October 1, 2012 • 40 mins
In this second episode with CarStuff's Scott Benjamin, we pick up at the height of Ford's success: The Model T is revolutionizing America. But he also obsessively controls his employees, becomes a noted anti-Semite and capitalizes on wartime contracts.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, welcome to the podcast. I'm
Sarah Dowdy and I am again joined by fellow editor
Scott Benjamin. I'm back. So Scott is the co host
(00:21):
of Car Staff, and we've been talking about Henry Ford,
one of the automotive greats, and we've really covered most
of his early career. In our first episode, sort of
the farm boy starts tinkering with engines, machines, ends up
coming up with the Model T, and we even sort
of went over why the Model T was such a
(00:43):
revolutionary car. Yep. So we're we're getting to the point where,
you know, we've we've gone past the point where he's been.
He's successful at this point, right, Yes, he is. What
he does with that success, that's another story because he
kind of goes off the deep end. Yes. Where we
left off, Ford was is ripping apart a prototype car
with his own hands. Exactly. Yeah, he had he had
(01:05):
decided that, you know, the prototype that the engineers had
developed without his knowledge, sort of an upgrade of the
Model T exactly, an upgrade, a step up from the
Model T. Uh. He was not having any part of that,
and uh, in a in a dramatic fashion, he literally
ripped the model apart piece by piece with his bare hands.
So it's feel metal. If this was a movie, we
(01:26):
would have just freeze framed on Forard ripping apart the
car exactly. Um. And in this episode we're gonna really
roll with that and and go to the stranger's side
of Ford. I'm going to take a hard left turn
here into some of the more eccentric behad weird territory exactly.
And I think that that story really epitomizes the obsessive
(01:51):
control that Ford had on his company, you know, being
so against upgrades, so against his engineers doing something without
him that he would physically rip apart a car. But
that control really does extend to other aspects of his business,
and one of those aspects was materials. And this makes
sense in a way because his his assembly line was
(02:14):
so high functioning that a lot of times he would
run out of a material because his suppliers couldn't keep up,
and if they had a shortage, then that was going
to slow him down. So his first way to deal
with that was to stockpile things like you know, we're
talking about upholstery things like that, um that he was
not actively making, just stockpile it and if their production
(02:36):
slows at least to have it. But he started to think, well,
I'm so good at this, why don't I control all
of these all of these raw materials. So he bought
a railroad, he bought coal mines, he bought acreage of
timberland glass works. The most extreme example of this is,
of course, for Landio, which I know you love, Katie,
(02:58):
and I have done an episode on it. For those
of you who haven't listened to that episode, he creates
his own model village of Ford type Fordlandia in the
middle of the Amazon rainforests in order to control rubber production.
It doesn't play out that way, but just the idea
that that would be the preferable solution. That place is huge.
(03:23):
It's five thousand square miles. That's the size of Connecticut
that he purchased. And if you look at the map,
I mean you could do just a quick Google search
and type in for Landia and get a map and
it points to the middle of nowhere in Brazil south equator,
you know, south of Guyana. It's way down there in
the middle of Brazil. Um, I think they said that
even if you get to the nearest provincial town, it's
(03:45):
still an eighteen hour boat ride to get to Fordlandia.
And the crazy maybe maybe, I don't know. I'm not
going to say the crazy thing because there's everything's crazy
about it. I guess it's a good idea in in general,
but um it just never he never visited. He never
visited the place he's never been, and that was pretty
bad for morale parents. I would bet it would be
(04:06):
because the people they're expecting Ford to show up and
run this place, right, So they're thinking that, you know,
they're going to be among you know, the chosen Ford
and exactly the American elite, right, And so they're there
at this plant that's it's just an idle plant. It's
an idol village and people live there and people live
there now, which is crazy. You can you can go
there and visit and the people Apparently for some reason,
(04:29):
I still think that there's a possibility that maybe Ford
will fire this thing up again. It's that it's possibly
going to produce rubber at some point in history. Even
though farm rubber in uh I think all except in
Asia has proved pretty impossible, and this place was abandoned
in that was officially like, you know, it's just we're
(04:49):
done with it for kind of you know, washed his
hand and the whole thing. So that's our extreme example
of trying to control materials. More small example before you
go on, because he bought up smaller towns in Michigan
to do the same thing with wood, because he was
producing the woody station wagons and he was using somewhere
on the order of like I think it was two
(05:11):
or three million board feet of lumber every year or
something like that. It's an enormous amount of wood. And
he thought, well, I'm going to supply wood, you know,
with the forest of Michigan. And the same thing that
happened for landing. You know, they've built this this great
uh you know, compound, and you know it's it's like
its own mini city, self sustaining in some ways, and
then it just died away. I mean, we should give
(05:31):
some examples of this working though, this idea of buying
up related industries to make them work for you. Um.
One example I found when the River Rouge plant opened
in n Or that had been taken from his minds
and shipped down would enter one of would enter the
plant and then come out as a car only twenty
(05:54):
hours later. You know, all the power coming from coal
that was from his minds, everything coming from a Ford
owned property and turning into a car in such a
short amount. I feel like I need to clarify such
a one. I said that this is a good idea.
When I was mentioning for Landy, I met something like
that in that you know, a self sustained company, that exactly.
(06:14):
I mean, how else would you say that that's a
tremendous savings for him in the long run. But when
you when you invest millions and millions of dollars into
you know, the jungles in Brazil, and then never go
there and it's never used, that's wasteful. It's one thing
to buy your own railroad, another to buy jungle property. Yeah,
like buying your own railroad. That's perfectly sane, right. Yeah, Well,
(06:36):
you know for a guy like Ford, Yeah, I guess,
so that's his toys, right. Um So this control, though,
really extends beyond materials, because so far we're just talking
about materials. You can understand a um an industrial and
an industrialist like Ford wanting to control his materials. It's
a little less savory when somebody tries to do that
(06:56):
with people. Yeah, we're getting into the weird area here.
We are already there. Okay, so here we are. It's
like nineteen four, nine fifteen. Somewhere in there. Ford offers
the five dollar work day, and this all plays into
this somehow. I'll tell you in a second offers the
five dollar work day, and that just blows people away.
(07:17):
They can't imagine making five dollars a day at a
production job like this. It's twice as much to make. Yeah,
other Automo automobile manufacturers are paying half that price and
he's paying that. He's offering that much. And it's only
an eight hour work day instead of a nine hour day,
but it's but it is. Initially it's offered at six days,
so you're working eight eight hours a day, six days
(07:40):
a week, which was then cut back to five days
weeks for forty hour a week. But regardless of that,
it drew people like you couldn't believe. I mean, people
came from all over well, probably the world, but at
least the United States. Uh, they're flocking to Ford, you know,
for this five dollar an opportunity to make five dollars
a day. Now, Ford saw it a different way. He said,
(08:02):
you know, I'm going to offer the five dollars a
day and expect this much work out of you. And
that's fine. Uh, But it also gave him, or what
he thought, um kind of it broke down the boundaries.
It did. He thought it was such a generous salary
that it gave him the right to control non working
aspects of his employees. So he's it's almost like he's
(08:26):
purchasing the people. I mean it is. It is kind
of like that. It's more like indentured servitude. This is bad,
this is really bad. So he he forms Now it
gets us the name. It's funny, the Ford Sociology Department. Yeah,
the sociology department. Now, the sociology department originally had about
thirty investigators. And these investigators, now, remember, you're making five
(08:48):
dollars a day, so you've got to expect this right.
Cording to Ford, they would come to your house and
they would take notes on every aspect of your daily life, everything,
your whole family, not just you. It's it's the that
you live with, what you do, where you live, how
you conduct your business at home, what you know, anything
and everything about your personal life was exposed to him.
And you know that that's one thing you could maybe expect.
(09:11):
All right, the guys coming over tonight, let's clean up
the house, make sure we're on our best behavior. People
are going to be at work too. There were gonna
be informants, spies, all working for Ford. So if you
were maybe just complaining a little bit to one of
your co workers, maybe if you took a break for
a minute from the assembly line, you could expect all
(09:32):
of that information to get back to force. Isn't that
that's amazing to me? Yeah. Plus, you know, health issues,
drinking problems, gambling issues, anything like that. It's not going
to be even if it doesn't interfere with your work,
it's going to And so for five dollars a day,
he felt that this that's purchased him the right to
(09:55):
you know, I guess install this, this bizarre monitoring of
his employees daily lives, I mean, everything, every aspect of
their life. This isn't the only strange thing that he
strange department I think that he formed. I came across
another one that I had just recently read about. I
knew kind of the characters involved. But I didn't know
(10:15):
that this is called this. He also had another division,
we'll call it that he that he called the Ford
Service Department. Now the Ford Service Department. That sounds like
something you would like. They work on cars, exactly, you
drive to the service department today and get your oil changed, right,
not the case in uh in What was this? From
like nineteen thirty to about ninety seven when Ford died, Um,
(10:38):
he hired a guy named Henry I'm sorry, Harry Bennett
bodyguard exactly. This is this is Ford's personal bodyguard. He
hired him to be second in command at Ford basically
um and he pray he ran forward with an iron fist.
