On Henry Ford's 150th Birthday, a Look Inside His Failed Utopia

Gizmodo ^ | 7/30/13

[Impala64ssa]

The murky legacy of Henry Ford—who would’ve been 150 today—centers around a few familiar ideas like the assembly line and the $5 workday. Less familiar is Ford’s biggest failure: Fordlandia, a city in the rainforest that was abandoned as quickly as it was built. Ford was a farm boy who went on to establish 20th century consumerism as we know it, but he had plenty of missteps, too, ranging from his virulent anti-semitism to his attempts to engineer whole communities around his ideas about labor practices—including the one he built on the edge of the Brazilian rainforest.

So, whence Fordlandia? The community was spurred by a problem caused by the incredible success of Ford’s empire. By the early 1900s, America was gobbling up more than 70 percent of the world’s rubber, most of it going to Detroit. These were the days when rubber still came from plants—meaning that most of it had to be shipped from Southeast Asia. Ford, a dude who was pretty into efficiency, was hesitant to keep buying his company’s supply from Asia, where British rubber plantations were churning out most of the global supply. So he set out to establish his own rubber farm. In a fit of creativity, he named it Fordlandia. In 1928, Ford sent an envoy of supplies and Ford workers to a 6,000-square-mile plot of land on the Amazon. The charter's mission was to embed American suburbia in the heart of the rainforest. Within a relatively short period of time, they’d set up homes, running water, electricity—plus all kinds of other extras (like swimming pools) that played to Ford’s belief that leisure was an essential part of the economy. Local workers were expected to adopt a suburban Michigan lifestyle, too—along with a healthy dose of Ford’s own morals, which meant that both booze and ladies were outlawed within the town. According to a terrific podcast from How Things Work, the transplant town even hosted mandatory square dancing. Hamburgers and other American fare featured in the cafeteria. A Harper’s reporter writing about the town had the following to say about the fare, in 1941: A workman’s mess hall was set up, but native workers did not like the wholesome Detroit style cooking and complained bitterly of indigestion. North American fare in the jungle no more pleases the customers than a quick change to Amazon fare would please you or me. This kind of blatant cultural whitewashing might’ve flown, had the rubber production itself taken off. But it turned out that rubber plants were being cultivated in Southeast Asia instead for a very good reason: There were no natural floral predators there, as there were in Brazil. Production was sluggish, and the Michigan managers had zero botany know-how. What’s more, native workers began to rebel (surprise!) against the strict rules about lifestyle. Soon, a so-called “Island of Innocence” was established in the middle of the Rio Tapajós, where workers could go to kick back with a drink and a female companion. Riots broke out a few years later. In 1933, Ford hired a professional to find out why his plants weren’t growing (poor soil quality). He tried again and again, relocating Fordlandia to a better patch of land downstream. The town was still underperforming. Fordlandia's final death knell rang a few years later, when the invention of synthetic rubber made the town irrelevant. Soon, Ford had sold the land back to Brazil at a loss of around $20 million (or $200 million today), leaving Fordlandia's little suburbia to decay. Today, the town is a decaying hobble of ruined buildings. It's a fascinating story of arrogant cultural transplantation gone awry, but there's also something strangely sad about photos of Fordlandia today (like those of photog Dan Dubowitz), especially in light of the other aging towns Ford built here in America. In his book about the failed community, Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City, author Greg Grandin writes: There is in fact an uncanny resemblance between Fordlandia's rusting water tower, broken-glasses sawmill, and empty power plant, and the husks of the same structures in Iron Mountain, a depressed industrial city in Michigan's Upper Peninsula that also used to be a Ford town. They didn't fail for the same reasons—but in a way, Ford's ideas about consumer spending contributed to the decay of both. Check out Grandin's excellent history for more, if you're interested.

[Impala64ssa]

Perhaps 0, Michael Bloominidiot and others could learn from this disastrous attempt at social engineering. Mandatory square dances? Midwestern morals expected to be adapted by the Amazonian natives? Gee, that sounds lust like what CAIR and their muzzie symps expect from us today. Socialism in any form is hard-wired to self destruct.

