Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip

by Matthew Algeo

Overview

On June 19, 1953, Harry Truman got up early, packed the trunk of his Chrysler New Yorker, and did something no other former president has done before or since: he hit the road. No Secret Service protection. No traveling press. Just Harry and his childhood sweetheart Bess, off to visit old friends, take in a Broadway play, celebrate their wedding anniversary in the Big Apple, and blow a bit of the money he’d just received to write his memoirs. Hopefully incognito.

            In this lively history, author Matthew Algeo meticulously details how Truman’s plan to blend in went wonderfully awry. Fellow diners, bellhops, cabbies, squealing teenagers at a Future Homemakers of America convention, and one very by-the-book Pennsylvania state trooper all unknowingly conspired to blow his cover. Algeo revisits the Trumans’ route, staying at the same hotels and eating at the same diners, and takes readers on brief detours into topics such as the postwar American auto industry, McCarthyism, the nation’s highway system, and the decline of Main Street America. By the end of the 2,500-mile journey, you will have a new and heartfelt appreciation for America’s last citizen-president.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781569767078
Publisher:	Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	04/01/2011
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	166,575
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Matthew Algeo is an award-winning journalist who has reported from three continents for public radio’s All Things Considered, Marketplace, and Morning Edition. He is the author of The President Is a Sick Man and Last Team Standing.

Table of Contents

Preface 1

1 Washington, D.C., Inauguration Day, 1953 5

2 Independence, Missouri, Winter and Spring, 1953 19

3 Hannibal, Missouri, June 19, 1953 39

4 Decatur, Illinois, June 19-20, 1953 57

5 Indianapolis, Indiana, June 20, 1953 75

6 Wheeling, West Virginia, June 20-21, 1953 85

7 Frostburg, Maryland, June 21, 1953 99

8 Washington, D.C., June 21-26, 1953 111

9 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 26-27, 1953 133

10 New York, New York, June 27-July 5, 1953 141

11 Pennsylvania (or, Abducted), July 5-6, 1953 165

12 Columbus, Ohio, July 6-7, 1953 181

13 Richmond, Indiana, July 7, 1953 193

14 Indianapolis, Indiana, July 7-8, 1953 203

15 St. Louis, Missouri, July 8, 1953 211

Epilogue 217

Postscript 227

Afterword 233

Acknowledgments 239

Sources 241

Bibliography 245

Index 257

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"One of the Best Books of the Year." —Washington Post

"An engaging account . . . Well-researched."  —Wall Street Journal

“Now, this is what’s called a road trip.” —In Transit, New York Times travel blog

"Matthew Algeo recalls [my grandparents'] memorable trip beautifully and with the sense of humor it deserves."  —Clifton Truman Daniel, grandson of Harry S. Truman

"Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure resonates Aaron Copeland's 'Fanfare for the Common Man'—brassy, bright, energetic, brief and declaratively American."  —Washington Times

"Enlivened by Algeo"s endeavors to see the places where Truman stopped, this is an engaging historical sidebar."  —Booklist Online

“Algeo chronicles this unlikely excursion in great and wonderful detail. . . . [An] enchanting glimpse into a much simpler age.” —Library Journal

“An absolutely wonderful book.” —Virginian-Pilot

Editorial Reviews

"One of the Best Books of the Year." —Washington Post

"An engaging account . . . Well-researched."  —Wall Street Journal

“Now, this is what’s called a road trip.” —In Transit, New York Times travel blog

"Matthew Algeo recalls [my grandparents'] memorable trip beautifully and with the sense of humor it deserves."  —Clifton Truman Daniel, grandson of Harry S. Truman

"Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure resonates Aaron Copeland's 'Fanfare for the Common Man'—brassy, bright, energetic, brief and declaratively American."  —Washington Times

"Enlivened by Algeo"s endeavors to see the places where Truman stopped, this is an engaging historical sidebar."  —Booklist Online

“Algeo chronicles this unlikely excursion in great and wonderful detail. . . . [An] enchanting glimpse into a much simpler age.” —Library Journal

“An absolutely wonderful book.” —Virginian-Pilot

From the Publisher

The title "Excellent Adventure" probably ought to be retired at this point, but not quite yet, for Matthew Algeo has given us just that: an extremely excellent adventure by ex-President Harry Truman and his wife, Bess…It's hard not to read this utterly likable if occasionally overwrought book without feeling a tad nostalgic for the days when American automobiles set the gold standard, gas cost 27 cents a gallon, and the best restaurant in town might be found at the airport.
—The Washington Post

Christopher Buckley

Public radio reporter Algeo (Last Team Standing) brings the 1950s into focus with a fascinating reconstruction of Harry and Bess Truman's postpresidential 2,500-mile road trip. "I like to take trips-any kind of trip," Truman wrote. "They are about the only recreation I have besides reading." Between 2006 and 2008, Algeo retraced their journey with stopovers at some of the same diners and hotels the couple visited. When Truman left the White House in 1953, he returned to Independence, Mo., rejecting lucrative offers he felt would "commercialize" the presidency. His only income was a small army pension. Acquiring a 1953 Chrysler, the Trumans set out with no fanfare and a curious notion of "traveling incognito." However, reporters and newsreel cameras soon turned their vehicular vacation into an ongoing media event. The book benefits from extensive research through oral history interviews and papers at the Harry S. Truman Library, and Algeo's own interviews with eyewitnesses. With deliberate detours, this book is a portal into the past with layers of details providing unusual authenticity and a portrait of the president as an ordinary man. 20 b&w photos, 1 map. (May)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly

Algeo has done a first-rate job of piecing together the trip...a fascinating reading experience.

Jackson Free Press

Enlivened by Algeo's endeavors to see the places where Truman stopped, this is an engaging historical sidebar.

Booklist Online

An engaging account . . . well-researched.

Wall Street Journal

Resonates Aaron Copeland's Fanfare for the Common Man—brassy, bright, energetic, brief and declaratively American.

Washington Times

Charming and engrossing.

Riverfront Times

In the summer of 1953, back in Missouri after leaving the White House six months before, Harry and Bess Truman loaded up their new Chrysler and headed out, like thousands of their fellow citizens, on a summer vacation. Public radio reporter Algeo chronicles this unlikely excursion in great and wonderful detail. The Trumans drove to Washington, DC, to visit old friends and then on to New York to visit their daughter, Margaret. Along the way they caused a sensation at almost every diner and filling station at which they stopped. In addition to a detailed itinerary, Algeo, who retraced the Trumans' route, also provides many interesting side trips, including both press and government reactions and interviews with folks who'd met the Trumans on the trip. It was still a time when former Presidents received no pension or Secret Service protection, when there were no interstate highways or big chain motels, and travel was a much more intimate and haphazard affair. This enchanting glimpse into a much simpler age that is all but gone should appeal to anyone interested in the Fifties, Harry Truman, or unusual travel tales. Recommended for public libraries and undergraduate collections.
—Dan Forrest

Library Journal