The Machine Shop in the Garden

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 Published on H-Utopia (March, 2007) From the 1910s until his death in 1947 Henry developing a system of scaled-down factories lo‐ Ford developed and expanded his mammoth cated in nearby rural areas and small towns. It Michigan automobile production complex at Riv‐ was a dream of the great innovator to create a er Rouge in Dearborn. At the time, it was among network of what he called "village industries" to the largest, most centralized industrial facilities in supply the needs of River Rouge and other facto‐ the world. Every day tons of raw materials and ries. But they would do more than that. The vil‐ small parts were delivered by ship, truck, and rail lage industries would act as vehicles of social as to one end of the factory complex. Out the other well as technological change. Ford believed that end came a steady stream of cars, trucks, and these shops, often located in the abandoned saw farm equipment. Inside, thousands of managers, mills and grist mills of the southeastern Michigan engineers, designers, craftsmen, and common la‐ countryside, would preserve America's rural val‐ borers toiled as cogs in an intricately complex ues and folk culture; balance the country's agri‐ manufacturing machine. Outside, the sky was cultural past with its technological future; im‐ turned black by smoke-belching foundries, mills, prove employee morale (as well as employee and power plants. Henry Ford's River Rouge was morals) by allowing workers to keep "one foot in an industrial marvel, admired throughout the industry and another foot in the land"; discourage world. It made him a hero of the new machine labor unrest and put a check on union organizing; age and an avatar of America's industrial future. foment closer bonds between managers and During this era of explosive growth the Ford workers; and, most significantly, improve quality Motor Company, like most of its industrial rivals, and profits for the Ford Motor Company. was becoming more centralized in its manufac‐ Howard P. Segal's Recasting the Machine Age turing and managerial functions. However, it was is the frst systematic study of Henry Ford's village also a time when Henry Ford personally em‐ industries. It is an excellent examination of this barked on a plan to decentralize production by often overlooked aspect of America's industrial H-Net Reviews past. Segal, Bird Professor of History at the Uni‐ in metropolitan congestion. A farm boy who has versity of Maine Orono, is a noted scholar whose kept his love of the land, Ford now visions the 'lit‐ specialty is the history of technology. Originally tle factory in a meadow' as the future shape of inspired to undertake this project in 1980 while American industry.… Henry Ford is convinced on a guided tour of ten of the original nineteen that, for happiness and security, the worker of the village industries sites, Segal builds upon the future must divide his time between factory and work of previous scholars, such as business histo‐ farm" (p. vi). Thus, Segal poses the frst of several rian David L. Lewis. He also adds to the growing questions regarding Ford's reasons for instituting body of literature on technology's influence on the village industries project. First, was Henry culture and society. Recasting the Machine Age Ford's dream of a "little factory in a meadow" just joins such books such as Cecelia Tichi's Shifting a knee-jerk reaction to the changes in the land his Gears: Technology, Literature, Culture in Mod‐ huge factories helped unleash? Did the sight of his ernist America (1987), David E. Nye's American massive foundries and stamping presses trigger in Technological Sublime (1994), and John F. Kasson's him nostalgia for the more human scale of Civilizing the Machine: Technology and Republi‐ Longfellow's village smithy? Second, were there can Values in America (1976). other, more sinister motives involved? By decen‐ In researching Recasting the Machine Age Se‐ tralizing production and transferring work to the gal has amassed a wealth of resources from countryside was Ford really just trying to stymie dozens of archives and collections. In addition, he union organizers who were, despite the union- has taken several oral histories of the men and busting efforts of his notorious "Service Depart‐ women who worked in these experimental pro‐ ment," already fexing their muscle at his urban duction facilities. He has woven this extensive re‐ plants? Third, were the village industries just an‐ search into an informative narrative that re‐ other way to streamline operations by decentral‐ counts the story of Henry Ford's dream of re-es‐ izing production, cutting costs, and maximizing tablishing small-scale manufacturing in rural profits? Was this just one