The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century (Vintage) (13 page)

In other words, Ford strode into the new century carrying a load of ideological baggage. Affiliated with no particular political party or individual, he might best be described as an instinctive populist. Ford's ideology, shaped in the cauldron of the provincial Midwest, was not so much a product of the agrarian Populist revolt of the 1890s, which attacked the bastions of urban industrial life and the “money power,” as a reflection of the rural, village culture that nourished it. This broader populist persuasion drew upon several sources—the residue of republicanism, with its tradition of civic obligation; the Protestant work ethic, with its insistence on the moral value of labor; and the values of market “producerism,” which claimed that the ownership of property and the production of useful goods bestowed social dignity and economic independence upon the citizen. Deeply suspicious of the machinery of high finance, this populist culture, in the elegant words of historian Richard Hofstadter, attempted “to hold on to some of the values of agrarian life, to save personal entrepreneurship and individual opportunity and the character type they engendered…. [It promoted] the ideal of a life lived close to nature and the soil, the esteem for the primary contacts of country and village life, the cherished image of the independent and self-reliant man.”
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Part progressive in its advocacy of economic reform, part traditional in its defense of old-fashioned individualism, this populist culture constituted the seedbed in which Henry Ford's attitudes sprouted. Floundering in his first attempts at manufacturing, he drew upon these notions to denounce the greed of his investors and uphold a standard of quality production. This populist orientation also was mirrored in Ford's insistence on maintaining self-reliance as he struggled to create a bureaucratic business organization.

Yet his position was complicated. Ford was no solitary entrepreneur from the early nineteenth century, heroically carving his own path through the thickets of enterprise. He appreciated the need for large group structures
in modern business and technology. Part of his admiration for Thomas Edison stemmed from an appreciation of the inventor's organizational talents. Edison, according to Ford's reading, discovered early on that “he needed assistance, for no matter how long he worked he could not by himself complete all of the needed experiments…. [So he decided] to start forward with something of an organization. Thereafter he was always the director of a laboratory and conserved his time by devoting it to the things where his brain and not his hands alone were needed.”
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Clearly, Henry Ford was no hidebound reactionary worshipping at the shrine of individualism while condemning all complex forms of business organization.

At the same time, many of Ford's instincts ran across the grain of the culture of incorporation. Though respecting the need for intricate business structures, he adamantly refused to be swallowed by any variety of bureaucracy, especially one dominated by financiers. Ford's goal appeared in an elusive middle ground: to develop the right
kind
of organization, where his self-reliant, populist instincts would not be completely subsumed in a larger entity. The difficult period of the late 1890s, with its slow prototype development, manufacturing delays, financial misfires, and limited progress, was but the first stage in his career-long quest to maintain personal control over a large-scale industrial enterprise.

Thus the Henry Ford of the late 1890s—the failed businessman who chastised his financial backers for their greed and their infringements on his independence—was a product of this rural, Midwestern culture of populism. Even while embracing technological advances, he rejected the notion that wealth carried special prerogatives in a republic of merit, and he insisted, to the point of leaving before surrendering the principle, on keeping personal control of his enterprise in an age of growing corporate bureaucracy. Though still unsure about exactly how to do it, Ford made clear that somehow he intended to hold on to a populist ethic of old-fashioned individualism as he strained to create a modern corporate bureaucracy.

After several years of effort, the mechanic and businessman seemed to have failed at reaching these goals, succeeding only in entangling himself in frustrations and false starts. But within a short time, he found a way to break the logjam. Unexpectedly, with his typical mix of shrewdness and audacity, he turned to an exciting feature of the new leisure-and-entertainment culture sweeping through early-twentieth-century America: Henry Ford became a racing-car celebrity.

In 1901, Henry Ford presented an image that marked a dramatic departure from his earlier life. The large crowds pouring into the Grosse Pointe racetrack in Detroit did not encounter the farm boy, steam-engine mechanic, backyard tinkerer, or failed manufacturer of horseless carriages. Instead, spectators saw a glamorous public celebrity: the automobile racer. Covered with oil and grime, with the wind sweeping through his hair and thousands of excited viewers screaming their approval, Ford shot down the dirt track in his powerful race car, its enormous engine roaring and its tires sending clouds of dust flying into the air as it skidded through the turns and sped down the straightaways. Winning races and setting speed records, the exhilarated driver received a hero's acclaim and basked in the glow of newfound fame. Henry Ford demonstrated, for the first time, the instinctive feel for publicity and its benefits that would become a hallmark of his career.

In fact, this often forgotten chapter in Ford's life encompassed one of the most important maneuvers he ever made as an automaker. Temporarily abandoning straightforward attempts at car production, he plotted an indirect strategy. Because he saw the need for public attention that would revive interest in his motor vehicle, he embraced an exciting activity that seemed to attract the notice of growing numbers of Americans. The best way to bring the Ford car and name before great masses of people was to join the fad for racing.

