My Mother is a Harley
My mother is a Harley. I tried to find some family history but so far not much luck. I did have an uncle who told me we were related to the Harley-Davidsons Harleys, but since he has long gone, I can’t confront him for details or proof.
Since I am no longer an innocent or naive child I wonder if my uncle was just “goshin” me. In my childhood, it seemed to be a cultural pastime for adults to tell tall tales, especially to children who keenly absorbed every word as the gospel truth. This penchant for story telling may have something to do with the ancestry of the name Harley, some originating in Ireland. I still believe in Leprechauns.
Anyway it is fun to look up
all things Harley and share then here on this web-rant. Perhaps I
will, one day, write about the other side of my family the ancestors
who were the first "courier de bois" or "voyageurs," the most
adventurous fur trappers of all time.
Harley Name Meaning
and History
From a surname which
was from a place name meaning "hare clearing" from Old English hara
"hare" and leah "clearing".
English (now mainly
in Scotland; also West Midlands and Welsh border): habitational name
from places in Shropshire and West Yorkshire, so named from Old
English hær ‘rock’, ‘heap of stones’ or hara ‘hare’ + leah ‘wood’,
‘clearing’. In some cases the name may be topographic.
Irish: when not of
English origin, this is an Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó hEarghaile
‘descendant of Earghal’, a variant of the personal name Fearghal
without the initial F.
Some History of
Harley Davidson
The company considers
1903 to be its year of founding, though the Harley-Davidson
enterprise could be considered to have started in 1901 when William
S. Harley, age 21, drew up plans for a small engine that displaced
7.07 cubic inches (116 cc) and had four-inch flywheels. The engine
was designed for use in a regular pedal-bicycle frame.
Over the next two
years Harley and his boyhood friend Arthur Davidson labored on their
motor-bicycle using the northside machine shop at the home of their
friend, Henry Melk. It was finished in 1903 with the help of
Arthur's brother, Walter Davidson. Upon completion the boys found
their power-cycle unable to conquer Milwaukee's modest hills without
pedal assistance. Will Harley and the Davidsons quickly wrote off
their first motor-bicycle as a valuable learning experiment.
Work was immediately
begun on a new and improved second-generation machine. This first
"real" Harley-Davidson motorcycle had a bigger engine of 24.74 cubic
inches (405 cc) with 9-3/4 inch flywheels weighing 28 pounds. The
machine's advanced loop-frame pattern was similar to the 1903
Milwaukee Merkel motorcycle (designed by Joseph Merkel, later of
Flying Merkel fame.) The bigger engine and loop-frame design took it
out of the motorized-bicycle category and would help define what a
modern motorcycle should contain in the years to come. The boys also
received help with their bigger engine from outboard motor pioneer
Ole Evinrude, who was then building gas engines of his own design
for automotive use on Milwaukee's Lake Street.
The prototype of the
new loop-frame Harley-Davidson was assembled in a 10- by 15-foot (3
by 5 meter) shed in the Davidson family backyard. Most of the major
parts, however, were made elsewhere, including some probably
fabricated at the West Milwaukee railshops where oldest brother
William A. Davidson was then toolroom foreman. This prototype
machine was functional by 8 September 1904 when it competed in a
Milwaukee motorcycle race held at State Fair Park. It was ridden by
Edward Hildebrand and placed fourth. This is the first documented
appearance of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle in the historical record.
In January 1905,
small advertisements were placed in the "Automobile and Cycle Trade
Journal" that offered bare Harley-Davidson engines to the
do-it-yourself trade. By April, complete motorcycles were in
production on a very limited basis. That year the first
Harley-Davidson dealer, Carl H. Lang of Chicago, sold three bikes
from the dozen or so built in the Davidson backyard shed. (Some
years later the original shed was taken to the Juneau Avenue factory
where it would stand for many decades as a tribute to the Motor
Company's humble origins. Unfortunately, the first shed was
accidentally destroyed by contractors in the early 1970s during a
clean-up of the factory yard.)
In 1906, Harley and
the Davidsons built their first factory on Chestnut Street (later
Juneau Avenue). This location remains the Motor Company's corporate
headquarters today. The first Juneau Avenue plant was a modest 40 by
60-foot single-story wooden structure. That year around 50
motorcycles were produced.
In 1907, William S.
Harley graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a
degree in mechanical engineering. That year additional factory
expansion came with a second floor and later with facings and
additions of Milwaukee pale yellow ("cream") brick. With the new
facilities production increased to 150 motorcycles in 1907. That
September a milestone was reached when the fledgling company was
officially incorporated. They also began selling their motorcycles
to police departments around this time, a tradition that continues
today.
Production in 1905
and 1906 were all single-cylinder models with 26.84 cubic inch (440
cc) engines but as early as February of 1907 a prototype model with
a 45-degree V-Twin engine was displayed at the Chicago Automobile
Show. Although shown and advertised, very few dual cylinder V-Twin
models were built between 1907 and 1910. These first V-Twins
displaced 53.68 cubic inches (880 cc) and produced about 7
horsepower (5 kW). This gave about double the hill-climbing power of
the first singles. Top speed was about 60 mph (97 km/h). Production
jumped from 450 motorcycles in 1908 to 1,149 machines in 1909.
