DOCSLIB.ORG

'Recasting the Machine Age: Henry Ford's Village Industries'

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
'Recasting the Machine Age: Henry Ford's Village Industries' H-Utopia Vaughan on Segal, 'Recasting the Machine Age: Henry Ford's Village Industries' Review published on Thursday, March 1, 2007 Howard P. Segal. Recasting the Machine Age: Henry Ford's Village Industries. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2005. xvi + 244 pp. $34.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-55849-481-7. Reviewed by Rob Vaughan (American Studies Department, University of Hawaii at Manoa) Published on H-Utopia (March, 2007) The Machine Shop in the Garden From the 1910s until his death in 1947 Henry Ford developed and expanded his mammoth Michigan automobile production complex at River Rouge in Dearborn. At the time, it was among the largest, most centralized industrial facilities in the world. Every day tons of raw materials and small parts were delivered by ship, truck, and rail to one end of the factory complex. Out the other end came a steady stream of cars, trucks, and farm equipment. Inside, thousands of managers, engineers, designers, craftsmen, and common laborers toiled as cogs in an intricately complex manufacturing machine. Outside, the sky was turned black by smoke-belching foundries, mills, and power plants. Henry Ford's River Rouge was an industrial marvel, admired throughout the world. It made him a hero of the new machine age and an avatar of America's industrial future. During this era of explosive growth the Ford Motor Company, like most of its industrial rivals, was becoming more centralized in its manufacturing and managerial functions. However, it was also a time when Henry Ford personally embarked on a plan todecentralize production by developing a system of scaled-down factories located in nearby rural areas and small towns. It was a dream of the great innovator to create a network of what he called "village industries" to supply the needs of River Rouge and other factories. But they would do more than that. The village industries would act as vehicles of social as well as technological change. Ford believed that these shops, often located in the abandoned saw mills and grist mills of the southeastern Michigan countryside, would preserve America's rural values and folk culture; balance the country's agricultural past with its technological future; improve employee morale (as well as employee morals) by allowing workers to keep "one foot in industry and another foot in the land"; discourage labor unrest and put a check on union organizing; foment closer bonds between managers and workers; and, most significantly, improve quality and profits for the Ford Motor Company. Howard P. Segal's Recasting the Machine Age is the first systematic study of Henry Ford's village industries. It is an excellent examination of this often overlooked aspect of America's industrial past. Segal, Bird Professor of History at the University of Maine Orono, is a noted scholar whose specialty is the history of technology. Originally inspired to undertake this project in 1980 while on a guided tour of ten of the original nineteen village industries sites, Segal builds upon the work of previous scholars, such as business historian David L. Lewis. He also adds to the growing body of literature on technology's influence on culture and society. Recasting the Machine Age joins such books such as Cecelia Tichi's Shifting Gears: Technology, Literature, Culture in Modernist America (1987), David E. Citation: H-Net Reviews. Vaughan on Segal, 'Recasting the Machine Age: Henry Ford's Village Industries'. H-Utopia. 03-13-2014. https://networks.h-net.org/node/14473/reviews/14712/vaughan-segal-recasting-machine-age-henry-fords-village-industries Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-Utopia Nye's American Technological Sublime (1994), and John F. Kasson'sCivilizing the Machine: Technology and Republican Values in America (1976). In researching Recasting the Machine Age Segal has amassed a wealth of resources from dozens of archives and collections. In addition, he has taken several oral histories of the men and women who worked in these experimental production facilities. He has woven this extensive research into an informative narrative that recounts the story of Henry Ford's dream of re-establishing small-scale manufacturing in rural America. He also explores the larger theme of decentralization in American business, a theme that had been advocated by both industry and government leaders since the early twentieth century. In addition, Recasting the Machine Age connects Ford's village industries with more recent developments, such as the "small is beautiful" movement of the 1970s and the growth of high-tech business parks in California's Silicon Valley and along Massachusetts' Route 128 corridor. Recasting the Machine Age begins with an epigraph drawn from a 1938 Life magazine profile of the great industrialist and his village industries dream. "Henry Ford would be less than the man he is if, walking by the River Rouge, he did not thrill at the sight of his huge plant growing huger and huger by the day. But the old man's dearest dream is no longer of piling building on building in metropolitan congestion. A farm boy who has kept his love of the land, Ford now visions the 'little factory in a meadow' as the future shape of American industry.