Between 1915 and 1924 Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone, and John Burroughs, calling themselves The Four Vagabonds, embarked on a series of summer camping trips. The idea was initiated in 1914 when Ford and Burroughs visited Edison in Ft. Myers, Florida. Others joined the group at various times, including family and business associates. Wives joined their husbands for the first time on the 1921 trip, and President Harding joined the group for a few days. The group assembled in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a journey through the Smoky Mountains into West Virginia, Tennessee, south to Asheville, North Carolina and back through the Shenandoah Valley to Hagerstown, Maryland. Equipment used by the party included a folding circular camp table with lazy susan seating twenty, sleeping tents with mosquito netting flaps, a dining tent twenty feet square in which the table was placed, a gasoline stove, and a refrigerated Lincoln camping truck.
From the description of A Weekend with the Edison-Ford-Firestone Camping Party / Edsel Ford album, 1921. (The Henry Ford). WorldCat record id: 52847329
