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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's

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Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, So this is Stuff you

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Speaker 2: Should Know. The Wacky Strange History Edition. Get another one.

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Speaker 1: I love this one. We got a few people to

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Speaker 1: thank out of the gate for this, if I may sure.

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Speaker 1: First of all, we want to thank listener Brennan Wilson,

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Speaker 1: who gave this idea to us through email. Okay, I

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Speaker 1: had never heard of it before, so Brennan sent this

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Speaker 1: in and I did a quick search, as I always

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Speaker 1: do when someone sends in something, unless it's like, ooh,

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Speaker 1: doing on shoe soles, But when it's something I hadn't

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Speaker 1: heard of, I always look it up. And I was like,

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Speaker 1: oh man, this is a really good one. I didn't

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Speaker 1: know about this, So big thanks to Brennan. Big thanks

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Speaker 1: to Livia who put this one together and helped us out.

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Speaker 1: And Livia actually said we should thank a couple of

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Speaker 1: people in particular that sort of wrote the book, well

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Speaker 1: literally and figuratively. On Fordlandia, Greg Grandon wrote a book

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Speaker 1: called Ford Landia Colin The Rise and Fall of Henry

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Speaker 1: Ford's Forgotten Jungle City Sporiler Alert. And then there was

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Speaker 1: a paper in the late seventies by a guy named

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Speaker 1: John Gaily in the Journal of Inter American Studies and

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Speaker 1: World Affairs. It also had a lot of good stuff.

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Speaker 1: So thanks to everyone involved. Here we go.

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Speaker 2: Wow, that was a lot. I was waiting for you

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Speaker 2: to tell us who Greg Grandon said we should thank Yeah, right, mom,

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Speaker 2: So we are talking about ford Landia. We are talking

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Speaker 2: about what you could call Ford's Folly. Just to kind

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Speaker 2: of strip a bear right out of the gate. It

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Speaker 2: was Henry Ford's misadventure down in the Amazon where he

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Speaker 2: tried to build a model utopian society based on rural Midwestern.

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Speaker 1: America right in the Amazon.

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Speaker 2: In the Amazon. That's a big that's a big catch

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Speaker 2: right there, because I didn't try to do it in

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Speaker 2: Omaha or Topeka. He chose the Amazon over Topeka. And

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Speaker 2: I think that says a lot about Topeka.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, we love our Kansas. I hope they know

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Speaker 1: that all but one. All but one? Right, all right,

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Speaker 1: So we should talk a little bit about the sort

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Speaker 1: of weirdo that was Henry Ford. Maybe we should do

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Speaker 1: a hole up on him one day. I didn't know

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Speaker 1: a ton about the guy. It did. A lot of

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Speaker 1: great stuff was also not great in a lot of ways.

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Speaker 2: That's such a recurring theme, I know.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen oh three is where the Ford Motor Company

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Speaker 1: was born in Dearborn, Michigan, and thanks to the Model T,

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Speaker 1: it changed America. It was a car that was available,

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Speaker 1: more available than any car had ever been to like

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Speaker 1: regular Americans. He paid his workers a living wage, which

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Speaker 1: at the time was five dollars a day, and he

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Speaker 1: he also had a lot of strings attached to that

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Speaker 1: good wage and those good jobs along the lines of like, hey,

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Speaker 1: I know we're a car company, but let's have a

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Speaker 1: sociology department in our company where we send out hundreds

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Speaker 1: of investigators around Dearborn into the homes of my employees

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Speaker 1: to make sure that the kids are going to school

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Speaker 1: and everything is tidy, the wife isn't working, and that

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Speaker 1: people aren't drinking booze.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. It was the Ford Motor Company equivalent of the Gestapo,

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Speaker 2: the secret police, who they weren't coming to your company

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Speaker 2: owned house that you lived in on the Ford Motor

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Speaker 2: Company campus. This is your house in Michigan. And these

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Speaker 2: people felt totally fine coming by and checking on your family,

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Speaker 2: to make sure that you were living up to Henry

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Speaker 2: Ford's personal standards of old timey, squeaky clean americanness.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but at the same time he would also, like

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Speaker 1: I said, pay them a good wage. He would, would

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Speaker 1: give them great healthcare, he would he would help citizenship along.

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Speaker 1: If he had immigrants working for them, he would help

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Speaker 1: them with their applications, help them get home loans. So

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Speaker 1: it was one of those things where he was like,

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Speaker 1: I feel like I'm paying you well and I'm doing

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Speaker 1: a lot of good for you and your family, and

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Speaker 1: that gives me the right as really just your uber boss,

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Speaker 1: to dictate how you should live your life as well.

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Speaker 1: It's insane, it is.

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Speaker 2: He was an anti Semite. It's pretty well trid that

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Speaker 2: Hitler was at least in part inspired by the writings,

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Speaker 2: the anti semite, anti semitic writings of Henry Ford. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: he was a huge fan of square dancing. You could

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Speaker 2: call it an obsession essentially.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very, very weird.

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Speaker 2: He met his wife at a square dance and apparently

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Speaker 2: he thought that that was the end I'll be all

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Speaker 2: of rural American life, that that was a perfect pastime,

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Speaker 2: a perfect symbol everybody should be into square dancing.

