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"Henry Ford and Mass Production " describes very well why Henry Ford is still famous. The most important thing that made him famous is the way he build the automobiles and his concepts of life.
When he turned seventy-one Henry showed up to meet the press wearing two different shoes. Asked about it by reporters, he looked down and, obviously making up an answer on the spot, said that he always wore one old shoe on his birthday to remind himself that he had once been poor and might be again. He still had his loose-limbed walk and springy gait; the netted wrinkles around his eyes collaborated with his mouth when he smiled.
He was still automatic news, charming even the reporters who came to 'get' him. Even his
rare refusals to do journalists' bidding were endearing. A photographer once asked him to pose between two boys with a hand on the head of each, and he refused. When asked why, he reminded the photographer about the picture of John Dillinger with an arm around the sheriff whose jail he later broke out of. 'You can see for yourself the spot 1'd be in if these two boys turned out badly: he said.
But if he was the same old Ford to the outer world, the employees close to him saw him as a different man. The practical jokes of a prior era had fermented into episodes of intentional cruelty; the belief in individuality and independence had become a sclerotic insistence on having his own way. It was Edsel who absorbed most of the punishment.
It was clear to everyone that Ford loved his son deeply, but it was the same sort of love as when Edsel was the little boy to whom he had been unusually close. Henry could not relinquish the role of father, and as Edsel tried to find ground he could occupy Henry tried to push him back into dependence, capriciously overturning the decisions Edsel made as president and humiliating him in front of others. When Edsel learned that yet another of his orders had been countermanded, his jaw would tighten and his features cloud. 'Well, I thought Father understood about this: he would say. 'Apparently somebody talked to him about it ... ' Finally he would shrug and repeat the only explanation he had for such behavior: 'Well, after all, my father built this business. It is his business.'
The Fords, An American Epic by Peter Collier and David Horowitz (AmE)
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Posted 31 May 2008 - 10:48 AM
