The Vagabonds Quotes

“Henry Ford was always a man of strong opinions, and one who absolutely trusted his own instincts. He especially disdained anyone identified as an expert: ""If ever I wanted to kill opposition by unfair means, I would endow the opposition with experts. No one ever considers himself an expert if he really knows his job.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip

“the best-known and most direct of which was the Lincoln Highway, some 3,400 miles of road starting in New York City, wending its way through thirteen states, and ending in San Francisco. The highway was the brainchild of Indiana businessman Carl Fisher, who made his fortune selling automobile headlights.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip

“Resentment over the Civil War still lingered, in both the North and South. That conflict had concluded only fifty-three years earlier—Edison was a teenager when the first shots were fired, and Ford was born a few weeks after the Battle of Gettysburg.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip

“Edison called Firestone “a tenderfoot,” and predicted that, despite their agreement to wear old clothes for the duration of the trip, “Soon you’ll be dressing up like a dude.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip

“Movies, Burroughs continued, would be the ruin of the American intellect: “The average person goes to the moving-picture theater and looks at senseless films for a couple of hours, and goes away without having really had to use his brain once. . . . In the old days, he might have been spending that time with a book before him, which would have given him more information and would have made him exercise his brain a little to get it.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip

“The whole idea of driving trips was grounded on the concept of going where you wanted for as far as you liked. Particularly in rural parts of America, towns were infrequent, and the hotels in them, if any, varied greatly in cost and quality. If you found yourself driving between towns and it grew dark, continuing on the road was dangerous. Car headlights were still primitive, and even the best roads were poorly marked. Wildlife and livestock frequently ambled across—at night, a deer or cow might be practically on your fender before you realized it. Even if you did reach town safely, its hotels might not have rooms available. If there were rooms, and if the hotel was a nice one with a restaurant, guests were frequently required to “dress for dinner,” coats and ties for gentlemen, nice dresses for ladies. Much of the appeal of car trips lay in wearing comfortable clothes.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip

“The whole idea of driving trips was grounded on the concept of going where you wanted for as far as you liked. Particularly in rural parts of America, towns were infrequent, and the hotels in them, if any, varied greatly in cost and quality. If you found yourself driving between towns and it grew dark, continuing on the road was dangerous. Car headlights were still primitive, and even the best roads were poorly marked. Wildlife and livestock frequently ambled across—at night, a deer or cow might be practically on your fender before you realized it. Even if you did reach town safely, its hotels might not have rooms available. If there were rooms, and if the hotel was a nice one with a restaurant, guests were frequently required to “dress for dinner,” coats and ties for gentlemen, nice dresses for ladies.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip

“At age twelve, his first job was as a railway newspaper boy, hawking wares to passengers on a Midwest rail line. But Edison soon realized he could make more money selling his own newspaper. The preteen began reporting and publishing the Grand Trunk Herald, a gossipy conglomeration of short articles about railroad employees, regular passengers, and bits of news about popular stops and amenities to be found there.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip

“They’d drive to just outside Roxbury and meet Burroughs at Woodchuck Lodge, the property he often wrote about in his books and magazine articles.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip

“The next day’s Tribune took the issue further in an editorial. Its all-capitals headline read “HENRY FORD IS AN ANARCHIST,” and went on for nine paragraphs and 502 biting words. Ford was variously described as “deluded,” “an ignorant idealist,” and “an anarchistic enemy of the nation which protects him in his wealth.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip

“Henry Ford was caught speeding while driving in Michigan, and denounced speeding laws entirely. He argued that it was impossible to drive and constantly observe and obey speed limits.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip

“In 1915, California’s general speed limits were 10 mph “in built-up territory,” 15 mph “in any city or town,” and 20 mph outside these two areas. But Los Angeles restricted drivers to 12 mph in its central district, and San Diego prohibited speeds above 12 mph anywhere in the city. Speed traps enforced the laws. Cops sheltered behind shrubbery or buildings and timed cars with stopwatches.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip

“Even fifteen years earlier, it would have been impossible, since there were very few cars (eight thousand as opposed to fourteen million horses) and fewer drivable roads. With the exception of train travel, the average American rarely ventured more than twelve miles from home, because that was the distance a horse and wagon could comfortably cover from there and back in a day.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip

“where he talked with railroad staff about their methods of scheduling arrivals and departures until Edison finally was ready to return to San Francisco on the 5:42 p.m. train.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip

“No one ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip

“First, local guides were engaged, and all three—Frank Carson, Les Hibble, and Sam Thompson—warned that the planned ramble was far riskier than the Northern men realized, even before the campers reached the massive Everglades. The region between Fort Myers and the ’Glades was prowled by panthers and bears. The panthers lurked in the brush and made sounds like babies crying. If you were fooled and went to look, you would be attacked.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip

“Burroughs predicted that automobiles and their drivers would eventually “seek out even the most secluded nook or corner of the forest and befoul it with noise and smoke.” To him, the popularity of the Model T was the beginning of the end. He described Ford’s brainchild vehicle as “a demon on wheels.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip

“he would be very much pleased to meet Mr. Ford.” To Ford, his interaction with Edison in 1896 was inspirational and life-changing. To Edison, it had been a brief encounter with an ambitious fan, not at all unique and instantly forgotten.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip

“Edison’s words of encouragement: “Young man, that’s the thing. You have it. Keep at it.” Sometimes Ford described even more than that—he’d spent a long time at the banquet, talking with Edison; the two of them sketched things on napkins and shared a short train ride afterward. Ford was almost certainly exaggerating. But no matter how brief or extended this initial contact, his admiration for Edison blossomed into virtual worship as a result. Throughout his own business successes, as his hard work and belief in himself culminated with the Model T and subsequent automobile industry dominance, Ford warmed himself with memories of that encounter with his hero.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip

“In 1913, Edison donated some replacement palms, but, as Florida historian Michele Wehrwein Albion notes, “the relationship between the town and the Edisons remained somewhat strained.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip

“On the night of March 17, 1887, most of Fort Myers’s other 349 residents lined up outside the Edison estate and gasped with wonder as its lights went on. The local newspaper speculated that a date would soon be announced for the rest of the community to be properly wired and illuminated. But the anticipated shipments didn’t arrive, and Edison returned to New Jersey.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip

“Edison soon made an announcement that thrilled his new Florida neighbors. For his Fort Myers laboratory to function properly, it must have electricity and lights. Accordingly, he would import a massive dynamo/generator system and electrify the entire isolated community. To this point, Fort Myers homes were lit with kerosene lanterns and candles. Outside of a few major cities, this was true all over Florida. By this one act of its new favorite son, a tiny backwater would leap forward in both reputation and self-respect. A town with electricity mattered.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip

“It was impossible, at that time, to reach much of Florida’s west coast except by rickety train across the northern part of the state and then south by boat. No roads linked the coasts in mid- or lower-state. The vast Everglades formed a natural, forbidding barrier.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip

“Model Ts were also utilitarian—fancy body styles, pots for plants, and other gewgaws that traditionally prettified automobiles (and drove up the price) were conspicuously absent.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip

“In Michigan as everywhere else in the country, Americans increasingly used cars for weekend or extended holiday travel as well as day-to-day work- or errand-related driving. “Gypsying” was an early, popular term for such outings. Participants were known as “vacationists,” or, if extended trips involved pitching tents at night, “autocampers.”
― Jeff Guinn, The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip