The People's Tycoon

The People's Tycoon
Author: Steven Watts
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 656
Release: 2009-03-04
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0307558975

How a Michigan farm boy became the richest man in America is a classic, almost mythic tale, but never before has Henry Ford’s outsized genius been brought to life so vividly as it is in this engaging and superbly researched biography. The real Henry Ford was a tangle of contradictions. He set off the consumer revolution by producing a car affordable to the masses, all the while lamenting the moral toll exacted by consumerism. He believed in giving his workers a living wage, though he was entirely opposed to union labor. He had a warm and loving relationship with his wife, but sired a son with another woman. A rabid anti-Semite, he nonetheless embraced African American workers in the era of Jim Crow. Uncovering the man behind the myth, situating his achievements and their attendant controversies firmly within the context of early twentieth-century America, Watts has given us a comprehensive, illuminating, and fascinating biography of one of America’s first mass-culture celebrities.

The American Axis

The American Axis
Author: Max Wallace
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 498
Release: 2004-12-13
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780312335311

Examines how Charles Lindbergh's support for Nazi militarism and U.S. isolationism and Henry Ford's business dealings with Germany tarnished their idealized images. Drawing on original lsources, Wallace brings out some pertinent connections between the two men's anti-Semitism and their ties with the rising Nazi regime. Their influence culminated in an abuse of power that helped strengthen Hitler's regime and undermined the Allied war effort.

Full of Beans

Full of Beans
Author: Peggy Thomas
Publisher: Thinkingdom
Total Pages: 48
Release: 2020-06-09
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1635923573

A NSTA/CBC Best STEM Book Famous car-maker and businessman Henry Ford loved beans. And he showed great innovation with his determination to build his most inventive car--one completely made of soybeans. With a mind for ingenuity, Henry Ford looked to improve life for others. After the Great Depression struck, Ford especially wanted to support ailing farmers. For two years, Ford and his team researched ways to use farmers' crops in his Ford Motor Company. They discovered that the soybean was the perfect answer. Soon, Ford's cars contained many soybean plastic parts, and Ford incorporated soybeans into every part of his life. He ate soybeans, he wore clothes made of soybean fabric, and he wanted to drive soybeans, too. Award-winning author Peggy Thomas and illustrator Edwin Fotheringham explore this American icon's little-known quest.

Henry Ford And The Jews

Henry Ford And The Jews
Author: Neil Baldwin
Publisher:
Total Pages: 440
Release: 2001-12-03
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

Drawing upon oral history transcripts, archival correspondence, and unpublished family memoirs, independent scholar Baldwin describes Henry Ford's rabid anti-Semitism and the Jewish American community's response to him. Topics include Ford's hateful essays in The Dearborn Independent, his publication of treatises on the alleged international Jewish banking conspiracy, and his impact on the anti- Semitic movement in Europe in the years leading up to World War II. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Henry Ford Has a Problem

Henry Ford Has a Problem
Author: William Sabin
Publisher: Learning Island
Total Pages: 15
Release: 2016-03-30
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN:

Henry Ford had a problem. Many people would think it was a good problem, but it was still a problem. What was his problem? Henry Ford was selling too many cars. Henry had made the first Model T in 1909. He made sure that it was cheap. He wanted anyone to be able to buy a car. He got a lot of people to sell it. He also had the newspapers write about it. Henry also sold the car in different ways. There was a regular Model T that people could ride in. But that was not all. There was also a Model T pickup. There was one with a flat bed on the back. A flatbed is like the bottom part of a pickup truck. It has the flat bottom part, but not the sides. Henry also put ads in papers. On of the ads showed a plow hooked to a Model T. In Henry's mind, this car could do a lot of things. He thought it would work for lots of people. Lots of people thought so too. They were buying the cars. Find out how Henry solves the problem and starts making cars much faster in this fun 15-minute book. Ages 7 and up. Reading level 2.9 This book is part of our "Heroes in History" series. These 15-minute books focus on a specific moment in a historic person's life. Aimed at second graders, they provide the perfect introduction to famous Americans in an exciting, fun-to-read way. LearningIsland.com believes in the value of children practicing reading for 15 minutes every day. Our 15-Minute Books give children lots of fun, exciting choices to read, from classic stories, to mysteries, to books of knowledge. Many books are appropriate for hi-lo readers. Open the world of reading to a child by having them read for 15 minutes a day.

