Tour De Ford’s

In The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas wrote, “We should not judge one age from the viewpoint of another.” I assume this was tongue-in-cheek, while young and adventuresome D’Artagnan commits forgery and worse. To judge the automotive genius Henry Ford by today’s standards may seem unfair, it may even seem disloyal if Ford’s name was on the paycheck that enabled so many Michigan parents and grandparents to own their own middle-class homes and cars, to take vacations and put away savings, often on a single income, often without college degrees. That way of life is over now, but Ford’s signature is still found all over Southeastern Michigan. Ford’s name was also on the antisemitic newspaper that he owned and distributed anywhere you could buy a Ford car in the 1920s. People did criticize him for this at that time, there were boycotts, but a hundred years later we are still haunted by a scrubbed version of Ford, the benign Henry, a version that doesn’t acknowledge the poisonous ideas, about distrusting Jews, that Ford spread across our country in the years leading up to the Second World War. 

When we only remember the good side of a public figure, we do a disservice to those they’ve wronged. I can’t say that I know how to reckon with Henry Ford’s years of villainizing Jewish people, but I do not think Jews should have to be the ones doing all the work of figuring out Ford’s social legacy. When we don’t look at a whole, complex picture, we become stupider as a society. We become less flexible thinkers, but paradoxically more manipulatable by disinformation, and less sensitive to nuance. Marketers today are still sharing simplified versions of the Ford Motor Company founder, but I think we can handle the truth. 

Henry Ford was not one for staying in his own lane. A Dearborn farm kid, his beloved mother allowed him to eschew work for tinkering at a workbench of his own, while the other Ford kids worked. Henry Ford took things apart and put them back together again; he even studied a passing steam engine in hopes of mechanizing grunt work on the farm. He finished eighth grade and became a machinist, left the family homestead for nearby Detroit. His first automobile couldn’t be kept in one place, either. The 1896 one-seater, a box on bike wheels, outgrew the door of the workshop in which he built it. The door had to be broken away so he could drive outside.

He married Clara Jane Bryant when he was 25 and she 18, after a few years of courtship.  She was regarded to be a good, stable influence on him throughout their life together. 

Ford motor cars were built in a Piquette Street factory, then another in Highland Park. Here Ford’s small team slowly designed and implemented the automotive assembly line.¹ The work lines reduced human workers to tasks, and evolved so that eventually the workers were reduced to simple motions, repeated endlessly (and later, automated). 

The Fords had one child, Edsel, who Ford would dote on, then restrict. Edsel was sent to good schools but barred from attending university, travels, and other opportunities enjoyed by his peers. In retrospect, Henry Ford did not understand parenting, but rather than step back he still took an active role, limiting his son. Maybe he thought it was a father’s job to dole out tough love, but he never seemed to forgive Edsel for their differences, that Edsel was not a second coming of himself who he could grok or mold.

Once Ford operations outgrew the “Crystal Palace” factory in Highland Park, with all its windows and Albert Kahn design, he built the tremendous River Rouge Complex.² But Henry found he hated the Rouge. He avoided the noise and clangor whenever possible, though he still showed up to undo some of his son Edsel’s efforts there. Henry would rather go home to his and Clara’s estate, Fair Lane, or go on luxury camping trips with his wealthy industrial buddies. (What a trick, we were forced to travel fast and alone into the 20th Century, while he camped and held square dances, where he didn’t have to acknowledge that people of other religions or races existed!) He came to enjoy hunting for antiques, places and things from his childhood, from other milestone places of American invention, and other stuff that caught his crow-like eye. It was a project that Henry and Edsel were able to share, the resulting hodgepodge of history and early technology would become the beloved Greenfield Village and Henry Ford Museum. 