Now they say that you know Ford was the man
in charge, of course, but you know Bennett was. He's
(10:59):
the guy he's be enforced there. He's the presence and
Bennet it was up to Bennett to hire employees to
work under him. Guess who hired. He hired the worst
of the worst. I mean he hired um pro boxers,
he hired wrestlers, he hired Khanman, he hired thugs, He
aired hoodlums, people from the underworld that you would normally avoid. Hiring.
(11:22):
I mean, and not to say that, you know, but
these are people that you know, were on the edges
of the society and they were hired not because they
were reformed from that, because they were very much in it.
You you recommended. I look up pictures from one of
these incidents involving the Service Department and of the Battle
of the Overpast, the Battle of the Overpast. The guys
(11:43):
look like they were out of work because Capone was
in jail or something. Doesn't It look like every gangster
movie you've ever seen, look like your stereotypical gangster. And
they look like they are spoiling for trouble. And those
are Ray Bennett's men, and he hired He had a
an entire army of these goons that would go out
and they were they they were, um, the union busters.
(12:05):
These are the guys that you know, if there was
a threat of a union strike because Ford hated unions.
He hated you know, um, every aspect of it. He
just couldn't stand it. So if you're on the line marching,
watch out for Bennett's coons because they're they're coming. There's
no doubt about it. They're going to be there in
some way, and they didn't care who's watching, because the
Battle of the Overpast happened right in front of reporters.
(12:27):
Cameras they had, um, and that's still cameras. And in fact,
they had a lot more than what you'll see if
you do a search for this. I encouraged people to
go and look at stuff all the time. Um, if
you do a search for a Battle of the Overpast,
you'll see the photos that exist from this. Most of
the photographs were destroyed by Bennett's men. Uh. They after
they attacked the the organizers of the event, Walter Ruther
(12:49):
and UM Richard Frankenstein I think is his name. Um.
They they then turned on the reporters that were recording
this and even ladies who are there handing out pamphlet. Yeah.
They when you say they turned out, they beat them up.
I mean they were kicking them and punching them and
dragging them down iron steps. And you can see photos
of these guys just black and black and blue and
(13:10):
and bloody afterwards. Uh. The only way that these photographs
got out is is an amazing story. One of the photographers,
UM actually walked to the edge of the overpat ran
to the edge of the overpast and dropped his camera
into a passing convertible and the convert will sped off
with the with the camera. You know, this is a plan, exactly,
the plan to get the photographs out because they knew
(13:31):
what to expect, and of course the reporters you know,
you know, probably beat silly. So yeah, so when we talk,
I mean that gives um sort of new context to
talking about the spies and informants too, because they're not
just trying to figure out what your life is like.
They're trying to figure out if you have union sympathies,
and you see what happens if you do. And what's
so weird to me and all of this is that, um,
(13:54):
you know, by this point, Ford had allowed some of
the company control to go to his son, ed Saul,
but that was really nominal control. And that's not because
Edzel was an incompetent UH manager and incompetent executive. It's
because his father really didn't trust his judgment, didn't want
to relinquish control, and and Edel was thinking a little
(14:15):
i don't know, in a more modern way about this, thinking, well,
we should make a deal with the unions, we should
come to some sort of agreement while all this violence
is happening, that is supported by his father. Ye, Edzel
was a bit more sympathetic than than Henry, of course,
I mean far more. But the problem was, you know,
he had given control of Ford Motor Company to Edzel
in nineteen so that's relatively early on in this thing, right,
(14:38):
I mean he had he had actually given up control,
which is hard to believe. But Henry had still commanding rights.
He had he had a the ability to veto any
decision that Etzel made, and he often did. And that,
to me, it says, well, why is ze Leaven there?
It's almost like he's done a different job, just a figurehead.
But you know he's Henry's trying to give him some
(14:59):
some free him. Yet still he's he's got that iron
fist grip on him. Um, and just not allowing it happened.
Can you imagine how that made Edgel feel not good?
And and I mean he died pretty young, um, and
it sounded like he had a difficult life on under
that iron thumb of his father, working at his father's company. Um.
We'll talk a little bit more about the next generation
(15:21):
a little later. Um, but you know, I think the
next thing we have to address here. We've talked about
Ford in the unions and in the spying his anti Semitism,
and it really goes beyond just his his own personal opinions,
because he works quite hard to broadcast them. He thought
that Jewish international bankers were responsible for World War One,
(15:43):
and it's strange. On the one hand that belief manifested
in some surprising pacivism on Ford's part. In nineteen fifteen,
he traveled to Europe in this attempt to stage some
peace talks and uh, it was all aboard this ship
called the Piece Ship, which got him a lot of criticism.
But he also bought a newspaper. He bought The Dearborn Independent,
(16:06):
and that was specifically to use as a platform against Jews.
These editorial comments or these editorial columns that he would
write that that went in or other writers would would
you know it, Supposedly he was reviewing all that he's
editing this this, this, uh, this newspaper. Supposedly later he
would deny it. But um had very very strong anti
(16:28):
Semitic statements and them um, you know, and just to
go back, I mean, Henry, he blamed everything on the Jews.
I mean, he write down to you know, the world,
both world wars with the sinking to Lusitania. He was
the one that kind of bought into that conspiracy theory
that you know, it was sunk on purpose and that's
what started this whole thing. Um. But these these were
just filled with anti Semitic views, viewpoints that this is
(16:53):
should we get into, like the European part of this
r I don't think we can go without mention. Okay,
here's this is so bad for Henry at this time.
I mean, but you know, he's the one putting this
out there, so we have to report on it. I guess, um.
You know, all these these anti Semitic viewpoints made their
way over to Germany and to a certain individual named
(17:15):
Adolf Hitler pre World War two Germany. Yeah, this is
this is prior to Hitler being a chancellor. Um. But
unfortunately Hitler kind of gravitated towards his views and said,
you know, I like the way this guy thinks. Yeah,
a successful American industrialist with views that seemed similar. Yeah, exactly.
And so this is bad news for Henry because he's
(17:36):
doing so well here in the States. You know, everything's
going going just fine. More or less. Um, Hitler picks
up on these things, actually has the stuff translated into
German and distributes it. Yeah, this series of articles on
the quote International Jew, and they're quite popular in Germany too.
There's a book called the International Jew and it's it's
really just the clippings from the deer was it? Dearborn?
(17:59):
Deerborn independent, dearborn Independent? And this is so unfortunate for
Henry because, um, there's a lot of there's a lot
of parallels badly and terrible enough that you know, the
parallels between Hitler and I'm sorry Henry Ford. And I'm
not saying Henry Ford is a Nazi in any way.
(18:19):
I'm saying that he had these anti Semitic views. Hitler
like these views. And then if you recall, remember we
said that, um, well you know what happens with the
whole anti semitism in Germany. But um, going back to
the Everyman's Car, that was also something that Hitler kind
of patterned after Henry I'm sorry, after Henry Ford and
(18:40):
said I want to make an everyman's car for Germany
the way that Ford made one for the United States.
And it's going to be the book's wagon Beetle, and
you know, there's a whole story about that too. But
so here in the States, you can imagine what this
is doing to Henry Ford's reputation. It's just it's getting
worse and worse and worse every day. It was more
comes out about Hitler and what kind of policies he's
(19:01):
instituting in pre war Germany, and with the onset of
the war, oh my gosh, it just it pushed it
over the edge and made him a very unpopular character.
And Ford kind of tried to back out of things.
You know, he you you had mentioned that. Eventually he said, oh,
I wasn't that involved in the paper. He did retract
some of his statements, but according to Biography magazine, he
(19:23):
also didn't try to stop the publication of the International
JO until the middle of World War Two, until things
were clearly beyond bad. Um that you know that says something,
These are outrageous, outrageous views. I mean, the stuff that
you'll read or you'll hear about this is amazing. I mean.
And his hatred for this group, I mean it goes back.
(19:44):
He he blamed everything on them, He blamed music on them.
