BROADCASTS.com

b'Some of the most important moments in the lives of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison weren\\u2019t their inventions or business successes. It was their road trips through the most remote, rustic parts of America. Between 1916 and 1924, Ford, Edison, Harvey Firestone went on a number of camping trips. Calling themselves the Vagabonds, they set up campsites, took photographs, and fixed cars themselves. They were also joined by famous naturalist John Burroughs, an elderly writer with a large white beard who looked like a gold prospector.

The relationship began in 1913 between Burroughs, then 75, and Ford, nearly 50, and enjoying a banner year for the Model T. Both men were influenced by the writing of Ralph Waldo Emerson, but they disagreed about the role of the automobile in American life.

To Ford\\u2019s chagrin, Burroughs wrote in an article in Atlantic Monthly that the automobile \\u201cwas going to kill the appreciation of nature\\u201d; Ford believed it would open up facets of America that most people could not access. In response, Ford sent Burroughs a new Model T, which indeed changed the old naturalist\\u2019s life by prompting him to set out on wide-ranging road trips beyond his Hudson River homestead. Meanwhile, Ford and Edison, who had both \\u201cimbibed\\u201d the rural values of the Midwest, and Firestone, \\u201cthe head of the largest tire manufacturing concern in the country,\\u201d were long-standing friends, busy plotting numerous new business ventures.

Their road trips became increasingly ambitious to San Francisco, the Adirondacks of New York, and the Green Mountains of Vermont. Davis chronicles the memorable road trip of summer 1918, when the fast friends\\u2014who held wildly different views about the impending war\\u2014drove from the Allegheny range through West Virginia and into the \\u201crustic magic of the Great Smoky Mountains,\\u201d all in the spirit of curiosity and exploration.

To discuss these journeys, and the long-lasting impact it had on Ford, Edison, and 20th-century America, is today\\u2019s guest Wes Davis, author of \\u201cAmerican Journey: On the Road with Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and John Burroughs.\\u201d'