… Henry Ford is convinced that, for happiness and security, the worker of the future must divide his time between factory and farm" (p. vi). Thus, Segal poses the first of several questions regarding Ford's reasons for instituting the village industries project. First, was Henry Ford's dream of a "little factory in a meadow" just a knee-jerk reaction to the changes in the land his huge factories helped unleash? Did the sight of his massive foundries and stamping presses trigger in him nostalgia for the more human scale of Longfellow's village smithy? Second, were there other, more sinister motives involved? By decentralizing production and transferring work to the countryside was Ford really just trying to stymie union organizers who were, despite the union-busting efforts of his notorious "Service Department," already flexing their muscle at his urban plants? Third, were the village industries just another way to streamline operations by decentralizing production, cutting costs, and maximizing profits? Was this just one more example of the great innovator tinkering with his assembly line and experimenting with a new method of vertical integration? Fourth, and most important, was Henry Ford's plan ultimately a utopian quest of social and mechanical engineering? Would the village industries, the twentieth-century version of Leo Marx's "machine in the garden," be used to remold American industry (and its growing workforce) into Henry Ford's vision of the ideal society? Supplying answers to these questions is no easy task, for Ford, like most historical figures, was an amazingly complex and often contradictory man. Segal himself admits that "Henry Ford's motives for building and funding the village industries are multiple and murky" (p. ix). Despite this opacity, however, Recasting the Machine Age quite ably manages to sift through the various rationales offered by Henry Ford, his publicity department, suspicious labor leaders, Ford employees, contemporary journalists, and business historians. The result is a compelling story about the dream of an iconic industrialist and his efforts to use his village industries to transform both industrial production and American society. First, the village industries were, in part, a reaction to the social fallout associated with large-scale manufacturing. As Segal points out, Henry Ford remained conflicted about the threats to America's Citation: H-Net Reviews. Vaughan on Segal, 'Recasting the Machine Age: Henry Ford's Village Industries'. H-Utopia. 03-13-2014. https://networks.h-net.org/node/14473/reviews/14712/vaughan-segal-recasting-machine-age-henry-fords-village-industries Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 2 H-Utopia agrarian way of life (caused in good part by his factories and the machines that they churned out). "[He] never resolved his mixed feelings about modernity: above all, the congestion, heterogeneity, rootlessness, impersonality, inequality, and materialism of twentieth-century American cities. 'The modern city has done its work and a change is coming,' Ford told the journalist Drew Pearson in a 1924 interview. 'The city has taught us much, but the overhead expense of living in such places is becoming unbearable…. The cities are getting top-heavy and are about doomed'" (p. 3). Ford realized that the giant factories of industrialized America were attracting rural and immigrant workers to the big city. Many of these employees were unattached, single men who stayed in boarding houses and cheap hotels. In their off hours they frequented saloons, burlesque shows, and bordellos. Freed from the constraints of the family farm and village life, the modern factory worker was increasingly susceptible to the temptations of the depraved city. If left unchecked, such a situation would no doubt lead to an unreliable workforce and the demise of everything Ford believed America stood for. Workers in Ford's village industries, on the other hand, were expected to be part-time farmers, running up to hundred-acre spreads in their off hours and during slack seasons at the plant. Ford believed so much in farming's benefits to mind, morals, and health that he was even willing to provide garden plots to landless factory workers just so they could raise some of their own food. Thus, village industries workers would be able to keep "one foot in industry and another foot in the land"--while driving a Ford between the two. Small-town America would be revitalized, as would American agrarian values and folk life. Rooted to the land, the rural workforce would help balance the ill effects of big city factories.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • PDF^ Recasting the Machine Age: Henry Ford's Village Industries Ebook
