It involved only a half-dozen cars and 17 men, but this was one race that not only made history -it changed it.
GET A HORSE
In
1908, the promise of the automobile was just that -a promise. The
industry was in its infancy, and most people still relied on horses or
their own two feet to get from one place to another. Skeptics were
convinced that the automobile was just an expensive and unreliable
gimmick. So how could anyone prove to the world that the automobile was
the most practical, durable, and reliable means of transport ever
invented? Easy: Sponsor a race. But not just any race- it would have to
be a marathon of global proportions, pitting the newfangled machines
(and their drivers) against the toughest conditions possible on a course
stretching around the world, with a sizable cash prize to the winner,
say, $1,000. Then call it “The Great Race” …and cross your fingers.
MY CAR’S BETTER THAN YOURS
The starting line in Times Square.
It’s
hard to comprehend the hold automobiles had on the public imagination
at the turn of the 20th century. A similar frenzy of technical
one-upmanship occurred during the race to the moon in the 1960s, as
industrial nations competed fiercely to be considered the most modern
and up-to-date technologically. When it came to cars, there had been a
few rally-style road races before 1908 -most notably a Peking-to-Paris
auto race in 1907, but nothing on a truly global scale. So
The New York Times and the French newspaper
Le Matin
combined to organize a bigger, better competition designed to be the
ultimate test of man and machine. Starting in New York City, the racers
would cross the continental United States and the Alaskan Territory,
take a ferry across the Bering Strait, then drive from Vladivostok
across Siberia to Paris- a trek of 22,000 miles.
Few paved roads
existed anywhere at that time, and much of the planned route crossed
vast roadless areas. And with few gas station in existence, just
completing the course would require every ounce of stamina and ingenuity
on the part of the car and the driver, but the winner would own
indisputable bragging rights to the claim of the Best Car in the World.
GENTLEMEN, START YOUR ENGINES
THEY’RE OFF!
Immediately
upon leaving Manhattan, the cars drove into a fierce snowstorm that
claimed the Sizaire-Naudin as the race’s first victim. The 15-horsepower
French two-seater broke down in Peekskill, new York, and was forced to
quit. It had gone a mere 44 miles. Snow dogged the remaining cars all
the way to Chicago, slowing their progress to a snail’s pace. It took
the Thomas Flyer eight hours to travel four miles in Indiana, and then
only with horses breaking the trail in front of the car.
After
Chicago, the cars headed out across the Great Plains in subzero
temperatures. To keep warm, the French Motobloc team rerouted heat from
the engine into the cab (an innovation that found its way into future
cars) but to no avail; The Motobloc had to quit the race in Iowa.
Meanwhile, the winter weather had turned the plains into mud, which
stuck to the chassis of the cars, adding hundreds of pounds to the
weight of each vehicle. Teams took to stopping at fire stations in every
town they passed for a high-pressure rinse.
Unable
to find usable roads across Nebraska, the drivers took to “riding the
rails.” straddling railroad tracks and bouncing along, tie to tie, for
hundreds of miles. (Blowouts were frequent.) A Union Pacific conductor
road along with the American team to alert them to oncoming trains. In
especially bad weather, one team member would straddle the radiator with
a lantern and peer ahead of the car.
When there were non train
tracks, the cars used ruts left by covered wagons years before. They
navigated by the stars, sextants, compasses, and local guides, when they
could hire them. And if they had to stop for more than a few hours, the
radiators had to be completely drained -antifreeze hadn’t been invented
yet.
TAKING THE LEAD
After 41 days, 8
hours, and 15 minutes, the Thomas Flyer was the first to reach San
Francisco, becoming the first ever car to cross the United States in
winter. The American team promptly boarded a steamer to Valdez, Alaska,
the starting point for the overland trip to the Bering Sea, and brought a
crate of homing pigeons with them to send reports back to the States.
Race organizers had hoped the ice across the Bering Strait would provide
a bridge for the cars. But the Alaska leg had to be scrapped because
the weather and driving conditions were even worse than they’d been in
the United States. (The pigeon plan didn’t work so well, either. The
first bird sent aloft from Valdez was attacked and eaten by seagulls.)
The
U.S. team was given a 15-day bonus for their Alaskan misadventure and
told to return to San Francisco to join the other racers on the S.S.
Shawmutt,
bound for Yokohama, Japan. At the same time, the German team was
penalized 15 days for putting their car on a train from Ogden, Utah, to
San Francisco. Both decisions would bear heavily on the race’s end.
GENTLEMEN, RESTART YOUR ENGINES
The Thomas Flyer in China.
Once
they docked in Japan, the remaining competitors had to get their cars
to the port of Vladivostok, Russia, where the race would officially
resume. The Germans and Italians took another ship; the Americans and
the French drove across Japan and took a ferry. It was too much for the
De Dion-Bouton. After 7,332 miles, the French team threw in the towel,
and only three cars were left: the German Protos, the Italian Zust, and
the American Thomas Flyer. After another rousing sendoff from a roaring
crowd of spectators, the cars zoomed out of Vladivostok …and into the
mud. The spring thaw had turned the Siberian tundra into a quagmire.
Only
a few miles out of Vladivostok, the American team came upon the German
Protos stuck in deep mud. George Schuster carefully nudged his car past
the germans onto firmer ground a few hundred yards ahead. With him were
mechanic George Miller, assistant Hans Hansen, and
New York Times reporter
George Macadam. When Hansen suggested they help the Germans out, the
others agreed. The stunned Germans were so grateful that their driver,
Lt. Hans Koeppen, uncorked a bottle of champagne he’d been saving of
rate victory celebration in Paris, declaring the American gesture “a
gallant and comradely act.” The two teams raised a glass together,
reporter Macadam recorded the moment for his paper, and the subsequent
photograph appeared in papers around the globe and became the most
enduring image of the race.
