The Burroughs-Edison-Ford party is ferried across the Jackson River in Virginia in 1918. Photo: Benson Ford Research Center‘The trouble with driving,” observed nature writer John Burroughs, “is you have to keep your eyes glued to the road all the while.” He had been skeptical of those new machines, their propensity to fill “the land with noise and hurry.” But things changed when in January 1913 he received a free, brand-new Model T from none other than Henry Ford himself. Yanked out of the 19th century right into Ford’s modern mobile utopia, Burroughs was soon zooming around as if he’d been doing nothing else his whole life.

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Persons: Benson, John Burroughs, “, Henry Ford, Yanked, Burroughs, he’d Organizations: Burroughs, Edison, Benson Ford Research Center Locations: Jackson, Virginia