He thought movies were were sinful that. You know, he
was very very puritan, very puritan aspect about him. He
didn't he didn't like dancing. He didn't like music. He
thought it was old fashioned dan thing. He would stage
dances where, you know, and think about this is like
the twenties or something, so people are doing dances like
(20:06):
the Charleston. He would stage dances where you could do
the Polka or the Virginia reel. But to hate films,
I mean, he hated films because they were filled filled
with sex and sin. And but here's the interesting thing,
like he would also in the newsreels, wouldn't have a
problem with Ford Motor Company being you know, prominently displayed
in the in the newsreels to promote the vehicles. Yeah,
he clearly couldn't reconcile his business sense with his personal beliefs. Yes,
(20:30):
it was very conflicted, very conflicted. But you know, it's
just really terribly unfortunate timing for him. And not only that,
I mean, you know, these outrages views. What what was
the guy in this position doing releasing this type of material.
I don't, I just can't. Why didn't somebody tell him okay,
no entry forward, back off, back down, I don't understand.
(20:51):
What's really strange though, is is this kind of undoes
some of his personal reputation, but it also helps make
his company, or at least the war does not these views,
but the the existence of World War Two helped save
his company in a way because he is so old fashioned,
he is so resistant to change that by the by
(21:13):
the thirties, his company is falling into lower places. You know,
they're they're not the top car company anymore. Yea. So he's, uh,
you know, he's realizing that by you know, by World
War two, we're talking um, oh my gosh, we're talking
almost forty years or thirty five years after the beginning
of his company, or the Model T rather anyways, not
(21:34):
the company. Um, they realized that they got to kind
of move in a new direction. So they're, you know,
they're they're coming out with new models, which I'm surprised
ever happened. But you know, they had the Model A,
which they renamed A because it was like a complete
start over with what he said, you know, it couldn't
he couldn't go on from the Model T too, you know,
the Model you Um, he went he went right back
to A. Said, now it's a totally different vehicle, even
(21:56):
though there's a lot of similarities. But um, he was
just he was quirky in that way. And you said,
you know, world War One, he was kind of a
he took the pacifist role, was more for peace and exactly. Well,
in World War Two, then you know, things changed and
everybody was kind of on board with with war production.
So we've we've talked about, you know, some of the plants,
you know, off air, we've talked about the way the
(22:17):
plants could adapt to war production. And you know, instead
of making engines, we're gonna make bombers, and instead of trucks,
we're gonna make tanks. And you were telling me that
plants can they still have that capability to make a
few changes on the line and dramatically change what they're producing,
going from producing buses to producing tanks. Thanks exactly. There,
(22:38):
it's very modular, and then they could they could shift
over within a matter of hours. I mean, I think
that's a great example of how the how the moving
assembly line works, why it works. Yeah, I mean to
this day. I mean, it's a great idea. It's one
that you know has never really gone away. Um he
just took what was already there and perfected it. So
while we're on that subject of Ford really working on
(23:00):
something until he has a great product, we've got to
talk about some of his weirder experiments and and some
of this is really cool. Some of it is unexpected,
some of it is way before his time. I think
this is very unexpected for it. I just would never
see a guy that you know, wouldn't even consider moving
on to a different model of vehicle for nineteen years,
(23:20):
that he would do something like this. But he was.
He was heavy, heavy into soybean research. And it doesn't
sound like that's automotive related, but it, but it very
much is. And this is this is one of those
just crazy things. I mean, he he was so into it.
He made food with this, He made fibers with this,
He made plastics with us. And the plastic thing is
where it came into play with the automobile. He actually
(23:42):
created a plastic automobile in n one that made you know,
the circuit it would write, would grab around with reporters
and you know, people could feel and touch. This was
a full sized vehicle out of plastic that was made
from soybeans and just this had never been done before.
And he also had this vehicle. Now that wasn't his
personal vehicle. There's a white vehicle that you'll see in
(24:03):
press photos, and that was the all plastic vehicle. He
himself had a black vehicle that he fitted with a
plastic trunk and you know, the soybean material that he
made plastics out of. He would for reporters, he would
demonstrate the the resilience of this material by striking it
with an ax. It. You know, he would hit it
himself with an ax his own personal vehicle on the
(24:24):
trunk because it had this one panel public display of
what had happened a few years earlier. This is so crazy.
He would he would put like a like a rubber
sleeve on the sharp end of it, so wouldn't you know,
puncture it, but he would. He would swing as hard
as he could at the trunk of this thing with
the ax and it wouldn't dent, but the ax would
fly out of his hands, you know, fifteen twenty ft
in the air, and you know, everybody would take photos
(24:45):
and would be a great photo opportunity with Henry Ford.
And you can see a lot of photos of him
doing this. Um really really fascinating. But you know it
didn't just end there. He went into you know, he
would have reporters to the Ford mansion and host luncheons
where every course of the meal would be soybean based
because he was very interested in diet. I hadn't known
(25:07):
that about him. Again, it kind of does make sense.
It's some some intense control over his life. Again, but
he loved vegetables. He loved to eat soybeans. You were
talking about meals that were entirely soy based. Yeah, he
made He would make um. The meat would be soy,
soybean based exactly. It was something like you know what
(25:27):
I thought it would taste like like pork chop or whatever.
He would he would develop these things so that they
tasted that way. It's very advanced. He should have lived
in the seventies. And you know he had an entire
you know, part of it. There was a there's a
whole compound of of um labs on his facility that
were just strictly devoted to soybean science and they would
(25:48):
create you know, soy milk and um ice creams and
candies and and even get this this is this is
maybe even the strangest part. He would wear a suit
that was made of soybean fire bird, So he had
a soybean fiber suit that was you know, I think
there's some wool in there too, but um, so he's
wearing the soybean suit to this soybean luncheon, Henry Ford
(26:11):
as Willy Wonka. But it looks it just looked like
a normal suit, you know. And there they're photos of
him in the You can go to the fair Land
mansion and you can look. You know, there's a a
restaurant there and there's photos on the wall and you know,
there's him wearing a soybean suit. All right, So before
you guys go out in google pictures of Henry Ford
in that bean suit, we've got to switch gears for
(26:31):
a minute, all right, Sarah, let's get back to talking
about Henry Ford. Yeah, let's do that. And let's go
back to plastic development. Why why didn't that take off?
What happened? I think I personally believe this is just
poor timing because it was one when he made the
when he made the entirely plastic vehicle, and he was
demonstrating all this, and then the war hit and things
(26:54):
really regressed at that point. You know, we were just
strictly trying to find as much metal as we could
and build a much you know, war machinery as we could.
And then after that, you know, the soldiers come back
and they want something different, and it just kind of
things had passed by, and you know, he's not in
control anymore at that and he's well, actually he's dead.
Um he died, what was it, nineteen seven? Um, So
(27:15):
you know, things things changed dramatically after that point. It's
just kind of an idea that went away. And then
you know, the next thing, you know, it's nineteen eighties
and we're hearing about Saturn with this new plastic automobile.
Well it's not really so new, not that new, And
I think, I think, Um, what's interesting about this is
if maybe that idea had been just a few years earlier,
the war might have actually given it a push instead
(27:39):
of holding it back. Since wartime metal rationing a plastic
car starts to sound like pretty good idea, it's just
right on the cusps. They're too late to really make
it a reality. It had. He had a lot of
great ideas, I mean, he really did. He really had
a lot of great ideas, but he was he was
big into perfecting things. Um. He's a fascinating, fascinating character.
And I mean one quick little anecdote here that I mean,
(28:02):
this is from a piece of listener mail that actually
came into car stuff, and we read this on on
our show. But someone was taking an airboat ride in
the Everglades and the guide pointed out the Spanish moss
hanging from the trees and he said, you know that
Ford used to come would send people down here to
harvest the Spanish moss and bring it back to Detroit
and pack it into the seat the seats of the
(28:24):
Model T early on. This is this is like the
early early Model T s. And then the people that
would buy the Model T S would realize like, well,
I'm getting this kind of funny rash on my legs.
And the gross thing is mites, yea Spanish moss, mites.
And they would they would burrow through the material into
the skin and they would lay eggs in the people's skin.
It's still gross. So you know, it wasn't long after
(28:45):
that that they decided, well we're gonna do with cotton.
But um, again, just an interesting idea that you know,
and who knows, maybe he would I think this is
a great idea and buy a bunch of everglades, you know,
property for the moss exactly. I know. I feel like
that would COMPETI the moss. That's something you learn, like
first time you go to the beach, I don't take
the Spanish moss home with you. To be competing for
land with Disney at the time. That's a pretty fascinating story.
