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Horatio's Drive
On the evening of May 19, 1903, in the exclusive University Club in San Francisco, a debate raged over the reliability of the new "horseless carriages" that had been showing up on the streets of major American cities. Horatio Nelson Jackson, a 31-year-old retired doctor from Vermont who was passing through San Francisco, accepted a wager. Under the terms of the bet, Jackson would win 50 dollars if he made it all the way to New York City by car, something no one else had ever done before, in less than three months. Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip follows Jackson on his adventurous and often hilarious drive from San Francisco to New York City in 1903.
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If Jackson's story is new to you, why do you think it was unknown for so long?
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Can you identify similar Jackson-esque characters in American history, i.e. someone who has an unusual notion and pursues it to the end despite overwhelming obstacles?
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The idea of the automobile and "the open road" in American mythology has always been prominent. In your opinion, what aspect of travel by car keeps Americans interested year in and year out?
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William Least Heat-Moon, a travel writer, mentions the importance of "movement" - in the mind and through the landscape - in the American psyche. Do you think that modern automobiles, planes, trains, etc. which run on schedules allow for the necessary movement Heat-Moon calls for?
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The year of Jackson's drive, 1903, was also the year of President Teddy Roosevelt's message to England by wireless, the Wright brother's flight at Kitty Hawk and a telegraph cable laid across the Pacific. Why do you think technological advances come in clusters? Or don't they?
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A year after Jackson's cross-country drive, the driving time was cut in half; two years later, it was cut in half again. Can you think of other technological advancements as rapid as this?
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There are numerous songs about cars and romance in the popular music canon. Why do you think this is the case?
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Of the three automobile teams trying to cross the continent in 1903, only Jackson's wasn't "corporate"-sponsored or planned. Do you think his success meant more since he accomplished it mostly on his own?
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Has the automobile, and the interstate road system, truly brought the land together? Why or why not?
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Did you/do you take road trips with your family? What were/are they like?
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