WEBVTT - Henry Ford: The Good, Bad and Ugly 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:07.200 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:13.440 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:16.200 Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:25.000 should know. The biopic edition of Henry Ward, who plays him. 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:25.239 HM. 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:29.120 Well, I feel like technology is getting close to a 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:32.040 point where we could dig him up and reanimate him 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:34.560 and he could just play himself. So maybe we wait 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:36.080 like five years and then do it. 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:39.400 Yeah, you know, I didn't even see a lot of 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:42.080 pictures of this guy you have. 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:46.360 He's very plain looking. But if you know, if you 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:49.160 know what you're looking at, like a picture of him, 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:51.760 he's a wily old codure. 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:55.480 I thought you're gonna say, cuss I could have. 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:57.320 Who would have worked this as well? But you could 0:00:57.360 --> 0:00:59.080 just you can just see it. And the more you 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:01.080 know about him, when you see one of his pictures, 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:03.720 you can just see all of it. It's really interesting. 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:06.440 But he's very plain working, So I wouldn't be surprised 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:09.080 if you'd seen a picture of him just didn't recognize him. 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:12.240 I'm looking at him now. He doesn't look super familiar, 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:14.039 But I mean I kind of have a go to 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:19.320 that either. Either. Michael Shannon or Sam Rockwell should play everybody? Right, 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:23.399 And I could see Sam Rockwell gussied up here a 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:24.640 little bit as Henry Ford. 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:36.360 What about Danny McBride. 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:35.399 Build a car with all the pix AND's a little 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:37.880 east bounding down joke for the fans out there. 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:39.880 Sure, I was more a Vice Principals fan. 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:43.720 That was great too, Walton Goggins, he should play him, 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:44.479 get him in there. 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:46.679 There you go. Maybe they could just trade off halfway 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:47.360 through the movie. 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:50.080 Yeah, and see who f bomb's better. 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:55.400 So let's get this started. Yeah, let's get this started 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:55.920 in here. 0:01:57.960 --> 0:01:59.960 All right. Well, well we're gonna talk about Henry Ford, 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:02.640 who by the way, I feel like we don't need 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:05.680 some big whopping intro. But I think a lot of 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:09.200 people recognize Henry Ford as as the founder of the 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:12.959 Ford Motor Company and not the inventor of the automobile, 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:18.200 but certainly the gentleman who made the automobile ubiquitous, affordable 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:20.959 kind of thing for the common person. 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:25.040 Yeah. He's also strongly associated with the assembly line, which 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:27.919 he did not invent, but he just like the automobile. 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:32.560 He definitely made it a thing in doing these things 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:37.240 like normalizing the assembly line and car ownership really had 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:41.359 a huge impact on history, especially the history of America. 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:44.480 For sure. Shall we talk about where he was born 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:45.280 or you want to skip that? 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:49.280 No, I mean he was born in Dearborn, Michigan. What's next. 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:54.600 That was in eighteen sixty three July thirtieth, to William 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:58.880 and Mary Ford. And his pops was an Irish immigrant 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:02.760 farmer and his was a homemaker and had a bunch 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:05.079 of siblings. And this is something that you can put 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:07.799 a pin in. It's kind of very seems very key 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:10.240 to his life, or at least his formative years, is 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:12.400 that he went to one of those kind of old school, 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:16.240 one room schoolhouses until he was seventeen years old. 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:18.000 It was literally old school. 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:20.920 Yeah, very old school. But it seemed to be a 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:22.440 big deal to him, as we'll see later. 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:25.799 Yeah, for sure. So just kind of skipping ahead a 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:30.079 little bit. He, like Rudolph Diesel, was fascinated by engines 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:32.119 from a very early age and was like, I want 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:35.680 to build one of those along the way. Before he 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:38.560 got to the point of building things like cars and everything, 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:41.920 he tried his own hand at farming like his old man. 