    Recasting the Machine Age recounts the history of Henry Ford's efforts to shift the production of Ford cars and trucks from the large-scale factories he had pioneered in the Detroit area to nineteen decentralized, small-scale plants within sixty miles of Ford headquarters in Dearborn. The visionary who had become famous in the early twentieth century for his huge and technologically advanced Highland Park and Rouge River complexes gradually changed his focus beginning in the late 1910s and continuing until his death in 1947. According to Howard P. Segal, Ford decided to create a series of village industries, each of which would manufacture one or two parts for the company's vehicles. would allow workers to become part-time farmers, Ford's plan did not represent a reaction against modern technology. The idea was to continue to employ the latest technology, but on a much smaller scale - and for the most part it worked. All nineteen of these village industries helped save their communities from decline, in several cases ensuring their survival through the Great Depression. The majority of workers in the village industries, moreover, appear to have preferred their working and living conditions to those in Detroit and Dearborn. Ford may well have been motivated to spend great sums on the village industries in part to prevent the unionization of his company. But these industrial experiments represented much more than union busting. shifts in America between the World Wars as reflected in the thought and practice of one notable industrialist. Segal recounts the development of the plants, their fate after Ford's death, their recent revival as part of Michigan's renewed appreciation of its industrial heritage, and their connections to contemporary efforts to decentralize high-tech working and living arrangements.
    [Show full text]
  • Henry's Hobbies
    Henry’s Hobbies By Daryl A. Bailey “One foot in the factory and one foot on the ground of nature.” – Henry Ford Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company, had an idea. He would dot America’s rivers with water-driven factories that would offer employment to farmers during the winter months, thus slowing the migration of families from the farms to the cities. Referred to as village industries, many of these factories were 19th century gristmills. In 1918, Ford put this plan into action. He retired as President of Ford Motor Company and purchased Nankin Mills, located along the middle Rouge River. He continued to buy sites along the Rouge and River Raisin, in southeastern Lower Michigan, along the Miami River in Ohio and the Hudson River in New York State. The first village industry to go into operation was a converted mill in Northville, 12 miles up the River Rouge from Ford’s home in Dearborn. The Northville site began making valves for the Model T. Ford hoped that his experiment would usher in sweeping changes in society. Without the stress of managing the entire Ford Motor Company he could devote his energy to his village industry project. They became know as “Henry’s Hobbies.” He walked up and down streams looking for suitable locations. It is thought that some of these walks were publicity stunts to promote his “hobbies.” In 1920, Nankin Mills began operations as one of Ford’s Village Industries. It began producing screws, but was soon converted to produce stencils for marking Ford auto parts.
    [Show full text]
  • Influence of New Urbanist Design Features on Sense of Community: the Case of Cherry Hill Village in Canton, Michigan
    INFLUENCE OF NEW URBANIST DESIGN FEATURES ON SENSE OF COMMUNITY: THE CASE OF CHERRY HILL VILLAGE IN CANTON, MICHIGAN By Shahad Alzaidan A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Interior Design and Facilities Management 2012 ABSTRACT INFLUENCE OF NEW URBANIST DESIGN FEATURES ON SENSE OF COMMUNITY: THE CASE OF CHERRY HILL VILLAGE IN CANTON, MICHIGAN By Shahad Alzaidan This study explored the influence of New Urbanist design features on sense of community in the State of Michigan by employing Cherry Hill Village, a major New Urbanist development in Canton, Michigan, as its case study. Using a quantitative survey method, online surveys were utilized to procure data. A total of 136 surveys were collected for data analysis and analyzed using multiple regression, one-way ANOVA and t-test analyses. The variables investigated within this study, derived from the theoretical foundations and previous empirical studies of New Urbanism and sense of community, include New Urbanist architectural design features, New Urbanist community design features, walkability, and socio- demographic variables. Utilizing Skjaeveland, Garling, and Maeland’s (1996) 14-item Multidimensional Measure of Neighboring to conceptualize sense of community, the findings indicate that specific design features, as well as walkability and some socio-demographic characteristics, have a significant effect on sense of community. In light of the increasing popularity of New Urbanist developments in the State of Michigan, this study suggests the importance of physical design features in promoting sense of community and gives guidelines for future design. This thesis is dedicated to my parents for their unconditional love and endless support.
