The Cw Library
THE CW LIBRARY
At The Creation
WHAT DOES SHERLOCK HOLMES HAVE TO DO WITH Harley-Davidson? The famous detective once solved a case by noting a curious fact. It was what the dog did in the nighttime, he told Dr. Watson.
But, protested Watson, the dog did nothing.
That, said Holmes, was the curious fact.
With the stage thus set, we turn to Herbert Wagner’s research into the origin of the Harley-Davidson Motor Company, and we note that there are no officially sanctioned HarleyDavidson photographs in the book.
There are no such photos because H-D policy holds that anyone using its pictures must submit the text for review or face legal action, which is a Sherlockian way to say this book is not approved by Harley-Davidson.
Nor-and this is just as important-is this an exposé, or an attack. Instead, Wagner is a professional historian, and a Harley rider and restorer, who became interested in The Motor Company’s history and found that the details of those early days were vague, even contradictory.
Most historians, including this reviewer by the way, simply accepted the vague-but-official version, that the first HarleyDavidson was completed early in 1903, and went on from there. Wagner didn’t rely on the official version. Instead, he dug through newspaper and magazine files and interviewed survivors of earlier eras. He dug for 10 years and came up with material never seen before, and yes, it does contradict the accepted version.
This is a painstaking, honest effort, dense with facts. There are no accusations: Wagner compiles and cross-references and without directly saying the 1903 origination is wrong, presents a case no jury could ignore, namely that the first true Harley was completed in 1904, and that the firm went into business in 1905.
Two examples? One, the numbering system adopted in 1909 referred to the ’05 model as Model 1. Two, The Motor Company celebrated its 50th Anniversary in 1954, not 1953. (And its 75th, by the way, in 1978, without ever saying why the change.)
In the short run, this is a must-read work for anyone who really cares about motorcycle history. It’s all-new, remember, with photos and ads and press releases and news accounts giving a much better review of motorcycling’s early days than do the accepted versions.
Wagner’s theory is that when H-D was truly in business and rivaled the scores of other makes, all the competitors made claims to have been there early, even George Hendee, the marketing genius behind Indian.
Thus, there are Harley ads from 1913 containing the slogan, “Producers of high-grade motorcycles for over 11 years,” and one from 1918 proclaiming, “For 16 years, the master mount.”
Wagner presents portions of a transcript, a court case in which co-founder William S. Harley is asked about such inaccuracies. Responding, Mr. Harley denies responsibility for the ad copy, while stoutly refusing to criticize the H-D employee who wrote it.
What happened, Wagner says, is an over-eager ad man fudged, when fudging was routine, and later managers were stuck with the claims until no one remembered what really happened.
In the long run? Consider the Millennium.
Remember? First, the public refused to accept that the old millennium ended in 2000 A.D. and the new one began in 2001. Further, due to errors in the distant past, our calendar is wrong, with the best guess now being that Jesus Christ was bom in 3 or perhaps 4 B.C.
Did the public care? Not one whit. We all wanted to party, so there was all the fuss in 2000 and that was that.
As the cynical newspaper guy says in the movie, “When the legend outruns the facts, print the legend.”
That’s just what we have done. We celebrated Harley’s Hundredth in 2003, and that will be the legend for the rest of recorded time, Wagner’s honest and dedicated efforts notwithstanding.
Don’t look for this one at your nearest HarleyDavidson store.
Allan Girdler
At The Creation: Myth, Reality, and the Origin of the Harley-Davidson Motorcycle, 1901-1909, Herbert Wagner, 228 pages, $25; Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 816 State St., Madison, WI 53706; 608/264-6400; www.wisconsinhistory.org