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:44.440 He got married to a woman named Clara who he 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:46.560 would stay married to for the rest of his life, 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:51.320 and he got a job with Thomas Edison at Thomas 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:56.040 Edison's I believe is Menlo Park complex and had his 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:59.600 own little shop and everything, and was very interested in 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:04.000 trying to create a gasoline engine after reading an article 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:07.720 in American Machinists, which is now known as Hustler. 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:12.960 I'm not going to say, is that true? 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:15.920 Can you transformation? Though? 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:20.480 I think one of the interesting things about his early 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:23.360 life though, is that, And just for some reason this 0:04:23.400 --> 0:04:28.360 strikes me as hysterical, is that he had some horse 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:32.520 riding accidents when he was a kid, and I kind 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:34.400 of was like, you know what I want to I 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:36.719 want to get rid of those things, like those are 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:39.599 those are dangerous and we shouldn't be writing them or 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:43.080 using them for work. And that seemed to be one 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:46.960 of the strange childhood drives to start working with machinery. 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:53.160 Yeah, it is very strange. It's really not at all surprising. 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:55.680 I guess really if you think about it, that his 0:04:56.560 --> 0:04:59.559 skills at building cars is desire and drive to build 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:05.280 cars is what he built his career on, like very much. 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:05.400 So. 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:09.279 He built a few cars, especially the first one called 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:12.120 the quadricycle. It was so named because it looked like 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:15.160 two bicycles parked next to each other. Yeah, and he 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:17.719 built this thing, like I think he and his friends 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:20.880 built the parts they needed or else they stripped other 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:24.000 things like steam engines, of parts and really like built 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:26.039 this thing from scratch. And then he would ride it 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:29.280 around town and caught the attention of some very wealthy 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:32.320 people in Detroit, in particularly the mayor named William Mayberry, 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:35.560 who became his first real investor, and was like, you 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:36.920 need to build more of thanse and we're going to 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:40.279 sell a bunch of them. So together in eighteen ninety nine, 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:43.320 was it, they formed the Detroit Motor Company. This was 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:46.680 Henry Ford's first car companies, his first attempt. 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:51.320 Yeah, his first couple of attempts at car companies in 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:53.800 bringing a car that actually could be mass produced and 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:57.159 selling the market were not successful. This one folded about 0:05:57.200 --> 0:06:00.679 a year later. He got investors for the Henry Ford 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:04.279 Company next that also failed to bring about a car 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:08.280 that he could sell to people. But kind of interestingly 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:12.039 that that company went on to become once Ford was 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:22.120 kind of shown the exit the Cadillac Automobile Company. 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:24.800 Yeah, I looked up I was always like, what is 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:28.440 Cadillac named after. It's named after the founder of Detroit, 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:32.560 Antoine de la Mouthe Cadillac, who established what would become 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:35.800 Detroit in seventeen oh one. So there's where Cadillac's named after. 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:37.440 For anybody who was wondering. 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:39.440 Yeah, maybe we should do a show in caddies at 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:42.200 some point. Okay, I'm not a big car guy, but 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:43.520 the Caddi's iconic. 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:47.359 Oh yeah, for sure. I mean the very least outcast 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:47.920 loves it. 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:53.159 Right. And the thing he did next was, you know, 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:55.080 he was always trying to raise money and always had 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:58.520 kind of a love hate relationship with investors. Yeah, because 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:01.080 he was like, you know, I neither money, but that's 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:03.080 kind of all they're good for. Otherwise they just medle 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:07.600 in my creative genius. So he set about racing cars 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:12.080 to kind of drum up publicity and investor interest. And 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:15.720 that's what happened when he started winning races with two cars, 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:17.840 the Arrow and the nine to ninety nine, which is, 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:21.480 look these things up, they're super cool looking. And that 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:26.120 led to some investors, most notably a guy named Alexander Malcolmson. 