The Cars That Henry Ford Built

The Cars That Henry Ford Built
Author: Beverly Rae Kimes
Publisher: Automobile Heritage Publishing & Co
Total Pages: 148
Release: 2005-08-21
Genre: Ford automobile
ISBN: 159613013X

At the time, in 1978, when The Cars That Henry Ford Built was first published, sending a copy for Henry Ford II to review seemed a vain request·Automobile Quarterly founding editor and publisher L. Scott Bailey was told that Mr. Ford (never comments on a book written about Ford.÷ Two weeks later came an unexpected exhortation from Henry Ford II: (My grandfather would have loved this book.÷ Ford then specially ordered 20 copies bound in white leather·needed in two weeks. The rush order was necessitated by an upcoming trip to Japan. As is culturally customary to offer a gift that honors one's ancestors, Henry Ford II specifically chose The Cars That Henry Ford Built to give to his Japanese hosts. Such high-level praise is derived from the book's fresh approach to the subject of Henry Ford, both in its study of the man and his cars, as well as the exceptional pictorial presentation. Presented for the first time in full color, there is every model Henry Ford produced from the Quadricycle he put together as a young man in 1896 to the famous V8 Ford on the production lines four and a half decades later during his failing years. Probably no other individual in automobile history more accurately mirrored in his cars his view of himself and of America as he saw it. Join award-winning historian and author Beverly Rae Kimes as she presents lively historical text that captures Henry growing and aging as his cars grew and aged, each lock-stepped together through history. Over 100 full-color photographs further bring the man and his creations to life.

Wheels for the World

Wheels for the World
Author: Douglas Brinkley
Publisher:
Total Pages: 858
Release: 2009-05
Genre:
ISBN: 9781437965506

The saga of how Henry Ford and Ford Motor Co. changed our world. Reveals the details of Ford¿s achievements, from the success of the Tin Lizzie to the Model A and V-8, through the Thunderbird, Mustang, and Taurus. Innovators include: Thomas Edison, Alfred Sloan, the Wright Bros., Diego Rivera, and Charles Lindbergh. Discusses 3 factories: Highland Park, River Rouge, and Willow Run, where B-24 airplanes were mass-produced during WW2. Tells of Ford¿s expansion throughout the world, as well as the acquisitions of Volvo, Land Rover, Jaguar, and Mazda. Explores Ford¿s darker aspects, incl. its founder¿s anti-Semitism and wartime pacifism. Introduces us to: James Couzens, Lee Iocacco and William Clay Ford Jr. Photos.

The Color Line and the Assembly Line

The Color Line and the Assembly Line
Author: Elizabeth Esch
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2018-05-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520960882

The Color Line and the Assembly Line tells a new story of the impact of mass production on society. Global corporations based originally in the United States have played a part in making gender and race everywhere. Focusing on Ford Motor Company’s rise to become the largest, richest, and most influential corporation in the world, The Color Line and the Assembly Line takes on the traditional story of Fordism. Contrary to popular thought, the assembly line was perfectly compatible with all manner of racial practice in the United States, Brazil, and South Africa. Each country’s distinct racial hierarchies in the 1920s and 1930s informed Ford’s often divisive labor processes. Confirming racism as an essential component in the creation of global capitalism, Elizabeth Esch also adds an important new lesson showing how local patterns gave capitalism its distinctive features.

Hitler's American Friends

Hitler's American Friends
Author: Bradley W. Hart
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2018-10-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 1250148960

A book examining the strange terrain of Nazi sympathizers, nonintervention campaigners and other voices in America who advocated on behalf of Nazi Germany in the years before World War II. Americans who remember World War II reminisce about how it brought the country together. The less popular truth behind this warm nostalgia: until the attack on Pearl Harbor, America was deeply, dangerously divided. Bradley W. Hart's Hitler's American Friends exposes the homegrown antagonists who sought to protect and promote Hitler, leave Europeans (and especially European Jews) to fend for themselves, and elevate the Nazi regime. Some of these friends were Americans of German heritage who joined the Bund, whose leadership dreamed of installing a stateside Führer. Some were as bizarre and hair-raising as the Silver Shirt Legion, run by an eccentric who claimed that Hitler fulfilled a religious prophesy. Some were Midwestern Catholics like Father Charles Coughlin, an early right-wing radio star who broadcast anti-Semitic tirades. They were even members of Congress who used their franking privilege—sending mail at cost to American taxpayers—to distribute German propaganda. And celebrity pilot Charles Lindbergh ended up speaking for them all at the America First Committee. We try to tell ourselves it couldn't happen here, but Americans are not immune to the lure of fascism. Hitler's American Friends is a powerful look at how the forces of evil manipulate ordinary people, how we stepped back from the ledge, and the disturbing ease with which we could return to it.