    [Show full text]
  • Phoenix Mill Women's Museum
    Record Group 21 Phoenix Mill Women’s Museum 1925-2003 4 manuscript boxes and 5 tape boxes Plymouth Historical Museum, Plymouth, MI Finding Aid Written by Elizabeth Kelley Kerstens, 20 July 2005 Updated by Marilyn Erps, October 22, 2010 Updated by Jennifer Meekhof 21 Sept 2011 Creator: Phoenix Mill Women‘s Museum Acquisition: The Phoenix Mill Women‘s Museum records were deposited in the archives in 2004. Language: Materials in English Access: Records are open for research Use: Refer to Archives Reading Room Guidelines Notes: Citation Style: ―Phoenix Mill Women‘s Museum,‖ Record Group 21, Archives, Plymouth Historical Museum Abstract Phoenix Mill Ford Plant was the first-ever all-female factory where women earned the same wage as men—something unheard of before or during the 1940s. At its peak, Phoenix Mill employed 70 women. The women who worked at the mill were either single or widowed, because Henry Ford objected to married women who worked outside of the home. The facility‘s female employees produced electrical parts, voltage regulators, and switches. During World War II, the mill also produced identification badges and electrical wiring for the M-7 gun director. The Phoenix Mill is on the site of the former village of Phoenix. The village only flourished for a short time from its founding in 1837 until 1880. Henry Ford bought the mill site in 1919, but he had to rebuild the dam after it broke in 1921. The rebuilt mill was opened in 1922, becoming the third Ford Village Industry Mill. Scope and Content The Phoenix Mill Women‘s Museum collection consists of materials gathers from area archives and individual papers and photographs.
    [Show full text]
  • Henry Ford and the Nankin Mills Area by Carol Katz Westland Historical Commission
    Henry Ford and the Nankin Mills Area By Carol Katz Westland Historical Commission October, 1972 Re-typed for the Livonia Historical Commission September 2018 Henry Ford’s influence in the Nankin Mills area sprang from a personal involvement dating back to his boyhood as well as a deep conviction in the values of rural life. As a boy in 1870 Ford visited the quiet country area along the Rouge River and watched the giant water wheels of the mills. This inspired him to build a homemade wheel to which he attached a coffee grinder. It was the first moving device that he made. “He dreamed of other wheels that would one day be turned by greater power to lighten the burdens of farm and industries and change the transportation habits of the nation. Down through the years from water wheels to watches, to steam engines, to gasoline engines, Henry Ford’s interest in wheels progressed, but he never forgot the song of the water wheel – the grinding of the mill stones, the strength of water, the efficient simplicity of those mills along the Rouge.”1 By 1918 Ford’s career as an automotive giant had been launched. He had “put the nation on wheels”, but with this triumph came the ill effects of industrialization- crowded cities, high living costs, seasonal unemployment, and an alienation between man and his natural environment. Ford saw the problems clearly and sought to improve the situation. It is not the advantages of cities that are doomed, but the disadvantages- the congestion, the inequality which reigns even in the matter of air and sunlight and ground space.