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:29.360 Yeah, so just like building a quadricycle and riding around 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:32.080 like setting the land speed record in one of the 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:36.640 race cars he built. That attracted Malcolmson. Two in malcolmsm. 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:40.800 This time it stuck. Malcolmson helped Ford launch the Ford 0:07:40.800 --> 0:07:43.560 Motor Company, which may ring a bell because it was 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:46.679 established in nineteen oh three, and get this, it's still 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:49.160 around today, over one hundred and twenty years later. 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:52.760 It sure is. Yeah, so I guess you could say 0:07:52.760 --> 0:07:55.840 this one was a success, starting with the Model A, 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:59.200 which started selling you know, I don't know, like hotcakes, 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:01.560 but selling well enough in nineteen oh five to keep 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:04.440 the company afloat. They were building about twenty five of 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:07.520 them a day, had about three hundred people working for them, 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:11.720 and started over like a five yearish period releasing you know, 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:14.679 different models indicated by a different model letter. 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:16.880 Did you look any of these up? The C, the F, 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:18.080 the and the B and the K. 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.240 I did. Those. B and the k's were the more 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:25.600 luxury models, and they're just gorgeous automobiles. 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:28.800 I mean, they're absolutely amazing, even still today. And then 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:32.760 if you look at the more like reasonably priced cars, 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:34.400 like the Model C and the F and the END, 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:38.280 they're basically just like open air buggies with a motor 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:40.959 in them, which is I mean, that's what nineteen oh 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:43.520 five and nineteen oh seven and eight cars were in 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:45.560 a lot of ways, But that B and that K 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:49.080 they're just something extra special. It's really I'm not a 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:51.720 car guy at all, and I find those alluring. 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:54.440 For sure. Yeah, I think we're kind of the same, 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:56.440 Like we're not big car dudes. But if you see 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.440 something like that or the one that the guy did 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:02.559 the first cross country road trip in, yeah, like I'm 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:05.319 able to be knocked out by a car, you just. 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:09.800 Go room room. So you said that his uh he 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:12.760 had a love hate relationship with investors. I would posit 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:16.320 that he had a us hate relationship with them. 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:16.800 Uh. 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:20.280 Good point to Henry Ford. He was the visionary designing 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:24.439 and building cars. Malcolmson gave him some money and was 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:26.760 getting money in return. He got his thing. That was 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:29.920 their arrangement. Malcolmson was saying, Hey, you're making all these 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:32.280 like reasonably priced cars, forget that. We need to be 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:36.840 focusing on luxury cars. And Henry Ford bristled with his 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:41.000 back turned at his workshop desk and resolved right then 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:45.000 and there that he would either murder Alexander Malcolmson or 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:47.520 force him out of the company, and he ended up 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:48.480 going with the latter. 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:55.679 That's right. In nineteen oh six, he had Malcolmson successfully 0:09:55.760 --> 0:10:00.320 pushed out and not murdered. He launched the Model Tea 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:03.160 in nineteen oh eight, and this was, you know, the 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:06.400 Model T is a is an iconic, legendary automobile because 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:10.000 this was finally the one that had that perfect balance 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:15.520 of a little bell and whistle action but something that 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:18.319 was easy to fix. It was it held up well, 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:22.520 it was, and it was affordable for the common person, 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:25.559 which kind of cemented him as you know, a man 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:26.079 of the people. 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:30.440 It was an enormous like achievement the Model T was. 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:32.679 It sold for like eight hundred and fifty bucks when 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:34.440 it first came out in nineteen oh eight. That was 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:36.520 the highest price it was ever charged. From what I 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:39.960 can tell, that's about thirty thousand dollars today, So it 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:42.320 was roughly equivalent to like a Honda Civic or like 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:45.600 a Subaru Legacy or something like that. Right at the time, 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:48.360 all other cars that were being built were luxury cars, 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:50.559 and they were going for two to three thousand dollars, 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:53.720 So anywhere from like seventy to one hundred thousand plus 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:56.040 dollars to buy a car. Now, all of a sudden, 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:58.360 this guy's selling him for thirty thousand, the equivalent of 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:02.600 thirty thousand dollars, and car our ownership just boomed from there. 