He sold millions upon millions of Model Ts and later Ford models, but success wasn’t enough; he wanted people to listen to him. Henry Ford had a complicated relationship with the press and the public eye. He seems to have wanted to be revered, to be loved as a wise and benevolent man, but as much as he wanted respect, his desire to be known for a snappy statement would get him in trouble, and all of his off-the-cuff remarks pale in comparison to the ideas he put in print and used his power to distribute across the country, anywhere people bought Fords.

The weekly newspaper that Ford bought and distributed through Ford dealerships around the country, The Dearborn Independent, steadily ran articles claiming Jews ran the world’s wealth and were to blame for… whatever Ford disliked and told Independent staff to write about: war, poverty, jazz. Ford himself did not write or even read the articles that called Jews a threat to America, but unfortunately he distributed them to every Ford dealer with the efficiency he was known for in industry. As for reading, in his legal case over accused slander by the Chicago Tribune around this same time period, it wasn’t even clear how literate he was. 

While Ford auto-mobilized the United States, and employed a huge number of Michiganders over the years, generations of us, he was confident to a fault and had a vindictive streak paired. It’s one thing if a farmhouse eccentric naïvely hates whole groups of people, but Ford was a millionaire in the public spotlight, telling people who may not have ever met a Jew that those of the faith were responsible for all the world’s problems. Disinformation is nothing new. For all of his money that went to the Ford Foundation to do good, for all the community leaders that have come out of the Ford family since, the antisemitic ideas he published are a dark blot on his achievements, and I think of it when I use the Ford Road exit to drive off the congested highway, and I thought of it when we bought the Ford Flex in our driveway. Unlike Ford, I can’t blame all our problems on any one entity. But with his name all around us, it’s important to know about the man behind the marketing. A little history could keep us from repeating the mistakes and the prejudices of the last century.

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Driving in Detroit and its suburbs is to be immersed in the direct and indirect legacy of Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company. First off, you are driving or riding in a car. It may not be a Ford, but it’s definitely not a dependable bus or train line. We don’t have those here. Over long, hot stretches of asphalt in summer and snowbound, slushy roads in winter you will drive your car past endless low buildings flanked by big gray aprons of parking lots. You will drive past car dealerships, and billboards advertising them. Ford dealerships dot our city streets and wide suburban boulevards, which are traversed by Ford Focuses and Broncos, Mustangs and Escapes, commercial Ford vehicles, maybe even some Lightnings, the new electric take on the classic F-150 pickup. Really these expensive, mechanical vistas are all over America. There are often six or eight different dealerships to choose from in a stretch, all with new and used rides glistening. A few special vehicles will be parked on risers or even inside the dealership, amongst the sales desks where staff are eager to help you figure out financing your new ride. Sometimes there will be a hotdog lunch to bring you in, balloons for the kids, probably not so different a lure than there was in Henry Ford’s days.

We have the Ford Motor Company, obviously, the Ford World Headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan, just west of Detroit. There’s the River Rouge complex, still churning out Fords (If you work at Ford’s,³ you’d better be driving one.) There’s also Henry Ford Community College, the Henry Ford Academy and other namesake schools. The Henry Ford Health system includes Henry Ford OptimEyes vision care. Henry Ford Village, on Ford Road, is a retirement community. There are several Ford tourist attractions. The incredible museum Henry Ford started, based on his collection of historic buildings and objects, is now called The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation and Greenfield Village. Also in Dearborn is Fair Lane, the garden-flanked mansion that was shared by Henry and Clara Ford, still open to the public. On the other side of Detroit is the Edsel and Eleanor Ford home in wealthy Grosse Pointe, with a beautiful new visitors’ center on the coast of Lake Saint Clair.

Throughout my Oakland County childhood in the ‘80s and ‘90s, you could buy your Ford from “Mel Farr, Superstar. A great place – to buy a car,” the jingle went. Farr had been a running back for the Detroit Lions⁴ (the Lions have been partially owned by a Ford family member since 1956, fully owned since 1964 with William “Bill” Clay Ford. The Lions play at Ford Field, in downtown Detroit). 