    [Show full text]
  • Record Group 48: Ford Village Industries 1926-2002 1 Manuscript Box, 1 Half Manuscript Box, 3 Binders
    Record Group 48: Ford Village Industries 1926-2002 1 manuscript box, 1 half manuscript box, 3 binders Plymouth Historical Museum, Plymouth, MI Finding Aid Written by Elizabeth Kelley Kerstens, 17 August 2006 Updated by Paige Wojcik, 22 June 2011 Updated by Jennifer Meekhof, 14 December 2011 Creator: Ford Village Industries Acquisition: The Ford Village Industries records were deposited in the archives at various dates from 1981-2005 Language: Materials in English Access: Records are open for research Use: Refer to Archives Reading Room Guidelines Notes: Citation Style: ―Ford Village Industries,‖ Record Group 48, Archives, Plymouth Historical Museum Abstract Henry Ford created 19 different ―Village Industries‖ of small industrial centers in rural areas of Michigan; over 30 villages total in the country. These centers were intended to prevent disruption of rural living, but unite the lifestyle with factory working. Henry Ford developed the Village Industries program in an attempt to provide a stable the income flow of farm workers during the winter. All of the villages were on the banks of rivers, often on the sites of abandoned gristmills with waterwheels. The Plymouth village industry is located at 230 Wilcox in Plymouth, Michigan. It was originally a flour mill built in 1845 by Henry Holbrook that later became Wilcox Mills. Wilcox Mills operated as a gristmill until Henry Ford purchased it. The village industry opened in 1923 and employed up to 23 people making taps and other tools used in manufacturing. The village closed in 1948, but designated a state of Michigan historic site in 1989. Scope and Content The Ford Village Industries record group contains information about the Village Industry in Plymouth MI as well as some additional information of the ford motor company and Henry Ford, as related to the Village Industries.
    [Show full text]
  • Finding Aid for the Water Power and Real Estate Records Series, 1918
    Finding Aid for WATER POWER AND REAL ESTATE RECORDS SERIES, 1918-1945 SE 006 Accessions 288 and 289 Finding Aid Published: March 2012 Electronic conversion of this finding aid was funded by a grant from the Detroit Area Library Network (DALNET) http://www.dalnet.lib.mi.us Benson Ford Research Center, The Henry Ford 20900 Oakwood Boulevard ∙ Dearborn, MI 48124-5029 USA [email protected] ∙ www.thehenryford.org Henry Ford Office records Personal topics subject file subgroup Water Power and Real Estate series SE 006 (Accession 288 and 289) OVERVIEW REPOSITORY: Benson Ford Research Center The Henry Ford 20900 Oakwood Blvd Dearborn, MI 48124-5029 www.thehenryford.org [email protected] ACCESSION NUMBER: 288 and 289 CREATOR: Ford, Henry, 1863-1947 TITLE: Water Power and Real Estate records series INCLUSIVE DATES: 1918-1945 QUANTITY: 16 cubic ft. LANGUAGE: The materials are in English. ABSTRACT: Henry Ford purchased substantial tracts of farmland in southeast Michigan and timber and mining properties in other parts of the country. The Water Power and Real Estate records series consists of two subseries that contain records from the various properties owned by Ford. Page 2 of 11 Henry Ford Office records Personal topics subject file subgroup Water Power and Real Estate series SE 006 (Accession 288 and 289) ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION ACCESS RESTRICTIONS: The series is open for research. COPYRIGHT: Copyright has been transferred to The Henry Ford by the donor. Copyright for some items in the collection may still be held
    [Show full text]
  • Milford's Automotive Heritage Sites
    MILFORD’S AUTOMOTIVE HERITAGE SITES Milford is truly a mill town. There have been more than 14 mills on the Huron River and on the two mill ponds on Pettibone Creek. On the upper mill pond, created in 1845, were a grist mill, a woolen mill, a planing mill and a foundry. In later years the west side of the pond had a cultivator factory, factories that manufactured tin bath tubs, plumbers’ woodwork, bookcases, store fixtures, the Detroit Auto Dash Company and finally, in 1938, a Henry Ford Village Industry that manufactured carburetors. This was the twelfth of Henry Ford I’s Village Industries and was designed by the famous Albert Kahn. On the lower mill pond were a saw mill and a distillery in 1836 and later a cultivator factory and plaster mill. In 1939 a power house for the Ford Carburetor Plant was built on the site of the older mills. On the Huron River were a sawmill, two grist mills, a woolen mill and a foundry within the Village limits, and a sawmill and rake factory downstream in the township. All of these mills except the Ford Carburetor Plant have disappeared but their sites have been marked with metal historical markers. A large marker in Center Street Park on North Main Street has a map which shows where each mill site marker is located. The Ford plant is on the west side of the upper mill pond at 101 Oak Street and its Albert Kahn designed power house, now being restored, is on West Liberty Street at the foot of the lower mill pond.
