author
H. Clifford (Harry Clifford) Brokaw
1886–1965
Best known for a practical 1918 guide to early motoring, this American writer helped explain how the modern motor-car worked at a time when automobiles were still new to many readers. His surviving published work has the feel of a hands-on manual shaped by the fast-changing world of early twentieth-century transportation.
1 Audiobook
Putnam's Automobile Handbook: The Care and Management of the Modern Motor-Car
by H. Clifford (Harry Clifford) Brokaw, Charles A. (Charles Ackerman) Starr
About the author
H. Clifford Brokaw, also listed as Harry Clifford Brokaw, was an American author born in 1886. He is chiefly remembered today for Putnam's Automobile Handbook: The Care and Management of the Modern Motor-Car (1918), written with Charles A. Starr.
That book was published by G. P. Putnam and presented as a practical handbook on automobile care, operation, and maintenance. It places Brokaw among the early writers who helped ordinary readers understand a new technology that was rapidly changing everyday life.
Reliable biographical details about his wider career are limited in the sources readily available online. Public records associated with his name indicate he was born on October 5, 1886, and died on June 12, 1965, and because so little personal information is well documented, his reputation now rests mainly on this useful snapshot of the early automobile age.