(29:10):
But um, we've got to talk a little bit about
his nostalgia too. So we've talked about all these innovations,
all these innovative ideas, but he certainly realizes late in
life how much he's changed the world, how much he
is directly responsible for changing the United States and probably
(29:30):
influencing worldwide ideas. Um. And he's a little bit nostalgic
for his old country farm life that he wanted to
to leave. And we've already talked about the dances. You know,
he's like young kids today do the polka. But it
really extends to an interest in preserving history too, which
(29:50):
is so ironic because one of Ford's most famous quotes
is history is more or less bunk for ago. You
said that he becomes so interested in preserving the history
of his boyhood world, his boyhood heroes, guys like Edison,
guys like the Wright brothers. And I think you can
talk about this a little bit because you've been to
(30:12):
the place that is the shrine to this preservation. I've
been to the Henry Ford Museum, which is an incredible,
incredible museum. I don't think I've ever been to a
better museum from my point of view. I loved that place.
I can spend days or weeks there. Um. The other
part of that that complex, I guess you know it's built.
There's a test track right there. It's right in Dearborn.
(30:34):
H is Greenfield Village. And if you remember, well I
don't know if we even mentioned or not, but he
was born in Greenfield Township and he built, you know,
he went to move to Dearborn and he built this
little this little land for himself called Greenfield Village. So
you know, obviously he's trying to even replicate the name
of the place. But what he does with this place,
this is so this is so neat. He he brings
(30:55):
parts of what he remembers as being his America uh
to Greenfield Village. And you know that may be. I
mean it's it's pretty expansive. I mean, this is a
ninety acre property. It's got something like eighty three buildings
on the property. And these are all historic, historically significant buildings.
It's uh, it's Henry fire and I'm sorry, Harvey Firestone's
(31:17):
entire farm from from Ohio is brought there Edison's lab
with some of the original you know, the original light
bulbs and you know, all the original furniture and everything.
Some of that stuff was nailed down so it was
never moved on the way, you know, just brought the
entire building. Um, the you know Orville and Wilbur right
their their bicycle shop that they owned in Dayton, Ohio.
That's he's got. He's got a he's got a courthouse
(31:40):
that Lincoln actually practiced lawn, which is incredible. Um, every
every single thing has some historical significance. And again it's
it's taking he's trying to build that eighteen eighties lifestyle
in you know, nineteen the nineteen thirties in you know
the place that he Now, this is this an enormous
(32:01):
piece of property, and dearborn and like setting that off
against what's happening in the rest of the country, you know,
the interstate system, going through old landmarks, things like that,
actively trying to preserve something, realizing what is happening and
what he wants to keep from from how he remembers
the country exactly. There's even like a steam engine and
(32:23):
now this is a recent edition, but you can have
you can take a ride on a model teeth through
the property, which you know you couldn't have done at
that time, but now you can. Um you'll see if
you go there ever, and I really, I mean I
encourage people to go there. It's beautiful. Um, but you'll
see kids like rolling hoops with sticks and things like that.
They have all kinds of fun things. I mean, you
can even watch like what baseball was like back then,
(32:45):
the people playing with the old mits and old balls
and bats, and it's in the old uniforms. It's really
it's really a fascinating place. It sounds very step back
in history. So I mean, I guess that about wraps
it up then. For for Henry Ford, he died one
years to the day after his father had immigrated from
Ireland to Michigan. Um. Just tying up this bridging two
(33:09):
different worlds, tying up this this amazing life with extreme
highs and extreme lows. Really yeah, yeah, And you know what,
even to this day, the Ford Motor Company remains a
family business. It does what's what's I mean? I won't
go into all the detail here, but um, there's a
Ford at the head of Ford Motor Company right now.
Um William Clay Jr. Is the is the head of it.
(33:32):
And you know, his father is still in Tony's father
is still a life which was one of his The
only living grandchild of Henry Ford is still is. He's
still around. He's like he's his upper eighties and he
owns the Detroit Lions at this point. But you know
he's All through history there's been a Ford somewhere involved
with the company. So we had said we'd mentioned Henry
Ford the second to his his grandson who took over
(33:54):
the company at the very end of his life. Um,
he had this strange relay sationship with his son ed
Soel his grandson. I think he might have seen him
as kind of a threat to that power. But finally
with his wife strongly urging him on, and he did
relinquish a lot of his control to his grandson late
in life. And um, you know so much about this,
(34:16):
I guess because it gets into the modern history of Ford.
But Henry for the second really changes the kind of
company it is. Yeah, exactly, And you know, from that
point forward, it's it's very it's been very successful ever since. Um,
and it was it was up to that point, but
there were some real shaky parts in there. Um, you know,
around the wartime. But you know now now that we've
got William Clayford Junior in in an office he's his
(34:38):
actually official title as the executive chairman of Ford Motor Company. UM.
And his father, William Clayford is is still sitting on
the board. So you know, Ford, it's it's far reaching.
I wonder who's gonna be next, because you know, William
Playford Jr. He's he's only fifty five, that's kind of
nearing retirement age. Who's up next? I don't know. I
don't I just don't know who's who's gonna be next
(35:00):
in power? I guess we'll find out eventually. But interesting family.
And this guy he's he's just he's brilliant. I mean,
he's probably he's borderline genius. He's an innovator. UM, I
don't know he you know, he had a temporary he
had these bad sides to him. He's a he's got
a tyrannical side, very very eccentric, you know. But but overall,
(35:21):
I mean, this guy, when you start reading about him,
it doesn't sound like you know, before you even listen
to podcast, you may not have thought much about the guy.
I think this will encourage people to read about him.
I think so. I definitely want to learn more about him.
And uh, I'd love to visit the museum you're talking
about too and see see some of this legacy. And
(35:41):
and I know you could probably speak more about this too,
But for it seems like they have accepted for the company.
Seems like they have accepted and um, well, I don't
want to say embrace, but accepted their founder's entire history.
Nobody's trying to sugarcoat sugarcoat thing, and you don't have to.
You know, there's enough that makes the man undeniably impressive
(36:06):
to talk about the less impressive things too. Um. So,
very interesting guy. Thank you so much for suggesting him
so wholeheartedly. He's been really fun to learn about. Good
I'm glad I felt the same way. I um, I
knew he was an interesting cat to begin with, but
then you start digging into, you know, some of the
biography material, it's like you just want more and more
(36:28):
and more. Yeah, you start learning things like just one
last weird fact, the Ford mansion which he said you
had visited. He had hot and cold running rainwater in
every bathroom, plus half water, just you know, in case
you wanted a refreshing rainwater. I'm going to add to
this too, because it was It's a fifty six room mansion,
(36:49):
I think. And they said that they built, you know,
all these extravagant things like a pool and a bird
baths were heated. Yeah, bird baths were heated, but that
they had all these you know, like they had like
a bowling alley or whatever. They had all these activities,
and it was all to keep edsel Ford from you know,
wanting to date girls and to uh, you know, wanting
to drink or smoke or whatever. The model out person exactly. Yeah.
(37:11):
They they felt that this was a way to distract him,
was to have this grand home and he'd have lots
of things to do. I think my favorite home amenity, though,
I kind of wish I had this an underground pipe
that would suck dust out of the house. I don't
know how well that worked. It seems like if that
was a possibility, everybody would have that we wouldn't have
to worry about act got to get that. It sounds
(37:32):
like a good idea. So, um, I guess that's it
for Ford for now. Um, Katie and I, as I mentioned,
did an episode on Ford Landia. What kind of episodes
have you all done on on Ford. I'm sure we've
got well, you know, other aspects of Ford. We might
have covered the Model A or the Model T, and
we've we've talked about even starting a Model T because
that's quite a chore. Um, just in general, we've done it.
(37:54):
We've done a piece on him. You have to crank
up the Model Tea. Yeah, yeah, And it was an
arm breaker, tell you that it really was. Unless you're
forward and you can rip upot, it would snap your arm.
That's how dangerous it was. And it's it's nothing was standard.
It's a really a unique car. But there's there's a
lot of history there. So you all should go listen
to some of those episodes on Scott's podcast, which is
(38:14):
called Car Stuff. If you want to share any more
ideas about Ford any other auto grats you'd like us
to discuss at some point. We are at History Podcast
at Discovery dot com. We're also on Twitter at Miston History,
and we are on Facebook. And what kind of Ford
related articles? I mean, the classic how stuff works article
(38:35):
is how engines work? But what what have you edited
recently that you think is really Ford related? You know,
we've got some Model T information, you know, kind of
product overview type stuff, um, specifically for the Model T.
And I know there's some stuff out there. I've got
a blog that's about h starting the Model T, which
is really interesting. I mean that we've mentioned that the
thing is difficult to get going, and um, you know,
(38:58):
there's just a lot of forder for me. If you can,
you can search forward and get information about the entire
company just in or to. But anything and everything automotive
is on our site all right, and Scott has edited
most of it. You know. One fun fact about Scott.
If you see a strange prototype car and give him
a description of it, he can probably identify it for you.