    [Show full text]
  • Records Moved to Engineering Laboratory in 1919 Series, 1911-1928 and Non-Automotive Interests and Activities Records Series, 1916-1929
    Finding Aid for RECORDS MOVED TO ENGINEERING LABORATORY IN 1919 SERIES, 1911-1928 AND NON-AUTOMOTIVE INTERESTS AND ACTIVITIES RECORDS SERIES, 1916-1929 Accession 62 Finding Aid Published: December 2013 Electronic conversion of this finding aid was funded by a grant from the Detroit Area Library Network (DALNET) http://www.dalnet.lib.mi.us Benson Ford Research Center, The Henry Ford 20900 Oakwood Boulevard ∙ Dearborn, MI 48124-5029 USA [email protected] ∙ www.thehenryford.org Henry Ford Office records Highland Park Office records subgroup Records Moved to Engineering Laboratory in 1919 series and Personal Topics subject file subgroup Non-automotive Interests and Activities records series Accession 62 OVERVIEW REPOSITORY: Benson Ford Research Center The Henry Ford 20900 Oakwood Blvd Dearborn, MI 48124-5029 www.thehenryford.org [email protected] ACCESSION NUMBER: 62 CREATOR: Ford, Henry, 1863-1947 TITLE: Records moved to engineering laboratory in 1919 series Non-automotive interests and activities records series INCLUSIVE DATES: 1911-1929 QUANTITY: 48.8 cubic ft. LANGUAGE: The materials are in English. ABSTRACT: Accession 62 spans multiple series and contains records concerning the non-business interests of Henry Ford. The Records Moved to the Engineering Laboratory in 1919 series consists of general correspondence from the Office of Henry Ford about his personal interests and the Non- automotive Interests and Activities records series focuses on Ford’s run for president and his land in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Page 2 of 33 Henry Ford Office records Highland Park Office records subgroup Records Moved to Engineering Laboratory in 1919 series and Personal Topics subject file subgroup Non-automotive Interests and Activities records series Accession 62 ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION ACCESS RESTRICTIONS: The series is open for research.
    [Show full text]
  • Finding Aid for the In-House Subject and Name Filing System Series, January
    Finding Aid for IN-HOUSE SUBJECT AND NAME FILING SYSTEM SERIES, JANUARY- JUNE, 1921 Accession 285 (Section 1 of 4) Finding Aid Published: December 2013 Electronic conversion of this finding aid was funded by a grant from the Detroit Area Library Network (DALNET) http://www.dalnet.lib.mi.us Benson Ford Research Center, The Henry Ford 20900 Oakwood Boulevard ∙ Dearborn, MI 48124-5029 USA [email protected] ∙ www.thehenryford.org Henry Ford Office records Engineering Laboratory Office records subgroup In-house Subject and Name Filing System series Accession 285 OVERVIEW REPOSITORY: Benson Ford Research Center The Henry Ford 20900 Oakwood Blvd Dearborn, MI 48124-5029 www.thehenryford.org [email protected] ACCESSION NUMBER: 285 CREATOR: Ford, Henry, 1863-1947 TITLE: In-house Subject and Name Filing System series INCLUSIVE DATES: January - June, 1921 QUANTITY: 7.6 cubic ft. LANGUAGE: The materials are in English. ABSTRACT: This series contains correspondence from Henry Ford's office at the Dearborn Engineering Laboratory from 1921. The correspondence covers both business and personal interests and is organized alphabetically. Page 2 of 16 Henry Ford Office records Engineering Laboratory Office records subgroup In-house Subject and Name Filing System series Accession 285 ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION ACCESS RESTRICTIONS: The series is open for research. COPYRIGHT: Copyright has been transferred to The Henry Ford by the donor. Copyright for some items in the collection may still be held by their respective creator(s).