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:05.640 You said they were building twenty five cars a day 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:12.440 in nineteen oh five. By nineteen thirteen they were selling 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:14.880 or building one hundred and eighty nine thousand of them 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:17.600 a year, which I haven't done the math, but that's 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:19.000 a lot more than twenty five a day. 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:23.760 Well yeah, and good job on not doing maths. 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:27.200 Thank you. First of all, you say, I speak for 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:28.320 myself and all. 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:34.440 Listeners, and this is a direct result of his innovation 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:38.080 of the assembly line. Like we said kind of at 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:41.000 the beginning, A lot of people think he invented the car. 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:44.679 Not true, invented the assembly line also not true. There 0:11:44.679 --> 0:11:49.640 were assembly lines at other factories, like bicycle factories and stuff. 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:54.360 Oh yeah, there were conveyor belts used in farming and 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:59.160 like cattle operations and stuff like that, candy factories, candy factories. 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:02.120 Well put a pin in that, actually, But he actually 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:04.360 combined those two things in a way that no one 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:08.560 had before, where he was literally bringing the work to 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:11.360 the people. They would stand in one spot, that conveyor 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:15.160 belt would bring along the thing they needed to work 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:19.880 on or finish or tinker with or whatever or inspect. 0:12:19.920 --> 0:12:21.320 First it was a rope, and then it was like 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:26.600 a chain assembly, and then it led to definitely some 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:29.720 I Love Lucy type moments. I mean that was first 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:31.560 of all, the workers didn't like it at all. They 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:34.880 thought it was really boring. But it also at times 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:37.839 was like I'm not done with the thing that's now 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:40.719 left me, and that was a big problem when you 0:12:40.760 --> 0:12:41.920 had to stop the assembly line. 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:44.440 Yeah, for sure, because before these people were like part 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:46.839 of an army assembling a car. They didn't just make 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:49.000 this one cog over and over and over again. And 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:51.400 like you said, it got very boring, was very repetitive. 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:55.840 And the turnover rate for employees at Ford by nineteen 0:12:55.960 --> 0:13:00.120 thirteen was at three hundred and seventy percent. And that's 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:03.679 just churning. That's a really high turnover rate. If that 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:06.480 number doesn't immediately present itself as such to. 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:09.800 You, well for sure, here's another stat off. Three hundred 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:12.240 and seventy percent doesn't mean much to you. He was 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:16.280 hiring fifty three thousand people every year to fill fourteen 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:17.079 thousand jobs. 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:19.439 Oh my god, wow. 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:22.199 And which was no good. You know, that's never good 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:24.920 for a company. But that also that assembly line brought 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:27.800 the price down on that model t I think you 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:31.960 said it it would be like thirty grand and today dollars. 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:38.080 By nineteen twelve, they brought that cost down to what 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:42.960 would be about nine thousand dollars plus change in today's money. 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:47.320 I think in nineteen twelve it was five twenty five. 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:50.160 By nineteen sixteen it was three hundred and forty five dollars. 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:52.280 So for a car, it went down from from thirty 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:55.319 grand to sixteen grand to about nine grand in today dollars. 0:13:55.400 --> 0:14:00.360 Yeah, so wow, that's that's impressive. One other things that 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:04.880 was the result of that, that streamlining of costs and 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:08.680 the reduction in price was Henry Ford came up with 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:12.360 an idea to keep workers around. He said, how about this, 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:17.559 you trade your boredom for more money, and worker said, 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:20.960 all right, I'll hear you out. And so Henry Ford 0:14:21.000 --> 0:14:23.520 came up with the five dollars work day. If you 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:27.040 worked at Ford, you made five dollars a day at least, 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:31.240 And that at the time is equal to about eleven 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:36.960 hundred dollars a week. Here, I think, what is that fifty. 