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Brand Journalism: A Cultural History of Consumers, Citizens, and Community in Ford Times A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Rebecca Dean Swenson IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Advisor : Dr. John Eighmey March 2012 © Rebecca Dean Swenson 2012 Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been completed without the assistance, support, love of many people. Thank you to my committee: Dr. John Eighmey, Dr. Mary Vavrus, Dr. Kathleen Hansen and Dr. Heather LaMarre for your input, wise guidance, and support. John Eighmey and Mary Vavrus, I am grateful for your encouragement and enthusiasm for my work from the kitchen (Betty Crocker Masters Thesis) to the garage (this dissertation on Ford.) You both cheered me on during my time in graduate school, and I always left our meetings feeling energized and ready the return to the project ahead. Kathy Hansen and Heather LaMarre both stepped in towards the end of this process. Thank you for your willingness to do so. Thank you to Dr. Albert Tims, who offered much support throughout the program and an open door for students. I appreciate all of the institutional support, including the Ralph Casey award, which allowed me to dedicate time to research and writing. Thank you to Dr. Hazel Dicken-Garcia for encouraging me to apply for the Ph.D. program, and to Dr. Jisu Huh and Sara Cannon, who very kindly helped me navigate a mountain of paperwork my last semester. Thank you to my fellow Murphy Hall graduate students for the encouragement, feedback, study dates, play dates, and fun. I am grateful to those who took the time to speak to me about their experiences at the Ford Times. These insights, stories, and personal anecdotes were incredibly valuable for my research. I also appreciate the assistance of staff members at UMN libraries and the Benson Ford archives in Dearborn, Michigan, who helped me navigate government documents and statistical records, track down hard to find books and archive materials, i and guided me through the vast Ford collections. Thank you to library staff members at Murray State University in Kentucky, who helped me find relevant information on a key editorial staff member in their archives. I am most grateful for my family and friends who had to hear about this project for a long time. Thank you to my parents, Mike and Barb Bolin, for encouraging and supporting me in every endeavor, and to my grandmother Norma Dean Ernst and late grandfather William Madison Ernst, for teaching us to love and respect education. A special thank you to my parents for spending many afternoons hanging out with our girls so I could write and teach. I feel very lucky to have such a fun, supportive family. Most important, a very special thank you to the loves of my life: Kevin, Josie and Greta. Josie and Greta, your smiles brighten our house, and my heart, everyday. You provided more than a few playtimes, distractions from work and days filled with laughter. Although my lovely little ladies did not make the completion of this dissertation more efficient or easy, they did make the life that surrounds it more fun. I love you both more than you can imagine, and I am so, so grateful to have you in my life. Kevin, thank you for your unwavering support, sacrifice, faith in me, and sympathetic ear. You are an unbelievable friend and partner. I am sure you are as relieved as I am to see this dissertation complete. In the words of Henry Ford, “The object of living is work, experience, and happiness. There is joy in work…There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.” ii Dedication The years of my life are marked in photos in which I stand in front of a different Ford truck. As a toddler in the late ‘70s, I pose for the camera while perched on a tricycle and proudly showing off knee socks and sneakers; my dad’s rusty red Ford truck sits in the background. As a child in the 80s, I sit on my dad’s shoulders, holding out a fish, while the same truck is parked in the driveway. Many photos exist of family vacations in the early 90s, usually to a national park, where my brother and I lean against our gray- blue Ford. With rolling eyes, cut-off jean shorts, a book, and a really bad perm, I very much look the part of a typical teen forced to endure, and finally to enjoy, a long period of family togetherness on the road. Finally, we have recent photos of my parents holding my daughters, as they walk down a driveway before a navy-colored Ford truck. My dad, my favorite Ford man, embodies many FMC brand values: hard-working, tough, dependable, and loyal. This dissertation is dedicated to him. iii Abstract “Chronic insularity, with its attending evils, was torn to shreds by the teeth of the printing press.” - Albert Fredrick Wilson, Department of Journalism, NYU from Introduction to Lectures in Industrial Journalism at New York University, 1915 Advertising and public relations professionals have recently applied the term ‘brand