The success of
Harley-Davidson (along with Indian's success) had attracted many
imitators. By 1911 some 150 makes of motorcycles had already been
built in the United States -- although just a handful would survive
the 1910s.
In 1911, an improved
V-Twin model with mechanically operated intake valves was
introduced. (Earlier V-Twins had used "automatic" intake valves that
opened by engine vacuum). Displacing 49.48 cubic inches (810 cc),
the 1911 V-Twin was actually smaller than earlier twins, but gave
better performance. After 1913 the majority of bikes produced by
Harley-Davidson would be V-Twin models.
By 1913, the yellow
brick factory had been demolished and on the site a new 5-story
structure of reinforced concrete and red brick had been built. Begun
in 1910, the red brick factory with its many additions would take up
two blocks along Juneau Avenue and around the corner on 38th Street.
Despite the competition, Harley-Davidson was already pulling ahead
of Indian and would dominate motorcycle racing after 1914.
Production that year swelled to 16,284 machines.
World War I
In 1917, the United
States entered World War I and the military demanded motorcycles for
the war effort. Harleys had already been used by the military in
border skirmishes with Pancho Villa but World War I was the first
time the motorcycle had been adopted for combat service.
Harley-Davidson provided over 20,000 machines to the military forces
during World War I.
By 1920,
Harley-Davidson was the largest motorcycle manufacturer in the
world. Their motorcycles were sold by dealers in 67 countries.
Production was 28,189 machines.
In 1921, a milestone
was reached in motorcycle racing. A Harley-Davidson was the first to
win a race at an average speed of over 100 mph (160 km/h).
During the 1920s,
several improvements were put in place, such as a new 74 cubic inch
(1200cc) V-Twin, introduced in 1922, and the "Teardrop" gas tank,
still seen today, in 1925. A front brake was added in 1928.
In the late summer of
1929, Harley-Davidson introduced its 45 cubic inch flathead V-Twin
to compete with the Indian 101 Scout and the Excelsior Super X.
Harley-Davidson WL
The Great Depression
began a few months after the introduction of their 45 cubic inch
model. Harley-Davidson's sales plummeted from 21,000 in 1929 to less
than 4,000 in 1933. In order to survive, the company manufactured
industrial powerplants based on their motorcycle engines. They also
designed and built a three-wheeled delivery vehicle called the Servi-Car,
which remained in production until 1973.
In the mid-'30s,
Alfred Child opened a production line in Japan with the 74ci VL,
which became Rikuo after Harley employees were expelled.
An 80 cubic inch
flathead engine was added to the line in 1935, by which time the
single cylinder motorcycles had been discontinued.
By 1937, all the
flathead engines were equipped with the dry-sump oil recirculation
system that had been introduced with the 61E and 61EL "Knucklehead"
OHV models. This caused the 74 cubic inch V and VL models to be
renamed U and UL, the 80 cubic inch VH and VLH to be renamed UL and
ULH, and the 45 cubic inch RL to be renamed WL.
In 1941, the 74 cubic
inch "Knucklehead" was introduced as the F and the FL, replacing the
80 cubic inch flathead UH and ULH models.
World War II
Harley copied the BMW
R71 to produce its XA model.
One of only two
American cycle manufacturers to survive the Great Depression,
Harley-Davidson again produced large numbers of motorcycles for the
US Army in World War II and resumed civilian production afterwards,
producing a range of large V-twin motorcycles that were successful
both on racetracks and for private buyers.
Harley Davidson, on
the eve World War II, was already supplying the Army with a
military-specific version of its 45" WL line, called the WLA. (The A
in this case stood for "Army".) Upon the outbreak of war, the
company, along with other manufacturing enterprises, shifted to war
work. Over 90,000 military motorcycles, mostly WLAs and WLCs (the
Canadian version) would be produced, many to be provided to allies.
WLC
Shipments to the
Soviet Union under the Lend-Lease program numbered at least 30,000.
The WLAs produced during all years of war production would,
unusually, have 1942 serial numbers. Production of the WLA stopped
at the end of the war, though it would resume production from 1949
to 1952 due to the Korean War.
The U.S. Army also
asked Harley-Davidson to produce a new motorcycle with many of the
features of BMW's side-valve and shaft-driven R71. Harley largely
copied the BMW engine and drive train and produced the shaft-driven
750 cc 1942 Harley-Davidson XA. Due to the superior cooling of an
opposed twin, Harley's XA cylinder heads ran 100 °F (55 °C) cooler
than its V-twins. The XA never entered full production: the
motorcycle by that time had been eclipsed by the Jeep as the Army's
general purpose vehicle, and the WLA—already in production—was
sufficient for its limited police, escort, and courier roles. Only
1,000 were made and the XA never went into full production. It
remains the only shaft-driven Harley Davidson ever made.
Parts of this rant
courtesy of
Wikipedia