There’s the Willow Run airplane factory in Ypsilanti where Ford brought air ace Charles “Slim” Lindbergh in to consult in 1941.⁵ During World War II, the Motor City and its surroundings became The Arsenal of Democracy. One marvelous thing about Willow Run is that it’s hosted gatherings of Rosie the Riveters in recent years… huge groups dressed in navy coveralls with red kerchiefs, as the icon who’s come to represent the many women who kept American factories running during World War II,⁶ fighting against those who demonized and murdered Jews.

Keep driving. In addition to all of the Ford brands, you’ll see the impact of the auto industry in general. In strip malls and stand-alone store fronts, there’s a variety of the insurance agencies where we insure our cars, and car washes to keep them clean. Most major crossroads have one gas station, some have several to pick from. Larger grocery store chains have their own gas stations with rewards for refilling your fridge and your gas tank with them. There are oil change places, mechanics, and auto suppliers, some chains and some independent. Belle Tire, Tuffy Muffler, Jiffy Lube. You can “get in the zone – Auto Zone!” or stop in at “Oh, oh, oh, O’Reilly’s! Auto Parts!” Lots of our fast-food restaurant chains and banks have drive-through options, some pharmacies let you pick up your meds the same way. Up in Saginaw, there’s even a funeral home with drive-through chapel, so those with mobility issues can still pay their last respects. There are also urgent care facilities and endless physical therapy offices to help you recover from all this driving.

If a car can’t get you where you’re going, even the baggage claim area for international flights arriving at Detroit Metro Airport features a large mural of Ford and our other automotive impresarios. Ford’s image is one of the largest and most familiar. He is older in the mural that keeps an eye over the luggage carousel, and as slender as ever. The spaces under his eyebrows, above his big, deep-set eyes are dramatically dark, his mouth a slash.⁷ What must our visitors from other countries think of us? Ford is a bit like another slender gray American icon, Bugs Bunny. He cracks a smile, as if to say, “Here I am, still! You’ll never get rid of me.” Well. Not when those commissioning ads and artwork aren’t worried about historical nuance! Ford Road takes one to Dearborn, the city whose seal features an early Ford motorcar, with the legend, “Home Town of Henry Ford.” Henry Ford would not recognize Dearborn today, in Michigan’s top ten most populous cities. The mayor of Dearborn made local national news in 2019 when he fired a historian who had written an article investigating Henry Ford’s anti-Jewish publications. His hometown can’t deny history just because it’s negative. If we don’t acknowledge the past, we’ll continue to misrepresent Ford, which has the effect of forgiving his bigotry. 

The credit union formed by Ford employees shed the name Ford from its title way back in the 1960s. Mysteriously, Henry Ford’s namesake museum as well as the healthcare system have rebranded in the last decade, both leaning INTO the individual man. In 2022, the medical system Henry Ford Health ran a campaign for its newly shortened name, new logo, with the phrase “I am Henry.” Like in the old film, Spartacus, patients and staff tell us they, too, are innovators, they’re champions, they’re Henry. In the ads, in the moment, it sounds great. Henry Ford Health presents a welcoming, diverse picture. The casting is great, the text is a fresh font in bright, friendly colors. It would be an effective campaign if it wasn’t encouraging people in 2024 to identify with a publisher of hate speech.

The Henry Ford Museum cut off the last word of its name, and rebranded to become The Henry Ford. Why!? A medical system’s focus is not history, but The Henry Ford is in fact in the history business. The evolution of technology is their thing. The beloved museum could have easily become The Ford Museum, or Ford Dearborn, or just The Ford. Why keep Henry, when they could lean away from him and toward the family name generally, or the automotive brand whose buildings flank the museum complex and the old-timey village. (Michigan does have one other Ford museum – the Gerald R Ford Presidential Museum (no relation) way over on the other side of the mitten in Grand Rapids. No one would confuse the two.) With a trend in the United States for “old fashioned” baby names, Henry is admittedly a popular handle, top ten. Nearby to Ford HQ, there’s an upscale hotel called The Henry. Instead of moving away from a flawed individual, this place puts us on a cheeky, first-name basis with him.

