American Journey: On the Road with Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and John Burroughs

American Journey: On the Road with Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and John Burroughs PDF Author: Wes Davis
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324000333
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
The epic road trips—and surprising friendship—of John Burroughs, nineteenth-century naturalist, and Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, inventors of the modern age. In 1913, an unlikely friendship blossomed between Henry Ford and famed naturalist John Burroughs. When their mutual interest in Ralph Waldo Emerson led them to set out in one of Ford’s Model Ts to explore the Transcendentalist’s New England, the trip would prove to be the first of many excursions that would take Ford and Burroughs, together with an enthusiastic Thomas Edison, across America. Their road trips—increasingly ambitious in scope—transported members of the group to the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, the Adirondacks of New York, and the Green Mountains of Vermont, finally paving the way for a grand 1918 expedition through southern Appalachia. In many ways, their timing could not have been worse. With war raging in Europe and an influenza pandemic that had already claimed thousands of lives abroad beginning to plague the United States, it was an inopportune moment for travel. Nevertheless, each of the men who embarked on the 1918 journey would subsequently point to it as the most memorable vacation of their lives. These travels profoundly influenced the way Ford, Edison, and Burroughs viewed the world, nudging their work in new directions through a transformative decade in American history. In American Journey, Wes Davis re-creates these landmark adventures, through which one of the great naturalists of the nineteenth century helped the men who invented the modern age reconnect with the natural world—and reimagine the world they were creating.

American Journey: On the Road with Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and John Burroughs

American Journey: On the Road with Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and John Burroughs PDF Author: Wes Davis
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324000333
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 217

Get Book Here

Book Description
The epic road trips—and surprising friendship—of John Burroughs, nineteenth-century naturalist, and Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, inventors of the modern age. In 1913, an unlikely friendship blossomed between Henry Ford and famed naturalist John Burroughs. When their mutual interest in Ralph Waldo Emerson led them to set out in one of Ford’s Model Ts to explore the Transcendentalist’s New England, the trip would prove to be the first of many excursions that would take Ford and Burroughs, together with an enthusiastic Thomas Edison, across America. Their road trips—increasingly ambitious in scope—transported members of the group to the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, the Adirondacks of New York, and the Green Mountains of Vermont, finally paving the way for a grand 1918 expedition through southern Appalachia. In many ways, their timing could not have been worse. With war raging in Europe and an influenza pandemic that had already claimed thousands of lives abroad beginning to plague the United States, it was an inopportune moment for travel. Nevertheless, each of the men who embarked on the 1918 journey would subsequently point to it as the most memorable vacation of their lives. These travels profoundly influenced the way Ford, Edison, and Burroughs viewed the world, nudging their work in new directions through a transformative decade in American history. In American Journey, Wes Davis re-creates these landmark adventures, through which one of the great naturalists of the nineteenth century helped the men who invented the modern age reconnect with the natural world—and reimagine the world they were creating.

The Vagabonds

The Vagabonds PDF Author: Jeff Guinn
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 1501159313
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
A “fascinating slice of rarely considered American history” (Booklist)—the story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison—whose 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.

Uncommon Friends

Uncommon Friends PDF Author: James Draper Newton
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 9780156926201
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
Newton engagingly recalls a lifetime of friendship with five giants of the twentieth century. Foreword by Anne Morrow Lindbergh; Index; photographs.

Electric City

Electric City PDF Author: Thomas Hager
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1647000440
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
The extraordinary, unknown story of two giants of American history—Henry Ford and Thomas Edison—and their attempt to create an electric-powered city of tomorrow on the Tennessee River During the roaring twenties, two of the most revered and influential men in American business proposed to transform one of the country’s poorest regions into a dream technological metropolis, a shining paradise of small farms, giant factories, and sparkling laboratories. Henry Ford and Thomas Edison’s “Detroit of the South” would be ten times the size of Manhattan, powered by renewable energy, and free of air pollution. And it would reshape American society, introducing mass commuting by car, use a new kind of currency called “energy dollars,” and have the added benefit (from Ford and Edison's view) of crippling the growth of socialism. The whole audacious scheme almost came off, with Southerners rallying to support what became known as the Ford Plan. But while some saw it as a way to conjure the future and reinvent the South, others saw it as one of the biggest land swindles of all time. They were all true. Electric City is a rich chronicle of the time and the social backdrop, and offers a fresh look at the lives of the two men who almost saw the project to fruition, the forces that came to oppose them, and what rose in its stead: a new kind of public corporation called the Tennessee Valley Authority, one of the greatest achievements of the New Deal. This is a history for a wide audience, including readers interested in American history, technology, politics, and the future.