(39:20):
Maybe may I hope I don't get you inundated with
emails now, but yeah, if you want to check out
some of that information about Ford, about the Model C,
about cars in general. It is all on our website
at www. Dot how stuff works dot com. For more
on this and thousands of other topics, is it how
(39:40):
stuff works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, welcome to the podcast. I'm
Sarah Dowdy and I am again joined by fellow editor
Scott Benjamin. I'm back. So Scott is the co host
(00:21):
of Car Staff, and we've been talking about Henry Ford,
one of the automotive greats, and we've really covered most
of his early career. In our first episode, sort of
the farm boy starts tinkering with engines, machines, ends up
coming up with the Model T, and we even sort
of went over why the Model T was such a
(00:43):
revolutionary car. Yep. So we're we're getting to the point where,
you know, we've we've gone past the point where he's been.
He's successful at this point, right, Yes, he is. What
he does with that success, that's another story because he
kind of goes off the deep end. Yes. Where we
left off, Ford was is ripping apart a prototype car
with his own hands. Exactly. Yeah, he had he had
(01:05):
decided that, you know, the prototype that the engineers had
developed without his knowledge, sort of an upgrade of the
Model T exactly, an upgrade, a step up from the
Model T. Uh. He was not having any part of that,
and uh, in a in a dramatic fashion, he literally
ripped the model apart piece by piece with his bare hands.
So it's feel metal. If this was a movie, we
(01:26):
would have just freeze framed on Forard ripping apart the
car exactly. Um. And in this episode we're gonna really
roll with that and and go to the stranger's side
of Ford. I'm going to take a hard left turn
here into some of the more eccentric behad weird territory exactly.
And I think that that story really epitomizes the obsessive
(01:51):
control that Ford had on his company, you know, being
so against upgrades, so against his engineers doing something without
him that he would physically rip apart a car. But
that control really does extend to other aspects of his business,
and one of those aspects was materials. And this makes
sense in a way because his his assembly line was
(02:14):
so high functioning that a lot of times he would
run out of a material because his suppliers couldn't keep up,
and if they had a shortage, then that was going
to slow him down. So his first way to deal
with that was to stockpile things like you know, we're
talking about upholstery things like that, um that he was
not actively making, just stockpile it and if their production
(02:36):
slows at least to have it. But he started to think, well,
I'm so good at this, why don't I control all
of these all of these raw materials. So he bought
a railroad, he bought coal mines, he bought acreage of
timberland glass works. The most extreme example of this is,
of course, for Landio, which I know you love, Katie,
(02:58):
and I have done an episode on it. For those
of you who haven't listened to that episode, he creates
his own model village of Ford type Fordlandia in the
middle of the Amazon rainforests in order to control rubber production.
It doesn't play out that way, but just the idea
that that would be the preferable solution. That place is huge.
(03:23):
It's five thousand square miles. That's the size of Connecticut
that he purchased. And if you look at the map,
I mean you could do just a quick Google search
and type in for Landia and get a map and
it points to the middle of nowhere in Brazil south equator,
you know, south of Guyana. It's way down there in
the middle of Brazil. Um, I think they said that
even if you get to the nearest provincial town, it's
(03:45):
still an eighteen hour boat ride to get to Fordlandia.
And the crazy maybe maybe, I don't know. I'm not
going to say the crazy thing because there's everything's crazy
about it. I guess it's a good idea in in general,
but um it just never he never visited. He never
visited the place he's never been, and that was pretty
bad for morale parents. I would bet it would be
(04:06):
because the people they're expecting Ford to show up and
run this place, right, So they're thinking that, you know,
they're going to be among you know, the chosen Ford
and exactly the American elite, right, And so they're there
at this plant that's it's just an idle plant. It's
an idol village and people live there and people live
there now, which is crazy. You can you can go
there and visit and the people Apparently for some reason,
(04:29):
I still think that there's a possibility that maybe Ford
will fire this thing up again. It's that it's possibly
going to produce rubber at some point in history. Even
though farm rubber in uh I think all except in
Asia has proved pretty impossible, and this place was abandoned
in that was officially like, you know, it's just we're
(04:49):
done with it for kind of you know, washed his
hand and the whole thing. So that's our extreme example
of trying to control materials. More small example before you
go on, because he bought up smaller towns in Michigan
to do the same thing with wood, because he was
producing the woody station wagons and he was using somewhere
on the order of like I think it was two
(05:11):
or three million board feet of lumber every year or
something like that. It's an enormous amount of wood. And
he thought, well, I'm going to supply wood, you know,
with the forest of Michigan. And the same thing that
happened for landing. You know, they've built this this great
uh you know, compound, and you know it's it's like
its own mini city, self sustaining in some ways, and
then it just died away. I mean, we should give
(05:31):
some examples of this working though, this idea of buying
up related industries to make them work for you. Um.
One example I found when the River Rouge plant opened
in n Or that had been taken from his minds
and shipped down would enter one of would enter the
plant and then come out as a car only twenty
(05:54):
hours later. You know, all the power coming from coal
that was from his minds, everything coming from a Ford
owned property and turning into a car in such a
short amount. I feel like I need to clarify such
a one. I said that this is a good idea.
When I was mentioning for Landy, I met something like
that in that you know, a self sustained company, that exactly.
(06:14):
I mean, how else would you say that that's a
tremendous savings for him in the long run. But when
you when you invest millions and millions of dollars into
you know, the jungles in Brazil, and then never go
there and it's never used, that's wasteful. It's one thing
to buy your own railroad, another to buy jungle property. Yeah,
like buying your own railroad. That's perfectly sane, right. Yeah, Well,
(06:36):
you know for a guy like Ford, Yeah, I guess,
so that's his toys, right. Um So this control, though,
really extends beyond materials, because so far we're just talking
about materials. You can understand a um an industrial and
an industrialist like Ford wanting to control his materials. It's
a little less savory when somebody tries to do that
(06:56):
with people. Yeah, we're getting into the weird area here.
We are already there. Okay, so here we are. It's
like nineteen four, nine fifteen. Somewhere in there. Ford offers
the five dollar work day, and this all plays into
this somehow. I'll tell you in a second offers the
five dollar work day, and that just blows people away.
(07:17):
They can't imagine making five dollars a day at a
production job like this. It's twice as much to make. Yeah,
other Automo automobile manufacturers are paying half that price and
he's paying that. He's offering that much. And it's only
an eight hour work day instead of a nine hour day,
but it's but it is. Initially it's offered at six days,
so you're working eight eight hours a day, six days
(07:40):
a week, which was then cut back to five days
weeks for forty hour a week. But regardless of that,
it drew people like you couldn't believe. I mean, people
came from all over well, probably the world, but at
least the United States. Uh, they're flocking to Ford, you know,
for this five dollar an opportunity to make five dollars
a day. Now, Ford saw it a different way. He said,
(08:02):
you know, I'm going to offer the five dollars a
day and expect this much work out of you. And
that's fine. Uh, But it also gave him, or what
he thought, um kind of it broke down the boundaries.
It did. He thought it was such a generous salary
that it gave him the right to control non working
aspects of his employees. So he's it's almost like he's
(08:26):
purchasing the people. I mean it is. It is kind
of like that. It's more like indentured servitude. This is bad,
this is really bad. So he he forms Now it
gets us the name. It's funny, the Ford Sociology Department. Yeah,
the sociology department. Now, the sociology department originally had about
thirty investigators. And these investigators, now, remember, you're making five
(08:48):
dollars a day, so you've got to expect this right.
Cording to Ford, they would come to your house and
they would take notes on every aspect of your daily life, everything,
your whole family, not just you. It's it's the that
you live with, what you do, where you live, how
you conduct your business at home, what you know, anything
and everything about your personal life was exposed to him.
And you know that that's one thing you could maybe expect.
(09:11):
All right, the guys coming over tonight, let's clean up
the house, make sure we're on our best behavior. People
are going to be at work too. There were gonna
be informants, spies, all working for Ford. So if you
were maybe just complaining a little bit to one of
your co workers, maybe if you took a break for
a minute from the assembly line, you could expect all
(09:32):
of that information to get back to force. Isn't that
that's amazing to me? Yeah. Plus, you know, health issues,
drinking problems, gambling issues, anything like that. It's not going
to be even if it doesn't interfere with your work,
it's going to And so for five dollars a day,
he felt that this that's purchased him the right to
(09:55):
you know, I guess install this, this bizarre monitoring of
his employees daily lives, I mean, everything, every aspect of
their life. This isn't the only strange thing that he
strange department I think that he formed. I came across
another one that I had just recently read about. I
knew kind of the characters involved. But I didn't know
(10:15):
that this is called this. He also had another division,
we'll call it that he that he called the Ford
Service Department. Now the Ford Service Department. That sounds like
something you would like. They work on cars, exactly, you
drive to the service department today and get your oil changed, right,
not the case in uh in What was this? From
like nineteen thirty to about ninety seven when Ford died, Um,
(10:38):
he hired a guy named Henry I'm sorry, Harry Bennett
bodyguard exactly. This is this is Ford's personal bodyguard. He
hired him to be second in command at Ford basically
um and he pray he ran forward with an iron fist.