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:39.680 One hundred and fifty four dollars a day and to 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:40.720 day dollars. 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:45.080 Okay, but times like seven days a week basically eventually six. 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:49.440 So it was it was a pretty good wage and 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:53.120 people were blown away by it so much so that 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:55.600 Ford was able to basically use it as a pr 0:14:57.120 --> 0:15:00.840 campaign to it basically be like, I'm paying five dollars 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:04.400 and I'm characterizing it as profit sharing because I take 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:07.320 care of my workers. And this really helped establish his 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:10.720 reputation from the outset as like a man of the people, 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:15.240 a populace who cared about factory workers, which is not true. 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:20.040 True to put that in perspective, when I first started 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:23.520 working as a PA in the film industry, I made 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:28.680 one hundred bucks a day working at least twelve hour days. Well, 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:31.280 they were working. He actually shortened their work day to 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:33.360 eight hours a day at one hundred and fifty four 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:35.280 dollars a day. So that ain't bad at. 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:40.520 All, No, it's not. So that really handled that reduced 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:44.320 that turnover rate. It got it under under control. Productivity 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:47.560 started to stabilize. I mean it proved that, like, if 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:51.120 you treat employees at the very least pay them what 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:56.640 they're worth, people will work harder for you. They'll it's 0:15:56.720 --> 0:15:58.520 just a really good way to run a company, rather 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:01.520 than squeezing every last time that you can out of 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:04.760 as few people as you can. Henry Ford kind of 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:07.000 proved that that was not the way to go. 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:11.720 That's right, but it came with some catches. In nineteen 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:18.480 fourteen he came up with the sociological department of his company, 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:21.080 and that was a group who, over the course of 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:24.120 about seven years would go around and come to your 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:26.400 house and do little home visits and say like, oh, 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:28.920 I see alcohol in the house, and it's kind of 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:32.160 a pig sty. So you don't qualify to get that 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:35.920 five dollars a day. If you took in a border 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:38.600 like looks like you're renting a room to someone, Sorry, 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:42.760 you don't qualify. These are all, you know, pretty vast overreaches, 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:46.720 you know, when you think about like today's standards, some 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:47.560 of them were pretty good. 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:47.720 Though. 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:50.920 If you had a domestic violence rap against you, you 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:53.560 didn't qualify, So you know, good for him for that, 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:54.400 I guess. 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:57.920 Sure, And today I mean, yes, that would be crazy 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:01.080 if somebody did that, because instead employers just spy on 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:04.400 you through your work computer rather than dropping by your 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:08.240 house actually, because that'd be too obvious, you know. So, 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:11.920 I think we talked about this in the Ford Landia episode, 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:15.640 where like the sociological department was really keeping an eye 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:18.800 on people, and in a lot of ways, you're like, 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:24.160 that's just insane, and it was. There's another like kind 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:26.800 of facet to it that is worth pointing out that 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:30.600 most of these workers whose houses were being visited lived 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:34.439 in Ford housing that was built right near the plant, 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:38.479 and I believe they got subsidized housing. So, based on 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:40.679 what I know about Ford, if he paid for something 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:43.399 even a little bit, he owned it. So he felt 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:46.000 totally emboldened to just send people into your house to 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:48.159 see if you were drinking or not, and then that 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:51.520 would affect your employment. He owned you, he was paying 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:53.920 you a really good wage. He owned you, He owned 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:56.520 your house, you owned your family. That's just how he 0:17:56.600 --> 0:18:00.199 saw things. He could buy anything with money, and he 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:02.080 just behaved that way as well. 