HUMAN OBSTACLES
Road
conditions in Siberia were even worse than they’d been in the western
United States. Once again the cars took to the rails- this time of the
tracks of the Trans-Siberian Railway. An attempt by Schuster to use a
railroad tunnel could have been scene from a silent movie comedy, as the
American car frantically backed out of the tunnel ahead of an oncoming
train. There were other obstacles, too. At one point the American team
was charged by a band of horsemen brandishing rifles. The Americans
burst into laughter and drove right through the herd of riders, leaving
the bandits in the dust.
Driving around the clock created other
problems: The relief driver often fell out of the open car while
sleeping, so the team fashioned a buckle and a strap to hold him in- the
world’s first seat belt. The length and rigor of the race took its toll
as well, and tempers flared. At once point an exasperates Schuster
threatened to throw Hansen out of the car and off the team. Hansen
responded by pulling his pistol and snarling, “Do that and I will put a
bullet in you.” Mechanic George Miller drew
his gun and
snapped, “If any shooting is done, you will not be the only one.”
Finally both sides agreed to holster their weapons and press on.
ITALIAN TRAGEDY
The Italian Zust at the beginning of the Great Race.
By
May the cars had been racing around the world for four months. The
quicker German Protos had pulled ahead of the American Thomas Flyer,
while the underpowered Italian Zust fell farther and father behind but
pressed on, convinced they’d catch up. Then disaster struck. Outside
Tauroggen, a Russian frontier town, a horse drawing a cart was startled
by the sound of the passing Zust and bolted out of control. A child
playing near the road was trampled and killed. The Italians drove into
Tauroggen to report the accident and were promptly thrown in jail, where
they remained for three days, unable to communicate with anyone
outside. Finally, the local police determined the driver of the cart was
at fault for losing control of his horse, and released them. They
continued on to Paris in a somber mood.
AND THE WINNER IS…
The German Protos in Paris.
On
July 30, 1908 -169 days after the race’s start- the Thomas Flyer
arrived on the outskirts of Paris, smelling victory. The Protos had
actually gotten to Paris four days earlier, but because of the
American’s 15-day bonus and the German’s 15-day penalty, everyone knew
the American team had an insurmountable margin of victory. Or did they?
Before the Americans could enter the city, a gendarme stopped
them. French law required automobiles to have two working headlights.
The Flyer had only one; the other had been broken back in Russia (by a
bird). A crowd gathered.
Parisians, like thousands of others
around the world, had been following the progress of the Great Race for
months in the papers. They were anxious to welcome the victors at the
finish line on the Champs-Elysées.
Schuster’s crew pleaded with
the gendarme, but he wouldn’t budge. No headlight, no entry. A
frustrated Schuster was about to set off an international incident by
attacking the gendarme when a bicyclist offered the Americans a headlamp
from his bike. Mechanic Miller tried to unbolt the light but couldn’t
pry it off. The solution: they lifted the bike onto the hood of the car
and held it in place by hand. The gendarme shrugged his shoulders and
waved them on. A few hours later they crossed the finish line. Victory
at last!
A NEW ERA BEGINS
George Schuster in Paris.
The
celebrations lasted for weeks, long enough for the Italian team, weary
but unbowed to roll into Paris on September 17 and take third place. The
Great race was officially over. The drivers and their crews became
national heroes in their home countries. When the Americans got back to
New York, they were given a ticket tape parade down Fifth Avenue and
invited by President Theodore Roosevelt (the first U.S. president to
drive a car) to a special reception at his summer house on Long Island.
Today the Thomas Flyer is on display in Harrah’s Automobile Collection
in Reno, Nevada. Munich’s Deutsches Museum has the German Protos. The
Italian Zust was destroyed in a fire only months after the race, but the
ultimate fates of the cars involved didn’t matter. All three finishers
had proved that a car could reliably and safely go anywhere in the world
at any time, and under any conditions. No other form of transport could
make the same claim. With the conclusion of the Great Race, the
Automobile Age had finally arrived. That same year, Henry Ford put the
Model T into full production on the assembly line, and the world has
been car-crazy ever since.
Many
consider her the nineteenth century’s Rosa Parks, and Elizabeth
Jennings Graham may well have influenced Ms. Parks and other Civil
Rights crusaders throughout the years. In fact, Ms. Graham’s heroic act
against racism even took place before the Civil War, when slavery was
still legal in fifteen states.
For
centuries, mankind’s only mirrors were pools of water or polished
metal. The first glass mirrors were made by Venetian craftsmen in the
1300s. Their method: They covered the back of a piece of glass with an
amalgam of tin and mercury, rubbed flat and smooth. A piece of wool
cloth would then be laid on top of the mercury and pressed with iron
weights for more than a week. Then the excess mercury would be drained
off. This method remained a carefully guarded secret, and for centuries
Venice had a monopoly on mirrors. 
*
A middle school in Oregon was faced with a unique problem: A number of
girls were beginning to use lipstick and would apply it in the bathroom.
That was fine, but for some reason, they would also press their lips to
the mirrors, leaving dozens of little lip prints. Finally the principal
called all the girls to the bathroom. She explained that the lip prints
were a major problem for the custodian and asked the custodian to
demonstrate how difficult it was to clean one of the mirrors. He
proceeded to take a long-handled brush, dip it into the nearest toilet,
and scrub the mirror. After that, there were no lip prints on the
mirrors. 
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