Now they say that you know Ford was the man
in charge, of course, but you know Bennett was. He's
(10:59):
the guy he's be enforced there. He's the presence and
Bennet it was up to Bennett to hire employees to
work under him. Guess who hired. He hired the worst
of the worst. I mean he hired um pro boxers,
he hired wrestlers, he hired Khanman, he hired thugs, He
aired hoodlums, people from the underworld that you would normally avoid. Hiring.
(11:22):
I mean, and not to say that, you know, but
these are people that you know, were on the edges
of the society and they were hired not because they
were reformed from that, because they were very much in it.
You you recommended. I look up pictures from one of
these incidents involving the Service Department and of the Battle
of the Overpast, the Battle of the Overpast. The guys
(11:43):
look like they were out of work because Capone was
in jail or something. Doesn't It look like every gangster
movie you've ever seen, look like your stereotypical gangster. And
they look like they are spoiling for trouble. And those
are Ray Bennett's men, and he hired He had a
an entire army of these goons that would go out
and they were they they were, um, the union busters.
(12:05):
These are the guys that you know, if there was
a threat of a union strike because Ford hated unions.
He hated you know, um, every aspect of it. He
just couldn't stand it. So if you're on the line marching,
watch out for Bennett's coons because they're they're coming. There's
no doubt about it. They're going to be there in
some way, and they didn't care who's watching, because the
Battle of the Overpast happened right in front of reporters.
(12:27):
Cameras they had, um, and that's still cameras. And in fact,
they had a lot more than what you'll see if
you do a search for this. I encouraged people to
go and look at stuff all the time. Um, if
you do a search for a Battle of the Overpast,
you'll see the photos that exist from this. Most of
the photographs were destroyed by Bennett's men. Uh. They after
they attacked the the organizers of the event, Walter Ruther
(12:49):
and UM Richard Frankenstein I think is his name. Um.
They they then turned on the reporters that were recording
this and even ladies who are there handing out pamphlet. Yeah.
They when you say they turned out, they beat them up.
I mean they were kicking them and punching them and
dragging them down iron steps. And you can see photos
of these guys just black and black and blue and
(13:10):
and bloody afterwards. Uh. The only way that these photographs
got out is is an amazing story. One of the photographers,
UM actually walked to the edge of the overpat ran
to the edge of the overpast and dropped his camera
into a passing convertible and the convert will sped off
with the with the camera. You know, this is a plan, exactly,
the plan to get the photographs out because they knew
(13:31):
what to expect, and of course the reporters you know,
you know, probably beat silly. So yeah, so when we talk,
I mean that gives um sort of new context to
talking about the spies and informants too, because they're not
just trying to figure out what your life is like.
They're trying to figure out if you have union sympathies,
and you see what happens if you do. And what's
so weird to me and all of this is that, um,
(13:54):
you know, by this point, Ford had allowed some of
the company control to go to his son, ed Saul,
but that was really nominal control. And that's not because
Edzel was an incompetent UH manager and incompetent executive. It's
because his father really didn't trust his judgment, didn't want
to relinquish control, and and Edel was thinking a little
(14:15):
i don't know, in a more modern way about this, thinking, well,
we should make a deal with the unions, we should
come to some sort of agreement while all this violence
is happening, that is supported by his father. Ye, Edzel
was a bit more sympathetic than than Henry, of course,
I mean far more. But the problem was, you know,
he had given control of Ford Motor Company to Edzel
in nineteen so that's relatively early on in this thing, right,
(14:38):
I mean he had he had actually given up control,
which is hard to believe. But Henry had still commanding rights.
He had he had a the ability to veto any
decision that Etzel made, and he often did. And that,
to me, it says, well, why is ze Leaven there?
It's almost like he's done a different job, just a figurehead.
But you know he's Henry's trying to give him some
(14:59):
some free him. Yet still he's he's got that iron
fist grip on him. Um, and just not allowing it happened.
Can you imagine how that made Edgel feel not good?
And and I mean he died pretty young, um, and
it sounded like he had a difficult life on under
that iron thumb of his father, working at his father's company. Um.
We'll talk a little bit more about the next generation
(15:21):
a little later. Um, but you know, I think the
next thing we have to address here. We've talked about
Ford in the unions and in the spying his anti Semitism,
and it really goes beyond just his his own personal opinions,
because he works quite hard to broadcast them. He thought
that Jewish international bankers were responsible for World War One,
(15:43):
and it's strange. On the one hand that belief manifested
in some surprising pacivism on Ford's part. In nineteen fifteen,
he traveled to Europe in this attempt to stage some
peace talks and uh, it was all aboard this ship
called the Piece Ship, which got him a lot of criticism.
But he also bought a newspaper. He bought The Dearborn Independent,
(16:06):
and that was specifically to use as a platform against Jews.
These editorial comments or these editorial columns that he would
write that that went in or other writers would would
you know it, Supposedly he was reviewing all that he's
editing this this, this, uh, this newspaper. Supposedly later he
would deny it. But um had very very strong anti
(16:28):
Semitic statements and them um, you know, and just to
go back, I mean, Henry, he blamed everything on the Jews.
I mean, he write down to you know, the world,
both world wars with the sinking to Lusitania. He was
the one that kind of bought into that conspiracy theory
that you know, it was sunk on purpose and that's
what started this whole thing. Um. But these these were
just filled with anti Semitic views, viewpoints that this is
(16:53):
should we get into, like the European part of this
r I don't think we can go without mention. Okay,
here's this is so bad for Henry at this time.
I mean, but you know, he's the one putting this
out there, so we have to report on it. I guess, um.
You know, all these these anti Semitic viewpoints made their
way over to Germany and to a certain individual named
(17:15):
Adolf Hitler pre World War two Germany. Yeah, this is
this is prior to Hitler being a chancellor. Um. But
unfortunately Hitler kind of gravitated towards his views and said,
you know, I like the way this guy thinks. Yeah,
a successful American industrialist with views that seemed similar. Yeah, exactly.
And so this is bad news for Henry because he's
(17:36):
doing so well here in the States. You know, everything's
going going just fine. More or less. Um, Hitler picks
up on these things, actually has the stuff translated into
German and distributes it. Yeah, this series of articles on
the quote International Jew, and they're quite popular in Germany too.
There's a book called the International Jew and it's it's
really just the clippings from the deer was it? Dearborn?
(17:59):
Deerborn independent, dearborn Independent? And this is so unfortunate for
Henry because, um, there's a lot of there's a lot
of parallels badly and terrible enough that you know, the
parallels between Hitler and I'm sorry Henry Ford. And I'm
not saying Henry Ford is a Nazi in any way.
(18:19):
I'm saying that he had these anti Semitic views. Hitler
like these views. And then if you recall, remember we
said that, um, well you know what happens with the
whole anti semitism in Germany. But um, going back to
the Everyman's Car, that was also something that Hitler kind
of patterned after Henry I'm sorry, after Henry Ford and
(18:40):
said I want to make an everyman's car for Germany
the way that Ford made one for the United States.
And it's going to be the book's wagon Beetle, and
you know, there's a whole story about that too. But
so here in the States, you can imagine what this
is doing to Henry Ford's reputation. It's just it's getting
worse and worse and worse every day. It was more
comes out about Hitler and what kind of policies he's
(19:01):
instituting in pre war Germany, and with the onset of
the war, oh my gosh, it just it pushed it
over the edge and made him a very unpopular character.
And Ford kind of tried to back out of things.
You know, he you you had mentioned that. Eventually he said, oh,
I wasn't that involved in the paper. He did retract
some of his statements, but according to Biography magazine, he
(19:23):
also didn't try to stop the publication of the International
JO until the middle of World War Two, until things
were clearly beyond bad. Um that you know that says something,
These are outrageous, outrageous views. I mean, the stuff that
you'll read or you'll hear about this is amazing. I mean.
And his hatred for this group, I mean it goes back.
(19:44):
He he blamed everything on them, He blamed music on them.
He thought movies were were sinful that. You know, he
was very very puritan, very puritan aspect about him. He
didn't he didn't like dancing. He didn't like music. He
thought it was old fashioned dan thing. He would stage
dances where, you know, and think about this is like
the twenties or something, so people are doing dances like
(20:06):
the Charleston. He would stage dances where you could do
the Polka or the Virginia reel. But to hate films,
I mean, he hated films because they were filled filled
with sex and sin. And but here's the interesting thing,
like he would also in the newsreels, wouldn't have a
problem with Ford Motor Company being you know, prominently displayed
in the in the newsreels to promote the vehicles. Yeah,
he clearly couldn't reconcile his business sense with his personal beliefs. Yes,
(20:30):
it was very conflicted, very conflicted. But you know, it's
just really terribly unfortunate timing for him. And not only that,
I mean, you know, these outrages views. What what was
the guy in this position doing releasing this type of material.