I’m not here to speak ill of dead private citizens, but it’s missing the point to merely call Henry Ford a public figure. This was a man who full-on chased public attention at various points in his influential career. He gave statements as if the press were a mechanical system he could figure out via tinkering, and when the papers didn’t cover his endeavors as he wanted, he bought his own paper, and due to the ubiquity of dealerships selling his cars, that shit⁸ got everywhere. Ford himself resisted change, no matter the popularity of his projects and ideas, but he wanted to be liked. He would have understood the modern concept, “thought leader,” I think. He would have aspired to that. While he claimed to dislike the press, he was a newshog. I think that the reason he resisted and fought trade unions so hard is because they hurt his feelings. I think that he thought his workers ought to trust him to do good by them, hadn’t he been a good patriarch, hadn’t he been a good shepherd thus far? He gave them the five–dollar day! He hadn’t unionized while working for Thomas Edison in his youth, and look at him, he became Henry Ford! 

There is a great appeal to thinking of Henry Ford as a Will Rogers, or a Mr. Rogers, as he wanted to be celebrated: a straight shooter, but generous, salt of the earth. But despite his love of square dancing, he simply wasn’t a folk hero. He was a mechanical pioneer, a born inventor, and an antisemite. Outside the entrance of The Henry Ford that’s closest to Greenfield Village, there’s a life-sized sculpture of him on a pedestal, there’s another one commemorating the Henry Ford trade school where you wait for the shuttle that takes you to and from the Rouge tour. In my experience, third and fourth grade Girl Scouts as well as their chaperones stream right past it. When we look beyond the branding, past the familiar blue oval with Ford in a tidy, upright white script, we become smarter, better informed. We don’t have to idolize Ford to learn from him. We do have to admit the truth, to not keep falling for marketing. What do people need, from transportation and other technologies? Is it still an improvement, to do things faster and cheaper? How do we want businesses to treat workers? Let’s take him down off the pedestal, so we can continue to learn from his good examples as well as any bad ones.

 

 

Endnotes

1  Ford’s memoir writer Samuel Crowther noted the Ford group’s method was preceded by the de-assembly lines of Chicago slaughterhouses, where the workers stayed in one area all day and turned carcasses to sausage with repetitive efficiency. Longtime Ford associate “Cast Iron” Charles Sorenson, who was there, said the sausage factory link was only made decades in hindsight.

2  Despite automotive trade secrets still being closely guarded, visitors can tour an approved portion of the Rouge as part of the Henry Ford Museum offerings. Nowadays there’s a green roof, a small theater with Epcot-like dancing machines that would have blown away trade show visitors in 1985. There’s a small, needed area in the upstairs exhibits that tells about the UAW, United Auto Workers, which would never have been allowed during Henry’s day no matter how much money the union pitched in to the exhibit space.

3  In the Midwest we like to add that possessive s, whether you’re getting a sedan from Ford’s, breakfast from Kellogg’s or groceries from Meijer’s. 

4  Farr was African-American, and it’s worth noting that racist hiring policies are said to have kept non-celebrity Black people from many Ford jobs (policy not unique to Ford’s, either).

5  Both Lindberg and Ford corresponded with Adolph Hitler, who was said to have a photograph of Henry Ford on his desk.

6  Like the Rosies, the fascinating Ford women from Henry Ford’s era are often defined by their relationship to the Ford men. They’re briefly summarized in most of the literature.

7  No other auto magnate rises to any similar level of recognition. At the exponentially smaller Bishop airport in Flint, a classic car on display is on loan from the Flint Museum of Discovery, but these tend to be Buicks: Flint is a GM town. But what do you know about William Durant?

8  By which I mean The Dearborn Independent, while under Ford’s ownership.

Photo by Nadine Shaabana on Unsplash.