“Why is it,” I ask my thesis advisor, “that we find the most crucial information in the eleventh hour?”
“Consider it a gift,” he responds.
My eleventh-hour gift is the discovery of the book The Carriage Trade by Thomas A. Kinney. I found it when browsing the footnotes about German Wagon and Carriage-making in the web version of the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. The book is an incredible overview of horse-drawn vehicles, the people who built them, how the old crafts of blacksmithing, woodworking, and wagon-making underwent a major transformation well before the automobile came along. Like manna in the desert, what a terrific resource.
And so, hand in hand with the dizzying excitement of new discoveries, the tension builds to GET MY THESIS DONE!