I don't, I just can't. Why didn't somebody tell him okay,
no entry forward, back off, back down, I don't understand.
(20:51):
What's really strange though, is is this kind of undoes
some of his personal reputation, but it also helps make
his company, or at least the war does not these views,
but the the existence of World War Two helped save
his company in a way because he is so old fashioned,
he is so resistant to change that by the by
(21:13):
the thirties, his company is falling into lower places. You know,
they're they're not the top car company anymore. Yea. So he's, uh,
you know, he's realizing that by you know, by World
War two, we're talking um, oh my gosh, we're talking
almost forty years or thirty five years after the beginning
of his company, or the Model T rather anyways, not
(21:34):
the company. Um, they realized that they got to kind
of move in a new direction. So they're, you know,
they're they're coming out with new models, which I'm surprised
ever happened. But you know, they had the Model A,
which they renamed A because it was like a complete
start over with what he said, you know, it couldn't
he couldn't go on from the Model T too, you know,
the Model you Um, he went he went right back
to A. Said, now it's a totally different vehicle, even
(21:56):
though there's a lot of similarities. But um, he was
just he was quirky in that way. And you said,
you know, world War One, he was kind of a
he took the pacifist role, was more for peace and exactly. Well,
in World War Two, then you know, things changed and
everybody was kind of on board with with war production.
So we've we've talked about, you know, some of the plants,
you know, off air, we've talked about the way the
(22:17):
plants could adapt to war production. And you know, instead
of making engines, we're gonna make bombers, and instead of trucks,
we're gonna make tanks. And you were telling me that
plants can they still have that capability to make a
few changes on the line and dramatically change what they're producing,
going from producing buses to producing tanks. Thanks exactly. There,
(22:38):
it's very modular, and then they could they could shift
over within a matter of hours. I mean, I think
that's a great example of how the how the moving
assembly line works, why it works. Yeah, I mean to
this day. I mean, it's a great idea. It's one
that you know has never really gone away. Um he
just took what was already there and perfected it. So
while we're on that subject of Ford really working on
(23:00):
something until he has a great product, we've got to
talk about some of his weirder experiments and and some
of this is really cool. Some of it is unexpected,
some of it is way before his time. I think
this is very unexpected for it. I just would never
see a guy that you know, wouldn't even consider moving
on to a different model of vehicle for nineteen years,
(23:20):
that he would do something like this. But he was.
He was heavy, heavy into soybean research. And it doesn't
sound like that's automotive related, but it, but it very
much is. And this is this is one of those
just crazy things. I mean, he he was so into it.
He made food with this, He made fibers with this,
He made plastics with us. And the plastic thing is
where it came into play with the automobile. He actually
(23:42):
created a plastic automobile in n one that made you know,
the circuit it would write, would grab around with reporters
and you know, people could feel and touch. This was
a full sized vehicle out of plastic that was made
from soybeans and just this had never been done before.
And he also had this vehicle. Now that wasn't his
personal vehicle. There's a white vehicle that you'll see in
(24:03):
press photos, and that was the all plastic vehicle. He
himself had a black vehicle that he fitted with a
plastic trunk and you know, the soybean material that he
made plastics out of. He would for reporters, he would
demonstrate the the resilience of this material by striking it
with an ax. It. You know, he would hit it
himself with an ax his own personal vehicle on the
(24:24):
trunk because it had this one panel public display of
what had happened a few years earlier. This is so crazy.
He would he would put like a like a rubber
sleeve on the sharp end of it, so wouldn't you know,
puncture it, but he would. He would swing as hard
as he could at the trunk of this thing with
the ax and it wouldn't dent, but the ax would
fly out of his hands, you know, fifteen twenty ft
in the air, and you know, everybody would take photos
(24:45):
and would be a great photo opportunity with Henry Ford.
And you can see a lot of photos of him
doing this. Um really really fascinating. But you know it
didn't just end there. He went into you know, he
would have reporters to the Ford mansion and host luncheons
where every course of the meal would be soybean based
because he was very interested in diet. I hadn't known
(25:07):
that about him. Again, it kind of does make sense.
It's some some intense control over his life. Again, but
he loved vegetables. He loved to eat soybeans. You were
talking about meals that were entirely soy based. Yeah, he
made He would make um. The meat would be soy,
soybean based exactly. It was something like you know what
(25:27):
I thought it would taste like like pork chop or whatever.
He would he would develop these things so that they
tasted that way. It's very advanced. He should have lived
in the seventies. And you know he had an entire
you know, part of it. There was a there's a
whole compound of of um labs on his facility that
were just strictly devoted to soybean science and they would
(25:48):
create you know, soy milk and um ice creams and
candies and and even get this this is this is
maybe even the strangest part. He would wear a suit
that was made of soybean fire bird, So he had
a soybean fiber suit that was you know, I think
there's some wool in there too, but um, so he's
wearing the soybean suit to this soybean luncheon, Henry Ford
(26:11):
as Willy Wonka. But it looks it just looked like
a normal suit, you know. And there they're photos of
him in the You can go to the fair Land
mansion and you can look. You know, there's a a
restaurant there and there's photos on the wall and you know,
there's him wearing a soybean suit. All right, So before
you guys go out in google pictures of Henry Ford
in that bean suit, we've got to switch gears for
(26:31):
a minute, all right, Sarah, let's get back to talking
about Henry Ford. Yeah, let's do that. And let's go
back to plastic development. Why why didn't that take off?
What happened? I think I personally believe this is just
poor timing because it was one when he made the
when he made the entirely plastic vehicle, and he was
demonstrating all this, and then the war hit and things
(26:54):
really regressed at that point. You know, we were just
strictly trying to find as much metal as we could
and build a much you know, war machinery as we could.
And then after that, you know, the soldiers come back
and they want something different, and it just kind of
things had passed by, and you know, he's not in
control anymore at that and he's well, actually he's dead.
Um he died, what was it, nineteen seven? Um, So
(27:15):
you know, things things changed dramatically after that point. It's
just kind of an idea that went away. And then
you know, the next thing, you know, it's nineteen eighties
and we're hearing about Saturn with this new plastic automobile.
Well it's not really so new, not that new, And
I think, I think, Um, what's interesting about this is
if maybe that idea had been just a few years earlier,
the war might have actually given it a push instead
(27:39):
of holding it back. Since wartime metal rationing a plastic
car starts to sound like pretty good idea, it's just
right on the cusps. They're too late to really make
it a reality. It had. He had a lot of
great ideas, I mean, he really did. He really had
a lot of great ideas, but he was he was
big into perfecting things. Um. He's a fascinating, fascinating character.
And I mean one quick little anecdote here that I mean,
(28:02):
this is from a piece of listener mail that actually
came into car stuff, and we read this on on
our show. But someone was taking an airboat ride in
the Everglades and the guide pointed out the Spanish moss
hanging from the trees and he said, you know that
Ford used to come would send people down here to
harvest the Spanish moss and bring it back to Detroit
and pack it into the seat the seats of the
(28:24):
Model T early on. This is this is like the
early early Model T s. And then the people that
would buy the Model T S would realize like, well,
I'm getting this kind of funny rash on my legs.
And the gross thing is mites, yea Spanish moss, mites.
And they would they would burrow through the material into
the skin and they would lay eggs in the people's skin.
It's still gross. So you know, it wasn't long after
(28:45):
that that they decided, well we're gonna do with cotton.
But um, again, just an interesting idea that you know,
and who knows, maybe he would I think this is
a great idea and buy a bunch of everglades, you know,
property for the moss exactly. I know. I feel like
that would COMPETI the moss. That's something you learn, like
first time you go to the beach, I don't take
the Spanish moss home with you. To be competing for
land with Disney at the time. That's a pretty fascinating story.
(29:10):
But um, we've got to talk a little bit about
his nostalgia too. So we've talked about all these innovations,
all these innovative ideas, but he certainly realizes late in
life how much he's changed the world, how much he
is directly responsible for changing the United States and probably
(29:30):
influencing worldwide ideas. Um. And he's a little bit nostalgic
for his old country farm life that he wanted to
to leave. And we've already talked about the dances. You know,
he's like young kids today do the polka. But it
really extends to an interest in preserving history too, which
(29:50):
is so ironic because one of Ford's most famous quotes
is history is more or less bunk for ago. You
said that he becomes so interested in preserving the history
of his boyhood world, his boyhood heroes, guys like Edison,
guys like the Wright brothers. And I think you can
talk about this a little bit because you've been to
(30:12):
the place that is the shrine to this preservation. I've
been to the Henry Ford Museum, which is an incredible,
incredible museum. I don't think I've ever been to a
better museum from my point of view. I loved that place.