journalism’ to their work and praised it as a new model for strategic communication. This dissertation develops the concept by illustrating that brand journalism is not brand new; journalism has long served as a model for corporate communicators, especially for editors of the company press. To illustrate historical and theoretical tension inherent in brand journalism, this research tells the story of Ford Times, a company magazine created by the Ford Motor Company from 1908 to 1917 and from 1943 to 1993 for consumers and dealers. Ford Times mission was to present a “view of America through the windshield.” As the chapters ahead illustrate, the magazine detailed more than new models for sale; it combined narratives about automobile use, travel, nationhood, history, land conservation, regionalism, food and family with the Ford brand in order to build a reader community that inspired interest and loyalty for most of the twentieth century. By analyzing historical archival material, including Ford Times content, editorial memos, and letters from readers, this study examines the role of a particular company magazine in constructing social space and building brand tenets, and in turn, examines the Ford Times contribution to conversations about community, patriotism, consumption, and the history of public relations. In doing so, this dissertation offers a unique, focused look at the corporate press, a longstanding public relations tactic often overlooked by strategic communication historians. iv Table of Contents Chapter One Long May You Wave – Introduction to Research and Methods…………………….1-22 Chapter Two Brand Journalism – Theoretical Framework and Literature Review…………….…23-55 Chapter Three Starting a Family – Birth of the Ford Times, 1908 to 1917…………………..…….56-104 Chapter Four Freedom to Express Our Hearts –Ford Times as literary adventure, 1943-1960….105-145 Chapter Five Revolution by Variety –Ford Times as model catalog, 1961 to 1979…………….146-171 Chapter Six Brand Pioneers and Patriots –Ford Times as family scrapbook, 1980 to 1993..…172-190 Chapter Seven Steering a Reader Community –Discussion and Conclusion…………………..191-204 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………….205-215 Appendix…………………………………………………………………….216-217 v Chapter One: ‘Long May You Wave’ - Introduction to Research and Methods For most of the 20th century, a corporate magazine called the Ford Times was a linchpin in Ford Motor Company’s advertising and public relations efforts. With each new model of car, Ford consumers received an owner’s manual that described the mechanics of their new vehicles; they also received a subscription to the Ford Times, which described how cars operate in the larger social world. The Ford Times mission was to present a “view of America through the windshield” to dealers, consumers and employees. Editors combined commercial and cultural information by directly showcasing new models of cars and connecting topics like sightseeing, sports, cooking, and relationships to automobile use. Famous contributors include William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, Ogden Nash, E.B. White, Charley Harper and Erle Stanley Gardner. 1 The magazine was a success by corporate measures: circulation figures topped 2 million during the magazine’s heyday. It also generated many letters to the company describing readers’ positive response to the magazine and emotions for the Ford brand.2 In 1987, the Ford Motor Company began outsourcing magazine production to public relations agency Hill & Knowlton to cut costs. In 1993, the Ford company stopped publishing Ford Times. A farewell message in 1Alan Rosenthal, "The Little Magazine with a Big Mission," Advertising Age 31 March 2003. 2 S.G. Riley, Corporate Magazines of the United States (Greenwood Pub Group, 1992), 85-86. 1 the final issue states, “Ford Times has been our continuing bridge of communications – for us, the Ford Motor Co. and your dealer –and you, our very important customer.”3 With this final issue, the Ford Motor Company said farewell to more than a magazine. As this research illustrates, Ford Times provided a narrative of connection, met the informational needs of audience members, gave readers a deeper sense of Ford brand tenets, and offered a moral base for car consumption. Today, social media, website content, media relations, and advertising campaigns have largely replaced the company press – at Ford and elsewhere.4 As practitioners embrace new digital platforms, “brand journalism” is heralded as a new way to connect with consumers by offering content that blends journalistic principles with organizational communication strategies.5 Yet, contemporary practitioners largely ignore the history of the company press; corporations have long been successful at becoming trusted sources of engaging, interesting, informative, compelling and useful content and telling stories that navigate tension between public relations and journalism.

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