But there was a larger dimension to this maneuver. This foray into automobile racing also typified a larger pattern in his career: a natural feel for the public pulse. Although certainly no sophisticated student of American values and culture, he had an instinctive appreciation of the leisure-and-entertainment culture emerging in turn-of-the-century American society. Like Theodore Roosevelt in politics or D. W. Griffith in filmmaking, Ford grasped the essence of a new mass culture beginning to emerge by the early
1900s and sensed its enormous power in terms of advertising and celebrity. Roosevelt, with his colorful personality and bombastic rhetoric, made himself into a political figure trailed by newspapermen and photographers wherever he went. Griffith, emblazoning his initials on every frame of his movies, adopted the persona of the artistic
auteur
whose own personality became as celebrated as his creations. Ford, in similar fashion, manipulated this popular culture to boost his technological enterprise. He devoted his considerable energies to constructing a powerful, winning race car and secured the services of a daredevil driver who soon became a household name. Within a short time, as he anticipated, this winning formula had generated substantial publicity for the Ford name and associated with it an image of racing victories and speed records.

When the dust had settled on the racetrack, Ford's fame had secured his larger, practical objective. The publicity of automobile racing provided the leverage that he needed to return to his real quest—the production of an inexpensive, sturdy, lightweight motorcar for the average American. Trading upon his racing fame, Ford secured new financial support in the form of a partnership and created the Ford Motor Company in 1903. Within a short time, however, he would take sole control of this enterprise. By 1908, Ford finally had created a corporate structure that he could live with—one where only he could direct its destiny.

Henry Ford began the new century on an inauspicious note. His earliest car-production ventures had folded because of his failure to bring an acceptable prototype to the point of manufacture. But another difficulty had also undermined his initial attempts at forming a viable company. Automobile racing had seduced him, much to the detriment of his commercial endeavors.

Ford first became interested in racing while still involved with the Detroit Automobile Company, when he had begun working secretly on a racing car. As with his Quadricycle, he was assisted by associates who were attracted to this enticing vision of barrier-breaking speed embodied in a high-horsepower racing vehicle. The group included his old friends “Spider” Huff and Oliver Barthel. Newcomers included draftsman, toolmaker, and commercial artist C. Harold Wills; lathe operator Ed Verlinden; and blacksmith Charlie Mitchell. By the summer and fall of 1901, this team had built the first version of the Ford racer. The vehicle's enclosed, water-cooled engine featured a pair of large, opposed cylinders, seven by seven inches each, that could generate up to 26 horsepower. The chassis had thirty-six-inch wire wheels, a steering wheel set on the right side, and a “patented
reach and trussed front and rear axles.” Built low to the ground, the race car weighed twenty-two hundred pounds.
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Ford's racer first drew attention for its appearance rather than its substance. Before the car ever competed,
Scientific American
praised it for revising the dominant look of early motorized vehicles, most of which still remained “horseless carriages of a horsey style.” In an article entitled “Style in Automobiles,” author Hrolf Wisby argued:

But more than style points were needed for success in the exciting new world of competitive racing. In July 1899, the Tour de France had created a sensation as cars from several countries successfully traversed a 1,428-mile course, with the winner averaging thirty-two miles per hour. By 1901, the Frenchman Henri Fournier stood unchallenged as the leading European racer; in the United States, Alexander Winton of Cleveland (also a manufacturer) had emerged as the most successful driver. Winton set the world record for the mile in 1897 and then drove his vehicle from Cleveland to New York. In 1901, he again set the world record for the mile, at one minute and fourteen seconds.
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Automobile racing required speed, endurance, and a strong dose of courage. It was a dangerous proposition that involved two people—one to steer and one to provide balance. In his racing team, Henry Ford drove the car, with shoulders down and head hunched over to peer down the track (there were no windshields on these early prototypes), while “Spider” Huff, with much bravery but little evident sense, crouched precariously on the running board. Holding on to metal grips with both hands, he provided ballast by leaning out from the vehicle to help the car negotiate through turns on an oval racetrack. In the fall of 1901, Ford and Huff made several trial runs on broad streets on the outskirts of Detroit, and once hauled the car
out to Dearborn to test its speed on the old Scotch Settlement Road. Ford had his mind set on breaking the speed record held by Winton. His opportunity would appear within a few weeks.

In the summer of 1901, a trio of entrepreneurs—Daniel J. Campeau, head of the Detroit Driving Club; William B. Shanks, Alexander Winton's business manager; and William Metzger, a Detroit bicycle-shop owner and businessman—organized the first automobile race to be run in Michigan. It was to be held at the mile-long Grosse Pointe racetrack on October 10. The organizers set up a program of five preliminary events for electric, steam, and gasoline vehicles of various sizes and weights, to be followed by a ten-mile main event. Winton agreed to compete, as did five other drivers from around the United States, including Ford, who paid his entry fee the day before the race. As the prize for the winner of the championship event, the promoters offered an elaborate, expensive cut-glass punch bowl and serving set.

As plans were finalized, there was intense interest in the race, and Ford immediately reaped the benefits. “The event is all the talk of Detroit's smart set,” reported the
Free Press.
“One of the most promising contestors is the Detroit chauffeur, Henry Ford. His machine was tried out on the boulevard recently and without great effort covered a half mile in 38 seconds.” The streetcar company in Detroit announced that, on the day of the race, cars would be leaving for the Grosse Pointe track every thirty seconds. A number of public offices even closed up shop for the event. A judge in the Detroit Recorder's Court printed this notice in the local newspapers: “Gentlemen: This court has received several requests from attorneys and others to adjourn court tomorrow afternoon on account of the automobile races and as there is nothing of importance on, court will be adjourned for the day at one o'clock.”
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