more example of the America. He also explores the larger theme of de‐ great innovator tinkering with his assembly line centralization in American business, a theme that and experimenting with a new method of vertical had been advocated by both industry and govern‐ integration? Fourth, and most important, was ment leaders since the early twentieth century. In Henry Ford's plan ultimately a utopian quest of addition, Recasting the Machine Age connects social and mechanical engineering? Would the vil‐ Ford's village industries with more recent devel‐ lage industries, the twentieth-century version of opments, such as the "small is beautiful" move‐ Leo Marx's "machine in the garden," be used to re‐ ment of the 1970s and the growth of high-tech mold American industry (and its growing work‐ business parks in California's Silicon Valley and force) into Henry Ford's vision of the ideal soci‐ along Massachusetts' Route 128 corridor. ety? Recasting the Machine Age begins with an Supplying answers to these questions is no epigraph drawn from a 1938 Life magazine profle easy task, for Ford, like most historical fgures, of the great industrialist and his village industries was an amazingly complex and often contradicto‐ dream. "Henry Ford would be less than the man ry man. Segal himself admits that "Henry Ford's he is if, walking by the River Rouge, he did not motives for building and funding the village in‐ thrill at the sight of his huge plant growing huger dustries are multiple and murky" (p. ix). Despite and huger by the day. But the old man's dearest this opacity, however, Recasting the Machine Age dream is no longer of piling building on building quite ably manages to sift through the various ra‐ tionales offered by Henry Ford, his publicity de‐ 2 H-Net Reviews partment, suspicious labor leaders, Ford employ‐ food. Thus, village industries workers would be ees, contemporary journalists, and business histo‐ able to keep "one foot in industry and another rians. The result is a compelling story about the foot in the land"--while driving a Ford between dream of an iconic industrialist and his efforts to the two. Small-town America would be revital‐ use his village industries to transform both indus‐ ized, as would American agrarian values and folk trial production and American society. life. Rooted to the land, the rural workforce would First, the village industries were, in part, a re‐ help balance the ill effects of big city factories. action to the social fallout associated with large- So, Ford's solution to the problems of the scale manufacturing. As Segal points out, Henry modern factory was not simply a headlong retreat Ford remained conflicted about the threats to into the past. His village industries were not just America's agrarian way of life (caused in good reconstructions of old manufacturing buildings part by his factories and the machines that they and a duplication of the antiquated production churned out). "[He] never resolved his mixed feel‐ methods they once housed. His make-over of grist ings about modernity: above all, the congestion, mills and other small-scale industrial buildings heterogeneity, rootlessness, impersonality, in‐ scattered around the Michigan countryside was equality, and materialism of twentieth-century nothing like the reconstruction of Colonial American cities. 'The modern city has done its Williamsburg, which was undertaken at about the work and a change is coming,' Ford told the jour‐ same time.[1] nalist Drew Pearson in a 1924 interview. 'The city At Ford's converted mills there would be no has taught us much, but the overhead expense of displays of old-time crafts such as candle making, living in such places is becoming unbearable…. quilting, or butter churning. His dabbling in his‐ The cities are getting top-heavy and are about toric preservation was not meant to display an ob‐ doomed'" (p. 3). Ford realized that the giant facto‐ solete past with buildings and production prac‐ ries of industrialized America were attracting ru‐ tices trapped in amber. There would be no evok‐ ral and immigrant workers to the big city. Many of ing of nostalgia for a bygone era. Rather, the vil‐ these employees were unattached, single men lage industries were for showcasing a usable past, who stayed in boarding houses and cheap hotels. one that would couple the best of previous eras In their off hours they frequented saloons, bur‐ with the latest technology. As Segal writes, Ford's lesque shows, and bordellos. Freed from the con‐ village industries were to be "sophisticated alter‐ straints of the family farm and village life, the native forms of [an] emerging technological soci‐ modern factory worker was increasingly suscepti‐ ety, intended as models for others to emulate" (p.

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