[Responsibility2nd]

Like this.....

 

 

The murky legacy of Henry Ford—who would’ve been 150 today—centers around a few familiar ideas like the assembly line and the $5 workday. Less familiar is Ford’s biggest failure: Fordlandia, a city in the rainforest that was abandoned as quickly as it was built.

Ford was a farm boy who went on to establish 20th century consumerism as we know it, but he had plenty of missteps, too, ranging from his virulent anti-semitism to his attempts to engineer whole communities around his ideas about labor practices—including the one he built on the edge of the Brazilian rainforest.

SExpand

So, whence Fordlandia? The community was spurred by a problem caused by the incredible success of Ford’s empire. By the early 1900s, America was gobbling up more than 70 percent of the world’s rubber, most of it going to Detroit. These were the days when rubber still came from plants—meaning that most of it had to be shipped from Southeast Asia. Ford, a dude who was pretty into efficiency, was hesitant to keep buying his company’s supply from Asia, where British rubber plantations were churning out most of the global supply. So he set out to establish his own rubber farm. In a fit of creativity, he named it Fordlandia.

In 1928, Ford sent an envoy of supplies and Ford workers to a 6,000-square-mile plot of land on the Amazon. The charter's mission was to embed American suburbia in the heart of the rainforest. Within a relatively short period of time, they’d set up homes, running water, electricity—plus all kinds of other extras (like swimming pools) that played to Ford’s belief that leisure was an essential part of the economy.

Local workers were expected to adopt a suburban Michigan lifestyle, too—along with a healthy dose of Ford’s own morals, which meant that both booze and ladies were outlawed within the town. According to a terrific podcast from How Things Work, the transplant town even hosted mandatory square dancing. Hamburgers and other American fare featured in the cafeteria. A Harper’s reporter writing about the town had the following to say about the fare, in 1941:

A workman’s mess hall was set up, but native workers did not like the wholesome Detroit style cooking and complained bitterly of indigestion. North American fare in the jungle no more pleases the customers than a quick change to Amazon fare would please you or me.

This kind of blatant cultural whitewashing might’ve flown, had the rubber production itself taken off. But it turned out that rubber plants were being cultivated in Southeast Asia instead for a very good reason: There were no natural floral predators there, as there were in Brazil. Production was sluggish, and the Michigan managers had zero botany know-how.

SExpand

What’s more, native workers began to rebel (surprise!) against the strict rules about lifestyle. Soon, a so-called “Island of Innocence” was established in the middle of the Rio Tapajós, where workers could go to kick back with a drink and a female companion. Riots broke out a few years later. In 1933, Ford hired a professional to find out why his plants weren’t growing (poor soil quality). He tried again and again, relocating Fordlandia to a better patch of land downstream. The town was still underperforming.

Fordlandia's final death knell rang a few years later, when the invention of synthetic rubber made the town irrelevant. Soon, Ford had sold the land back to Brazil at a loss of around $20 million (or $200 million today), leaving Fordlandia's little suburbia to decay. Today, the town is a decaying hobble of ruined buildings.

SExpand

Photo by Méduse.

It's a fascinating story of arrogant cultural transplantation gone awry, but there's also something strangely sad about photos of Fordlandia today (like those of photog Dan Dubowitz), especially in light of the other aging towns Ford built here in America. In his book about the failed community, Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City, author Greg Grandin writes:

There is in fact an uncanny resemblance between Fordlandia's rusting water tower, broken-glasses sawmill, and empty power plant, and the husks of the same structures in Iron Mountain, a depressed industrial city in Michigan's Upper Peninsula that also used to be a Ford town.

They didn't fail for the same reasons—but in a way, Ford's ideas about consumer spending contributed to the decay of both. Check out Grandin's excellent history for more, if you're interested.

SExpand

Images via Sometimes Interesting. Lead image by Amit Evron.

