Thomas Edison relaxing on a "Vagabonds" camping trip, 1921. 
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 Florida and toured the Everglades. The notion blossomed the next year when Ford, Edison and Firestone were in California for the Panama-Pacific Exposition.
The trips were well organized and equipped. There were several heavy passenger cars and vans to carry the travelers, household staff, and equipment; Ford Motor Company photographers also accompanied the group.
The 1919 trip involved fifty vehicles, including two designed by Ford: a kitchen camping car with a gasoline stove and built-in icebox presided over by a cook and a heavy touring car mounted on a truck chassis with compartments for tents, cots, chairs, electric lights, etc.
On later trips, there was a huge, folding round table equipped with a lazy susan that seated twenty.
After 1924, the growing fame of the campers brought too much public attention and the trips were discontinued.
(Source: The Henry Ford)
After 1924, the growing fame of the campers brought too much public attention and the trips were discontinued.
(Source: The Henry Ford)
Thomas Edison, John Burroughs, Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone
