To the city of milwaukee. Harley davidson really is. I think, more than just a Motorcycle Company in a lot of ways. Harley davidson really captures that arrival of milwaukee as a manufacturing city, as one of those cities where Great American machines are built and made. And i think that thats a big part of Harley Davidsons place in the history of the city of milwaukee. There were four founders of Harley Davidson motorcycles, three brothers Arthur Walter and william h. Davidson and that their friend williams, harley and the four of them cooperated in the early 1900s to come together and create the Harley Davidson motorcycle. The idea came from just the moment in time in the early 1900s, personal transportation was really undergoing a revolution right then, with the end of the horse and carriage and the rise of the bicycle and small internal combustion motors and actually Harley Davidson was d, n necessarily as a Motorcycle Company, but really a Motor Company. When youat t name of the corporation and its Harley DavidsonMotor Company, and they really were initially just in the business of providing transportation solutions. And one of the first solution and they experimented with was a motorized bicycle. Its essentially a prototype motor cycle. And i think that they had such success motor racing that first bicycle and then morphing from a clip on motor that would be attached to an existing bicycle to a purpose built motorcycle, that it kind of dovetailed really nicely into the beginning of the motorcycle industry. This is a the oldest Harley Davidson in existence. Its one of the handful of bikes that they made between 1903 and the beginnings of 1905. So, you know, we enshrined it here as of an example of the beginnings of our motorcycle production. It does look basically like a kind of heavyweight bicycle with the frame modified to kind of embrace that engine. People are often puzzled by theres a chain on the other side and theres a belt here and theres pedals and like, whats up with all of that . At the early in the 20th century, the way you started one of these things, you would pedal it. And at a certain point when you got enough kind of momentum, youd move that lever there. It would tighten up the leather belt and it kick starts the engine. So you didnt have an electric start for harley . Didnt happen until the sixties. And we we had a, you know, a sort of a traditional step starter early in the teens. But for the first ten years, thats how you started these things. The Harleydavidson Motor Company was officially incorporated in 1907, going from really a small hobby business where theyre building these motorized conveyances, really for their own personal entertainment, and then actually seeing the Business Case for them and the oppor and incorporating it into an actual manufacturing concern where they were entering Series Production and delivering product all around the country and then the Motor Company really grew quite quickly from there. They had International Operations as early as 1912 and in those early days they really would quadruple quintuple production almost every year through the twenties until they were actually quite a big concern. So when you enter our lovely museum here, you see this parade of historical motorcycles kind of coming at you. We have this incredible collection, so we use it on both floors of the museum as kind of a timeline, starting with the singles. So this is a later single in 1911. The thing thats incredible about this collection is that these things were saved in their original condition. You know, so many of them were saved, knew right off the line. This one looks to me like its been written a little bit, but you can see its got its original leather belt, its original leather seat, all of its original paint. The tires really rot out. So the tires are all reproductions. So in 1909, the Company First started trying to build its vtwin engine like this one here. So thats the year that that bike was introduced. The engineering, they were kind of in a transitional phase and we built, like, we believe, 27 of these and they didnt quite perform the way the founders expected. So they all were kind of brought back here to milwaukee and they went back to the drawing board and and redesigned that engine. And 1911 was the first production vtwin that was really successful. Youre seeing kind of the march of technology and also of our manufacturing ability as the theres the, you know, the bikes become a little more beautiful and curvaceous and were still selling this as economical family transportation. I think it was a combination of thin that madearly harleydavidson so revolutionary. First of all, they wer good motorcycles. They were very wellbuilt. They wry reliable, and they were very effective at their job. And theyre also very affordable. And at that time, early on, a motorcycle cost really not significantly more than a bicycle, and especially compared to the earliest automobile, it was significantly less expensive. So it was a really a affordable transportation alternative that provided the freedom of motorizetrsportation in a package that was easy to store, easy to maintain and easy to use. And i think that combination of being really effective and useful transportation and also being really affordable in the early days really helped to propel harleydavidson to to the forefront of the motorcycle industry. And by 1920, harleyvion was the largest Motorcycle Company in the world, producing around 25,000 motorcycles a year. Harley davidson was actually supplying motorcycles for both of the world wars. They played a small role in world war one, supplying a few motorcycles cause, but a huge role in world war two, taking advantage of that particular blend of versatility and access and portability that a motorcycle offers it can really get into places that you couldnt get into with, certainly not with a tank or even with a jeep. And be able to slip behind enemy lines and detected the harley, the motorcycle really offered specific advantages for for working on the front. So it did play a very prominent role in world war two. This is kind of the primary work for workhorse of world war two. Its got a sexy name. The w le not you know but the we made these motorcycles not only for the us military but also for all of our allies. So there were one sent to canada, russia. Theres literature here to for the chinese versions and these, these motorcycle, these were not really used. They werent combat vehicles. They were primarily kind of despatch riders, communications. So theyd be running back and forth at the front, carrying messages and doing a variety of kind of support operations and but, you know, you had to be ready for it, everything. So its got blackout lights and a machine gun and, and this was, you know, in addition to making the bikes, we trained the riders and we trained the mechanics. And then after the war, you know, all of these the guys who were lucky enough to come back, a lot of them decided they wanted to keep riding. And the ones that might have been stuck in a trench looking at those despatch riders, going by probably decided, hey, now is my chance. So they could could buy these vehicles. And as we go downstairs, youll see what they did with them once they tore all that military gear off. And when we think about harleydavidson today, we think about motorcycle. That is really a form of selfexpression for for a person. Its very individual, realize its very personalized. Its awesome or often customized exactly. To their particular needs or desires or wants. One of the after effects of the depression was that motorcycles were no longer used necessarily as utilitarian in tools or transportation. They became recreation vehicles at that point. Automobiles were much less expensive compared to motorcycles and motorcycles were much less necessary as a transportation alternative, as Mass Transportation and automobile became more easily accessible and affordable. So motorcycles really transformed from a tool to a recreational toy. So after the great depression, you see for the first time, optional colors on the harleydavidson motorcycles or comfort accessories or performance accessories where you could really customize the motorcycle to suit your unique personality. Just because the market had changed in the way that people use their motorcycles had changed. Also, during that time period, 2019 is the 116th year of continuous production for Harley Davidson motorcycles and the motorcycle laws are still made here in america, one of the largest Harley Davidson manufacturing facilities is here, milwaukee, at pilgrim road, which is just a few mile away from whereere sitting right now at the museum. So i think that its very interesting. Over 116 years that harley vidson has stayed rooted in the Milwaukee Community and has really thrived in the Milwaukee Community and still builds these fantastic motorcycles that sent out and enjoyed by enthusall around the world, but still design created, builds and manufactured here. And i think that having that product, that really wellbuilt, wellmade, revolutionary product delivered with the words milwaukee, wisconsin, on the side of it, really put the city of milwaukee on the map and really helped increase, i think, the International Profile of the state of wisconsin and specifically in milwaukee as a place where great things came tonight, im happy to welcome david grant to the library to discuss his latest book, the wager a tale shipwreck, mutiny and murder. In it, he recounts the fallout of a British Naval shipwreck off the coast of patagonia in the mith