The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip

by Jeff Guinn,
The Minneapolis Star Tribune, July 28, 2019

By 1920, a joke about “The Vagabonds” appeared frequently in print and on the vaudeville circuit. A car breaks down in a field, in front of a farmer. Four men get out to determine what happened. The farmer asks if something might be wrong with the engine, the battery or the tires. The passengers respond with three definitive “no’s.” “You say you are Ford, Edison and Firestone,” the farmer exclaims, throwing up his hands. “And I suppose this old guy with the white beard [John Burroughs, the naturalist] is going to tell me he’s Santa Claus.”