The Art of Seeing Things

The Art of Seeing Things PDF Author: John Burroughs
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815628804
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
A collection of essays by noted naturalist John Burroughs in which he contemplates a wide array of topics including farming, religion, and conservation. A departure from previous John Burroughs anthologies, this volume celebrates the surprising range of his writing to include religion, philosophy, conservation, and farming. In doing so, it emphasizes the process of the literary naturalist, specifically the lively connection the author makes between perceiving nature and how perception permeates all aspects of life experiences

John Burroughs

John Burroughs PDF Author: Edward Renehan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
Him a real originality, and his sketches have a delightful oddity, vivacity, and freshness." Burroughs was born in 1837, the same year that Henry Thoreau graduated from Harvard. Along with Thoreau and John Muir, he was one of the nineteenth century's most popular and preeminent nature writers. In the course of his long life, Burroughs authored more than twenty-eight books on natural history and literature. Writing during the increasingly industrial decades of the late.

Wheels for the World

Wheels for the World PDF Author: Douglas Brinkley
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781437965506
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 858

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Book Description
The saga of how Henry Ford and Ford Motor Co. changed our world. Reveals the details of Ford¿s achievements, from the success of the Tin Lizzie to the Model A and V-8, through the Thunderbird, Mustang, and Taurus. Innovators include: Thomas Edison, Alfred Sloan, the Wright Bros., Diego Rivera, and Charles Lindbergh. Discusses 3 factories: Highland Park, River Rouge, and Willow Run, where B-24 airplanes were mass-produced during WW2. Tells of Ford¿s expansion throughout the world, as well as the acquisitions of Volvo, Land Rover, Jaguar, and Mazda. Explores Ford¿s darker aspects, incl. its founder¿s anti-Semitism and wartime pacifism. Introduces us to: James Couzens, Lee Iocacco and William Clay Ford Jr. Photos.

Hugless Douglas

Hugless Douglas PDF Author: David Melling
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1444914766
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 35

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Book Description
A new edition of this bestselling story with a striking new cover. Hugless Douglas is a huggable, lovable young brown bear who wakes up one morning in need of a hug. He goes to try and find one but none of them seem quite right. Join Douglas on his search for the perfect bear hug! This is the first adventure in the hugely popular series, which has sold over 1.4 million copies in 26 languages to date. David Melling is one of the UK's best-loved author-illustrators and his stories combine brilliantly imaginative illustrations with an endearing sense of what it is like to be a small child learning about the world. Hello, Hugless Douglas! was a World Book Day picture book in 2014 and a number one bestseller, selling over 450,000 copies. 'A new Hugless Douglas book is always a cause for celebration.' Daily Mail

The Ariadne Objective: Patrick Leigh Fermor and the Underground War to Rescue Crete from the Nazis

The Ariadne Objective: Patrick Leigh Fermor and the Underground War to Rescue Crete from the Nazis PDF Author: Wes Davis
Publisher: Paul Dry Books
ISBN: 1589881885
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
"Wes Davis' fast-paced tale of wartime sabotage reads more like an Ian Fleming thriller than a mere retelling of events." ―Wall Street Journal "The story unfolds with the rich characterization and perfectly calibrated suspense of a great novel. It can be hard at points to remember the book is actually a work of nonfiction." ―Christian Science Monitor The Ariadne Objective is the extraordinary story of the Nazi occupation of Crete told from the perspective of an eccentric band of British gentleman spies. These amateur soldiers―writers, scholars, archaeologists―included Patrick Leigh Fermor, a future travel-writing luminary; John Pendlebury, a pioneering archaeologist whose walking stick concealed a sword; Xan Fielding, who would later translate books like Bridge over the River Kwai and Planet of the Apes into English; Sandy Rendel, a future Times of London reporter; and W. Stanley Moss, who would write up his account of their exploits in Ill Met By Moonlight (Paul Dry Books, Inc.). Alongside Cretan partisans, these British intelligence officers carried out a daring plan to sabotage Nazi maneuvers, culminating in a high-risk plot to abduct the island’s German commander. Wes Davis presents the scintillating story of these legends in the making and their adventures in one of the war’s most exotic locales. Includes 17 black and white photographs.

A Chance to Breathe

A Chance to Breathe PDF Author: James Gardner
Publisher: Promotion Productions
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
August 1918, a group of friends gathers in Western Pennsylvania for a two-week camping road trip, but these were not ordinary friends-and this was no ordinary time. A Chance to Breathe follows Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, John Burroughs, and Harvey Firestone, along with a caravan of vehicles and a slew of helpers, on their thousand-mile journey through the heart of America a little over a century ago. Their unlikely and fascinating friendships are matched only by their individual stories. Traversing the countryside by car, the famous campers would be some of the first participants in what would later become a traditional summer staple known as The Great American Road Trip. Having largely invented the modern world, these "vagabonds" were hoping, at least for a moment, to escape it. And who could blame them? Life in 1918 was exhausting. World War One raged in Europe while humanity braced for yet another wave of the Spanish Flu, which in the end, would prove to be more like a tsunami. Racing through America's first frontier, the story of Appalachia and West Virginia are brought to light, as are the stories of the people and places encountered along the way. In the end, A Chance to Breathe is a story of friendship, adventure, and the indomitable human spirit.