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:06.440 Yeah, totally, should we take a break, Yeah, all right, 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:09.080 so we're gonna We've talked about his career up into 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:11.679 this point. We're gonna take a little slight turn to 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:43.480 talk about his personal life right after this. All right, 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:45.280 as promise, we're going to talk a bit about the 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:48.160 man's personal life. We mentioned that he married his wife, 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:52.600 Clara Bryant in nineteen eighty eight, and they stayed married, 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:57.480 and you know, I had a very close partnership as 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:02.560 married people go. But all while that was going on, 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:06.600 all the while, he was having an affair. I mean, 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:08.880 I don't think you'll see this printed on any Ford 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:13.400 Motor Company like official histories or anything, but he had 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:18.000 a long standing affair with a woman named Evangeline Coat 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:23.320 and eventually would get one of his friends, perhaps even 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:27.520 his personal driver to his guy named Ray Dollinger to 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:33.040 marry her because it appears as though he had a 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:36.600 son with her named John, and was like, hey, buddy, 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:39.600 you got to marry this lady and make it look 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:42.320 like that's your son, and the whole time we're going 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:43.919 to be having this kind of secret affair. 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:47.240 Yeah, that was the setup. And again, like he paid 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:51.840 for Evangeline's house. In Evangeline and Ray's house, apparently they 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:54.240 had like at least two or three estates, one of 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:56.280 which was just like a couple miles down the road 0:19:56.320 --> 0:20:00.199 from where Ford lived with Clara. He even built a 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:05.200 secret staircase that he could use that was away from 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:09.040 prying eyes and went directly up to Evangeline's bedroom. That's 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:13.639 greedy and in the seventies, John Ford, who Henry Ford's 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:17.680 been an inordinate amount of time with. If it wasn't 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:22.199 his actual son, he'd later in the seventies like like, 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:24.920 I think he wrote a memoir and said like, yeah, 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:28.240 this guy's my he was my father, like that, he 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:30.000 was my father. Sorry, if you don't want to hear it, 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:34.640 That's how it was. And I think still it was never. 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:38.520 It's still never. No one ever took a paternity test. 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:42.359 Evangeline never talked to the press about it. Like it's 0:20:42.440 --> 0:20:46.919 just not officially confirmed. But in every single way besides 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:48.520 officially it's confirmed. 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:52.480 Yeah, for sure. During this time, he also had a 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:57.040 son named Edsel. He would famously name a very failed 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:01.560 automobile after probably on purpose. Yeah, he was born in 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:05.200 eighteen ninety three. He was a good dad for about 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:08.560 a minute, but once Edseell got to be a little 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:12.080 bit older, they did not have a very good relationship. 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:15.360 He thought he was kind of a weakling. He thought 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:19.000 it was soft. He did give him a job, and 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:23.080 he would humiliate him and belittle him. He would even 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:25.560 back him to be the president, his son to be 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:28.919 the president of the Ford Motor Company, but just in 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:31.919 kind of like he didn't have any real teeth in 0:21:31.960 --> 0:21:33.960 that job because dad was still running the show. 0:21:34.200 --> 0:21:40.120 Yeah, a really widespread anecdote about how Henry Ford treated Edzell. 0:21:40.400 --> 0:21:43.320 Edzel could not make a step as president of Ford 0:21:43.400 --> 0:21:46.639 Motor Company without his dad's approval, and if he did, 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:51.160 there was trouble. And in one case, the administrative offices 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:54.400 were starting to get overcrowded, so he had a new 0:21:54.440 --> 0:21:57.159 wing built for it. New office is built, and he 0:21:57.200 --> 0:21:59.159 didn't pass it by his dad first, So when his 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:02.840 dad found out his dead, halted work on it. By 0:22:02.880 --> 0:22:06.119 this time, they dug out the foundation and Edzel said, okay, 0:22:06.200 --> 0:22:08.520 sorry about that. I'll just fill the ground back in, 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:10.880 and Henry Ford said, no, you won't. You will leave 0:22:10.880 --> 0:22:13.000 that there and you have to walk past it every 0:22:13.040 --> 0:22:14.520 day on your way to work and it will remind 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:18.800 you of your humiliation. Essentially, that's how Edzel was treated 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:23.360 by his father. It's like Henry Ford had a rich 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:28.280 kid just by definition, but hated rich kids like kids 0:22:28.280 --> 0:22:30.520 that were born rich, right, and he treated his son 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:32.160 that way. And from what I can tell, his son 0:22:32.320 --> 0:22:35.639 was not a bad guy and didn't deserve this at all. 0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:39.240