Barney Oldfield

Barney Oldfield was one of the first great celebrities of American motor racing. Born Bernard Eli Oldfield in Ohio in 1878, he began as a competitive bicycle racer before Henry Ford recruited him to drive the formidable Ford 999 in 1902. Oldfield subsequently raced machines including the Winton Bullet, Peerless Green Dragon and Blitzen Benz, establishing numerous speed records and touring the United States in heavily promoted exhibition races.

He drove for manufacturers including Ford and Peerless and became known for exhibition races that drew large crowds. His public persona helped turn speed, mechanical innovation and professional driving into major features of early twentieth-century American popular culture.

John Jakes’s American Dreams places Barney Oldfield inside the novel’s fascination with the new technologies and celebrity culture of the early twentieth century. Carl Crown’s move through automobile racing towards aviation brings him into a world in which Oldfield’s speed records and public persona helped turn the racing driver into a national sporting figure. His appearance links the fictional Crown family to the real transition from experimental motor cars to mass spectacle, just as the novel uses film, flight and war to show how rapidly modern machines were changing both careers and public imagination.