64th Anniversary of Death of Henry Ford

On this day in 1947, readers of the Ypsi papers learned that the 84-year-old "elder statesman of the automobile industry" had died at his home in Dearborn. His influence changed the demographics, economy, and even the very geography of Ypsi in ways that have lasted to this day. DD thinks of Ford Lake as a passing titan's footprint that filled up with water in his wake.

Now himself a historical figure, Ford is often misquoted, and misquoted without context, concerning his alleged quote "History is bunk." He did not say this as quoted, and a more thoughtful analysis of what Ford meant may be found in a 1999 Globe and Mail column by Robert Fulford:

"A few years ago, in an essay called 'Doing History,' [historian Eugen] Weber analyzed Henry Ford’s famous remark, 'History is bunk.' Since Ford was a bigot and a tyrant, that's usually quoted as an example of ignorance. But Weber used it to demonstrate that we can understand nothing except through context. Ford actually said 'History is more or less bunk,' which is slightly different, and he said it in 1916, in the middle of the First World War.

"Ford thought that devotion to the past prevents us from grappling with the present and may encourage us to make war out of historical grievance. In 1914 all the European leaders knew history, Ford said, yet they blundered into the worst war ever.

"On another occasion Ford recalled looking in American history books 'to learn how our forefathers harrowed the land'; he discovered that historians barely mentioned harrows, the iron-toothed rakes essential to modern farming. Harrows, Ford argued, meant more in history than guns and speeches. When history 'excludes harrows, and all the rest of daily life,' then history is bunk.

"Maybe Ford felt strongly about harrows because he manufactured them, Weber says; even so, he was right when he argued that history should tell how ordinary people lived. And Ford won. The rise of social history began in the 1920s with the Annales movement in France, and has spread ever since. As Weber says, 'The sort of history that Ford wanted is pretty much the history that we do today'."

Henry Ford Bails Out Detroit Banks

Dusty D is reading a rather incredible story in 1933 Ypsi papers about Henry Ford bailing out 2 Detroit banks. As you might imagine, the onetime farm boy and self-made industrial titan despised banks and Wall Street and hated the idea of being enmeshed in the abstract wheeling-dealing machinations of people who didn't make anything.

I went to one of my Ford bios for more information ("Henry Ford, The Wayward Capitalist" by Carol Gelderman). It said Ford did indeed hate the idea of bailing out the banks, and said it was the government's responsibility to do so, but was urged to do so by no less than President Hoover (this was just before the inauguration of FDR).

When Ford refused, it caused a statewide bank "holiday" on Feb 14, 1933 that domino-like, triggered bank holidays in other states. The bio is a tad unclear, but it does appear Ford relented and funded 2 Detroit banks sufficiently to have them qualify for federal aid and keep them afloat, (as the Ypsi paper says), and the bank holiday in MI ended after a week--though withdrawals from the Detroit banks were restricted to only 35% of one's assets--much better than the rate other banks were offering at the time.

Ford's personal secretary Liebold "cracked under the strain," says the bio, and fled to Northern Michigan, "pursued by [Harry Bennett's spies." Liebold stayed on with Ford but "was stripped of more power each year."

In these days of the government bailing our car companies, it's fascinating to read of a time when it was the other way around. I believe this will be my topic for my upcoming Saturday Chronicle article.

Ypsilanti Children Toil in Fields Under Henry Ford's Benevolent Gaze

Kind readers, do you have small children underfoot now that school is out? At your wit's end thinking of things for them to do?

Why not do what your Ypsilantian predecessors did--put them to work as fieldhands for the "motor magnate"?

Merely dig up your lawn for a 40 by 67-foot plot--one plot PER child, that is--and hand them some seed packets, preferably from R. H. Shumway, Dusty Diary's favorite ol'-timey seed purveyor. Print out and show them this 1932 Ypsilanti Daily Press article attesting that past Ypsi kids grew heaping wagonloads of radishes, onions, lettuce, spinach, beans, and beets--enough for 42 families in the Willow Run area!

Your role is easy--merely supervise your toddlers from the shade of a nearby tree as they weed down the long rows under the blistering sun. Periodically call out "One more row before lemonade!" In just a few months of back-breaking toil, you should have delicious vegetables for your table!

Henry Ford would have approved, to see such youthful industry. Now get those freeloadin' kids outside and make 'em start up the rototiller!