Jean Davidson is the granddaughter of Walter Davidson, the first president of the company, and her father was Gordon Davidson, a company vice president. She is a former dealer. She teams up with Sara Ann Harley-O'Hearn to add comments about both families. About half of the photographs were new to me, and the captions were priceless.

The book opens with family trees of Davidsons and Harleys who are in the book so you can keep track of who's who.

Then the book turns to how the families emigrated from Europe to Wisconsin in the late 1800s. Within five pages of photographs, you begin to see motorcycle images. The first classic is of Arthur Davidson with a friend holding up the fish they caught while sitting on a motorcycle and in a sidecar. The original idea behind the motorcycle was to help make it easier to go fishing. Go figure!

The text is also interesting . . . including an explanation of why the company is called Harley-Davidson rather than Davidson-Harley.

The family connections are interesting. The model called "Silent Grey Fellow" in 1914 employed the nickname for William Sylvester Harley. There's also a nice page on the first motorcycle and what happened to it through 1912.

It wasn't all easy. In 1904 a household maid raided the company's cash jar, and left the company broke. The Davidson brothers' uncle, James McLay, came to the rescue. His photograph is included.

Interspaced with the family materials are examples of motorcycles, advertisements and motion picture stills featuring motorcycles.

One of my favorite family photographs shows the chauffeur who was used to drive the founder's wives around in a sidecar. Even though the family was prospering, they preferred their bikes!

There are also photographs of the male founders working on bikes and even testing them.

The book also describes the company's attitude toward having women work at the company (single women only in the early days).

Just after I finished this book, I happened to see an advertisement for S.C. Johnson where the fourth generation and fifth generation members talked about how the company is the family and vice versa. I couldn't help but think that this observation is equally true of Harley-Davidson after enjoying this fine album.

Photography fans should be warned, however, that like most family albums, these images are often not professional grade. They are often just like the snaps that your grandparents and parents took when they were young. To me, that aspect just added to the charm of the book.

I was encouraged to take out our family album after looking at this one. I hope you will do the same.