    [Show full text]
  • Pettibone Creek Hydroelectric Station
    Pettibone Creek Hydroelectric Station Milford’s Powerhouse Preserving the Power of our Past Powerhouse Preservation Project What we have What we have done What’s next What we have Henry Ford’s Village Industries 24 rural plants Built 1920 – 1944 Supplied Rouge plant Three buildings in Milford What we have Village Industries Map Aerial View Carburetor Factory Moore’s Lake Intake Flume Pettibone Creek Hydro Station What we have Albert Kahn Significant Architect Art Deco Style Industrial Architect Office buildings Churches Residents What we have The Plan (Multiple agendas) Tenant-ready Restore to US Department of Interior standards Interpretation of building and site Hydro power production What we have The Partners Village of Milford Milford Historical Society Milford DDA What we’ve done Non-local Funding $285,000 M-DOT/Federal Highway Admin. Americana Foundation Community Development Block Grants MotorCities/National Heritage Areas Evans Memorial Fund International Questers Johanna Favrot Fund/Nat’l Trust for Historic Preservation Detroit Art Deco Society ************ What we’ve done Local Funding $149,327 Village of Milford Downtown Development Authority “Milford Beauties” Milford Historical Society Milford Township Huron Valley Chamber of Commerce Hines Park Ford Milford Garden Club Denise and Lyle Tyler Read Between the Lines Book Store ********* What we’ve done In-kind . Locally Solicited $41,900 Newton & Crane Roofing Siplast/The Icopal Group Colley Electrical Systems Western Waterproofing
    [Show full text]
  • Henry Ford and Field and Factory: an Analysis of the Ford Sponsored Village Industries - Experiment in Michigan, 1918-1941 John R
    University of Massachusetts Amherst From the SelectedWorks of John R. Mullin Fall 1982 Henry Ford and Field and Factory: An Analysis of the Ford Sponsored Village Industries - Experiment in Michigan, 1918-1941 John R. Mullin, University of Massachusetts - Amherst Available at: https://works.bepress.com/john_mullin/22/ Henry Ford and Field and Factory: An Analysis of the Ford Sponsored Village Industries - Experiment in Michigan, 1918-1941 John Robert Mullin Between 1916 and 1941, Henry Ford embarked on an effort to decentralize the production facilities of the ford Motor Company. One component of this effort was an experiment in which he located seventeen small factories, called Village Industries, in rural areas throughout southeastern Michigan. These factories were designed to utilize water power in the production of sub-assembly parts for Ford’s main assembly plants and were intended to provide jobs for rural residents. Ford endeavored to develop a sense of “field and factory” in these plants by training rural workers in the latest technological advances, allowing them release time to farm their fields, and paying them “city” wages. The Ford experiment is important for, despite a significant body of literature calling for the decentralization of industry during this period, there were few efforts that were comprehensively implemented, few which included rural areas, and even fewer that were totally financed by the private sector. The Village Industries Idea Henry Ford, beginning in 1918, saw that most major American industries were moving toward national and international markets. He anticipated that there would be fewer companies in each sector of industry than in the past and that these companies would be larger and organized along the lines of vertical trusts.
    [Show full text]