Carl Fisher's Roads

These pieces accompany an article in the May/June issue of Muse Magazine, titled 'Carl Fisher's Roads.' It's a textbook excerpt about Carl Fisher, an entrepreneur in the early part of the twentieth century who had his finger on the pulse of America's growing need for personal transportation and the hurdles that needed to be overcome.

Highway engineer F.H. Trego recommended packing the following items on a long-distance drive in the early 20th century: an ax, shovel, and four-foot hardwood plank, 50 feet of heavy rope and 16 feet of cable, an extra engine valve, two jacks, two spare tires, three gallons of oil, a pile of cooking and camping gear, and a small pistol.
The first roads were nothing more than glorified game trails.
Early bicycles were extremely dangerous, and the big-wheel bikes (called "ordinaries") were essentially brakeless.
One of Carl Fisher's terrific business models as a bike salesman involved throwing a bike off the roof of a building and then giving a free one to whomever lugged the wreckage back to his shop. He also used a similar tactic when he sold cars later on.

A small diagram of the different layers of the typical road.

Prints of the top three images are available for purchase here.

I always love working for Muse AD John Sandford, though I have a tendency to bite off a whole lot to chew on in his assignments. These are all half or quarter-page spots, but I thought they'd make pretty nice prints, so I ended up working on them quite a bit bigger. Ah well!