 

[reg45]

Why would anyone want to square dance without both women and men?

[dfwgator]

It was hard to find any juice there.

[Responsibility2nd]

Perhaps 0, Michael Bloominidiot and others could learn from this disastrous attempt at social engineering....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There is a difference here. Ford tried social engineering in the PRIVATE SECTOR.

What liberals want to do is force this through laws in the PUBLIC SECTOR.

Ford’s plan worked. Not perfectly, but at least it was voluntary. And - to some degree - it was successful.

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

HTML is our friend

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/htmlsandbox/

[mountainlion]

Henry Ford was a communist and that is what his business model was. It failed and still outperforms GE?

[Kartographer]

Well They have always said Ford was a man ahead of his time.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

Perhaps we’ll learn we can’t export Democracy and Free Markets to the Muslim controlled deserts of the Middle East... or most likely we won’t.

[AnAmericanAbroad]

I remember seeing this years and years and years ago on ‘Ripley’s Believe It or Not’ with the late Jack Palance.

I think that’s where I saw it, but I do know I heard about this when I was a teenager. It was weird.

[RedMonqey]

.Henry Ford was a communist and that is what his business model was.

If anything it was more fascist than "communist".

As Responsibility2nd said above, at least you could take it or leave it.

True communists don't give you "an choice'.

You take it.

Or else.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Opening of the article makes it sound as if Ford failed due to his unorthodox social and economic beliefs.

Then in the end they hit you with the fact that synthetic rubber was invented, making the town unnecessary.

So which was it?

[antidisestablishment]

Early industrialists (Ford among them) could best be called paternalists, more prone to fascism than communism.

Utopian views, and the inevitable totalitarian outcomes, have never been restricted to leftists.

[dfwgator]

Ford was a Nazi. He would have been the first in line to plant a big wet one on Adolf if the Nazis took over the US.

[RedMonqey]

Fordlandia biggest mistake was he didn’t have trained biotanists and today’s biotech industry.

If he could have sucesssfully grown thw plants, the social constraints would have been begrudgingly tolerated or found a bypass around them(blackmarket)as long as the wages were good.

Remember the US was still deep in the Great Depression and millions were out of work.

Of course it’s a mute point due to synthetic rubber and WWII....

[RedMonqey]

Why would anyone want to square dance without both women and men?

Look at the picture above in Responsibility2nd's post.

Unless thoses are transvestites, there were women in Fodlania.

My best guess is there were no unmarried adult women.

Ford was big on tradition family structure.

[First_Salute]

Henry Ford had the guts to dare, and he gave it a good try.

God forgive him.

Elsewhere, he built small factories in towns that had a history of water-power, waterwheels turning shafts and pulleys that ran machinery, and thus he spread out across several areas in the U.S., opportunity.

God Bless him.

[TexasRepublic]

Ford may have paternalistic or utopian, but he did not fit any definition of Fascism that I have found. He was a capitalist. So, how do YOU define Fascism? Here are some trademarks of Socialism that I have found:

Under Communism, the State owns the means of production, dictates how that production is directed, and is international and militaristic in nature.

Under Fascism, the State does not own the means of production, but it does dictate to the owners how production is directed, and is nationalistic and militaristic in nature.

Ford favored private ownership of his own company and did not welcome anyone telling him how to run it. Ford did not coerce anyone to work for him, but he demanded high standards [his] from those that did. How is that Fascism?

[RedMonqey]

So which was it?

The author of the article is definitely looking at Fordlandia through the prism of modern PC.

Most of Ford's social issues were common during this time(AntiSemitism? Get Real!)None of his kooky ideas prevent workers from wanting employment at his factories in the US and I know he had strict standards for his workers here at that timer.

And aside from clearing the jungle bush I truly doubt Ford relied upon the natives to run his factories. Much like the building of the Panama Canal, it was Western labor imported to due the work

It was the failure of the rubber plants to thrive, then the invention of synthetic rubber.
All else is just BS.

[Red Badger]

Henry Ford was an autocrat..............;^)