of water on the road.
3 On their outing in the Everglades, the Vagabonds eventually left even rudimentary roads behind and ventured into the primitive heart of the swampy expanse.
4 Though a guide rather than Henry Ford shot this turkey on the Vagabonds’ adventure in the Florida Everglades, the publicity-conscious carmaker posed with the trophy.
5 Battered by a sudden, violent rainstorm on the first night of their Everglades adventure, the Vagabonds and their guests tried to dry themselves by a small flickering fire.
6 Edison received a rapturous greeting at the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in San Diego. Organizers were determined to make his reception far more colorful and overwhelming than the one the inventor had received earlier at San Francisco’s rival Panama-Pacific Exposition.
7 Though they were the best of friends, Ford and Edison most often communicated through messages sent between Edison’s secretary, William H. Meadowcroft, and Ernest G. Liebold, executive secretary to Ford. Liebold’s message to Meadowcroft concerns Ford’s purchase of an estate adjacent to Edison’s.
8 Despite Ford’s entreaties, Edison refused to join his friend on the ill-fated “Peace Ship” mission to Europe that Ford organized in late 1915.
9 When Ford declined to join Edison, tire maker Harvey Firestone, and Burroughs for their 1916 Vagabonds trip, Edison (left, with Firestone) retained media interest in the outing with a surprise endorsement of Woodrow Wilson’s bid for reelection.
10 All over America, locals hoped to glimpse the Vagabonds’ car caravan cresting hills or crossing bridges into their towns. The group’s arrival anywhere was always cause for celebration.
11 Ford greatly admired naturalist John Burroughs. On Vagabonds trips, their car caravans would frequently stop so Burroughs could point out interesting plant, bird, and animal life to his companions.
12 The Vagabonds enjoyed elaborate camp dinners prepared by chefs who were part of the traveling company.
13 When he acquired the Dearborn Independent in late 1918 with the intent to turn the newspaper into a showcase for his personal opinions, Ford asked Edison, who had written, printed, and sold a small newsletter in his youth, to critique the Independent.
14 Edison, Burroughs, Ford, and Firestone pose alongside and atop a water wheel during their 1918 excursion.
15 The Vagabonds’ fleet often jounced along “Wish to God” roads that had ruts, rocks, and ditches alongside the road that were subject to flooding and overflowing.
16 In 1920, Ford and Burroughs staged a tree-chopping contest for the press with Firestone as timekeeper and Edison as referee. Burroughs was declared the winner, and Edison congratulated him.
17 Though he publicly denounced cigarettes as poisonous (because of burning paper, not tobacco), Edison regularly enjoyed puffing on cigars when the Vagabonds stopped to camp.
18 Despite traveling with a retinue to set up expansive tents and prepare elaborate meals, the Vagabonds tried to give the impression of roughing it, even when their camp guest was President Warren G. Harding (far right).
19 Harvey S. Firestone checks one of his namesake tires during the Vagabonds’ 1923 trip in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. On every Vagabonds excursion Firestone sublimated his own ego to those of the others.
20 Idabelle Firestone, Clara Ford, and Mina Edison accompanied their husbands on the Vagabonds’ last few trips.
21 As two of the most famous Americans, Edison and Ford shared a unique bond that was strengthened by their mutual drive to excel. Throughout the Vagabonds’ adventures they remained warm friends, as here on the 1923 trip.
22 Thomas Edison famously claimed to sleep only a few hours a night during most of the year, but on Vagabonds’ trips he could often be seen napping under a tree or beside a creek.
23 In 1923, Ford purchased the Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Massachusetts, and set out to restore it. The Vagabonds used the inn as a base during the first portion of their 1924 trip.
24 The highlight of the Vagabonds’ visit with Calvin Coolidge at his summer home in New Hampshire came when Coolidge (second from left) presented Ford with an antique bucket that was a family heirloom. The president, Ford, Edison, and Firestone all autographed the artifact.
25 Stung by Coolidge’s dismissal of them after an hour’s visit at the president’s summer retreat, the Vagabonds ate an impromptu lunch at the luxurious Woodstock Inn in Vermont. They signed the inn’s guest book with their usual flourishes.
26 For many years, Ford Motor Company’s print advertisements for the Model T spoke directly to consumer demands for dependability and affordability. But by 1924, the public had tired of lookalike Model Ts.
27 Ford dismantled his friend Edison’s laboratory in Fort Myers, Florida, and painstakingly reassembled it in Dearborn, Michigan. Mina Edison never forgave Ford for what she considered an imposition on her husband’s generous nature.