I can spend days or weeks there. Um. The other
part of that that complex, I guess you know it's built.
There's a test track right there. It's right in Dearborn.
(30:34):
H is Greenfield Village. And if you remember, well I
don't know if we even mentioned or not, but he
was born in Greenfield Township and he built, you know,
he went to move to Dearborn and he built this
little this little land for himself called Greenfield Village. So
you know, obviously he's trying to even replicate the name
of the place. But what he does with this place,
this is so this is so neat. He he brings
(30:55):
parts of what he remembers as being his America uh
to Greenfield Village. And you know that may be. I
mean it's it's pretty expansive. I mean, this is a
ninety acre property. It's got something like eighty three buildings
on the property. And these are all historic, historically significant buildings.
It's uh, it's Henry fire and I'm sorry, Harvey Firestone's
(31:17):
entire farm from from Ohio is brought there Edison's lab
with some of the original you know, the original light
bulbs and you know, all the original furniture and everything.
Some of that stuff was nailed down so it was
never moved on the way, you know, just brought the
entire building. Um, the you know Orville and Wilbur right
their their bicycle shop that they owned in Dayton, Ohio.
That's he's got. He's got a he's got a courthouse
(31:40):
that Lincoln actually practiced lawn, which is incredible. Um, every
every single thing has some historical significance. And again it's
it's taking he's trying to build that eighteen eighties lifestyle
in you know, nineteen the nineteen thirties in you know
the place that he Now, this is this an enormous
(32:01):
piece of property, and dearborn and like setting that off
against what's happening in the rest of the country, you know,
the interstate system, going through old landmarks, things like that,
actively trying to preserve something, realizing what is happening and
what he wants to keep from from how he remembers
the country exactly. There's even like a steam engine and
(32:23):
now this is a recent edition, but you can have
you can take a ride on a model teeth through
the property, which you know you couldn't have done at
that time, but now you can. Um you'll see if
you go there ever, and I really, I mean I
encourage people to go there. It's beautiful. Um, but you'll
see kids like rolling hoops with sticks and things like that.
They have all kinds of fun things. I mean, you
can even watch like what baseball was like back then,
(32:45):
the people playing with the old mits and old balls
and bats, and it's in the old uniforms. It's really
it's really a fascinating place. It sounds very step back
in history. So I mean, I guess that about wraps
it up then. For for Henry Ford, he died one
years to the day after his father had immigrated from
Ireland to Michigan. Um. Just tying up this bridging two
(33:09):
different worlds, tying up this this amazing life with extreme
highs and extreme lows. Really yeah, yeah, And you know what,
even to this day, the Ford Motor Company remains a
family business. It does what's what's I mean? I won't
go into all the detail here, but um, there's a
Ford at the head of Ford Motor Company right now.
Um William Clay Jr. Is the is the head of it.
(33:32):
And you know, his father is still in Tony's father
is still a life which was one of his The
only living grandchild of Henry Ford is still is. He's
still around. He's like he's his upper eighties and he
owns the Detroit Lions at this point. But you know
he's All through history there's been a Ford somewhere involved
with the company. So we had said we'd mentioned Henry
Ford the second to his his grandson who took over
(33:54):
the company at the very end of his life. Um,
he had this strange relay sationship with his son ed
Soel his grandson. I think he might have seen him
as kind of a threat to that power. But finally
with his wife strongly urging him on, and he did
relinquish a lot of his control to his grandson late
in life. And um, you know so much about this,
(34:16):
I guess because it gets into the modern history of Ford.
But Henry for the second really changes the kind of
company it is. Yeah, exactly, And you know, from that
point forward, it's it's very it's been very successful ever since. Um,
and it was it was up to that point, but
there were some real shaky parts in there. Um, you know,
around the wartime. But you know now now that we've
got William Clayford Junior in in an office he's his
(34:38):
actually official title as the executive chairman of Ford Motor Company. UM.
And his father, William Clayford is is still sitting on
the board. So you know, Ford, it's it's far reaching.
I wonder who's gonna be next, because you know, William
Playford Jr. He's he's only fifty five, that's kind of
nearing retirement age. Who's up next? I don't know. I
don't I just don't know who's who's gonna be next
(35:00):
in power? I guess we'll find out eventually. But interesting family.
And this guy he's he's just he's brilliant. I mean,
he's probably he's borderline genius. He's an innovator. UM, I
don't know he you know, he had a temporary he
had these bad sides to him. He's a he's got
a tyrannical side, very very eccentric, you know. But but overall,
(35:21):
I mean, this guy, when you start reading about him,
it doesn't sound like you know, before you even listen
to podcast, you may not have thought much about the guy.
I think this will encourage people to read about him.
I think so. I definitely want to learn more about him.
And uh, I'd love to visit the museum you're talking
about too and see see some of this legacy. And
(35:41):
and I know you could probably speak more about this too,
But for it seems like they have accepted for the company.
Seems like they have accepted and um, well, I don't
want to say embrace, but accepted their founder's entire history.
Nobody's trying to sugarcoat sugarcoat thing, and you don't have to.
You know, there's enough that makes the man undeniably impressive
(36:06):
to talk about the less impressive things too. Um. So,
very interesting guy. Thank you so much for suggesting him
so wholeheartedly. He's been really fun to learn about. Good
I'm glad I felt the same way. I um, I
knew he was an interesting cat to begin with, but
then you start digging into, you know, some of the
biography material, it's like you just want more and more
(36:28):
and more. Yeah, you start learning things like just one
last weird fact, the Ford mansion which he said you
had visited. He had hot and cold running rainwater in
every bathroom, plus half water, just you know, in case
you wanted a refreshing rainwater. I'm going to add to
this too, because it was It's a fifty six room mansion,
(36:49):
I think. And they said that they built, you know,
all these extravagant things like a pool and a bird
baths were heated. Yeah, bird baths were heated, but that
they had all these you know, like they had like
a bowling alley or whatever. They had all these activities,
and it was all to keep edsel Ford from you know,
wanting to date girls and to uh, you know, wanting
to drink or smoke or whatever. The model out person exactly. Yeah.
(37:11):
They they felt that this was a way to distract him,
was to have this grand home and he'd have lots
of things to do. I think my favorite home amenity, though,
I kind of wish I had this an underground pipe
that would suck dust out of the house. I don't
know how well that worked. It seems like if that
was a possibility, everybody would have that we wouldn't have
to worry about act got to get that. It sounds
(37:32):
like a good idea. So, um, I guess that's it
for Ford for now. Um, Katie and I, as I mentioned,
did an episode on Ford Landia. What kind of episodes
have you all done on on Ford. I'm sure we've
got well, you know, other aspects of Ford. We might
have covered the Model A or the Model T, and
we've we've talked about even starting a Model T because
that's quite a chore. Um, just in general, we've done it.
(37:54):
We've done a piece on him. You have to crank
up the Model Tea. Yeah, yeah, And it was an
arm breaker, tell you that it really was. Unless you're
forward and you can rip upot, it would snap your arm.
That's how dangerous it was. And it's it's nothing was standard.
It's a really a unique car. But there's there's a
lot of history there. So you all should go listen
to some of those episodes on Scott's podcast, which is
(38:14):
called Car Stuff. If you want to share any more
ideas about Ford any other auto grats you'd like us
to discuss at some point. We are at History Podcast
at Discovery dot com. We're also on Twitter at Miston History,
and we are on Facebook. And what kind of Ford
related articles? I mean, the classic how stuff works article
(38:35):
is how engines work? But what what have you edited
recently that you think is really Ford related? You know,
we've got some Model T information, you know, kind of
product overview type stuff, um, specifically for the Model T.
And I know there's some stuff out there. I've got
a blog that's about h starting the Model T, which
is really interesting. I mean that we've mentioned that the
thing is difficult to get going, and um, you know,
(38:58):
there's just a lot of forder for me. If you can,
you can search forward and get information about the entire
company just in or to. But anything and everything automotive
is on our site all right, and Scott has edited
most of it. You know. One fun fact about Scott.
If you see a strange prototype car and give him
a description of it, he can probably identify it for you.
(39:20):
Maybe may I hope I don't get you inundated with
emails now, but yeah, if you want to check out
some of that information about Ford, about the Model C,
about cars in general. It is all on our website
at www. Dot how stuff works dot com. For more
on this and thousands of other topics, is it how
(39:40):
stuff works dot com.
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