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Speaker 1: I mean nothing wrong with square dancing. I'm not knocking

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Speaker 1: square dancing. Just to be clear.

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Speaker 2: Oh okay, God, I'm glad you said that, because I

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Speaker 2: was about to. He was also big time into soy

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Speaker 2: Like he apparently some of the early model t's, their

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Speaker 2: knobs and stuff were made out of basically a proto

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Speaker 2: soy plastic. He ate soy as much as he could.

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Speaker 2: He seemed to have kind of fallen in the footsteps

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Speaker 2: of the Kellogg brothers a little bit. I get the Yeah,

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Speaker 2: he was that kind of old timey vegetarian cook yag exactly,

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Speaker 2: but he also had some His business acumen was just insane. Like,

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Speaker 2: he wasn't just a businessman, he was an industrialist. This

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Speaker 2: guy was a titan of industry because he made the

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Speaker 2: industry himself essentially, and what he was responsible for in

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Speaker 2: part was the assembly line. But also it might not

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Speaker 2: have come up with the concept, but he really adopted

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Speaker 2: something called vertical integration.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the idea. Say let's say you're building cars

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Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, well, I want to make my

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Speaker 1: own tires instead of buying them from Firestone. So I'm

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Speaker 1: going to start making my tires, and uh, well, I

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Speaker 1: want my own rubber then to make these tires, Like

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Speaker 1: why pay somebody for rubber if I'm going to be

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Speaker 1: making all these tires for myself and these cars. And

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Speaker 1: so that's what inspired the idea for Landy is like,

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Speaker 1: let's go where the rubber is and buy up land

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Speaker 1: and start, you know, milking these rubber trees. You know,

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Speaker 1: milk rubber trees, probably m milk. Tap them, tap them,

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Speaker 1: that's right, and tap these rubber trees. And then basically

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Speaker 1: what you're trying to do is control control the entire

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Speaker 1: supply chain by owning it from the from the bottom up.

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Speaker 2: Right, which means like buying coal mines to to fuel

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Speaker 2: the vulcanization process of hardening rubber, buying up railroads to

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Speaker 2: deliver the coal to the factories like that. Yeah, like

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Speaker 2: owning every aspect of what you need to produce use

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Speaker 2: your final product. That was what he was into, that

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Speaker 2: vertical integration. And like you said, I mean that is

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Speaker 2: why he ended up in Brazil. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Do you know what kind of like titan of industry

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Speaker 1: you have to be for someone to come in and say,

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Speaker 1: I'll tell you what's killing us right now? These shipping

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Speaker 1: costs on the railroads, and he's like, well, let's buy

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Speaker 1: the railroad then.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it makes sense and most people might

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Speaker 2: even think about it, but you can't actually do it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So this idea though, of building, and as

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Speaker 1: you'll see, it was much more than let's go to

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Speaker 1: the Amazon and buy some land and grow rubber. It

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Speaker 1: was for him it seems like even more so, like

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Speaker 1: let's go down there and build this utopian society that

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Speaker 1: I dream of where people square dance, you know, and

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Speaker 1: drinks and curses and stuff like that. But this wasn't

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Speaker 1: a brand new thing for him. In nineteen twenty one,

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Speaker 1: he tried to do a similar thing in northern Alabama,

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Speaker 1: near Muscle Shoals, on a seventy five mile stretch of

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Speaker 1: land where there were some sort of abandoned facil were

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Speaker 1: two nitrate facilities from World War One, and there was

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Speaker 1: the construction and well partial construction of the Wilson Dam.

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Speaker 1: And he said, you know what, let's move there, Let's

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Speaker 1: restart those projects and get people working and kind of

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Speaker 1: found a new society there basically where no one was living.

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Speaker 1: He offered five million bucks to lease the dam. I

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Speaker 1: guess to the government, and a lot of people in

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Speaker 1: the government weren't down with it, and it eventually just

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Speaker 1: kind of fell apart.

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Speaker 2: Well, supposedly it was just one senator from Alabama who

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Speaker 2: you really opposed it, Yeah, and it was yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: that's a tradition. Apparently this senator got death threats from

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Speaker 2: people in Alabama, not just in the Muscle Shoals area,

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Speaker 2: but like all over Alabama. They had mobilized to start

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Speaker 2: feeding this million million person workforce that Henry Stower's gun employment. Like,

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Speaker 2: they changed everything they were doing and started to ramp

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Speaker 2: up production in anticipation of this, and this one senator

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Speaker 2: got in the way and said, nope, I was getting

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Speaker 2: too sweet a deal. And he killed it. And he

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Speaker 2: killed it enough that Henry Ford was like, fine, I'll

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Speaker 2: just go somewhere else. And the guy started getting death threats.

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Speaker 2: Apparently he made a visit to Muscle Shoals and had

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Speaker 2: to have armed bodyguards with him because he was in

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Speaker 2: that much in danger that many people were that mad

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Speaker 2: at him.

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Speaker 1: Holy cow. All right, so we've covered Ford. He was

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Speaker 1: a strange man, he was an anti Semite, he's a

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Speaker 1: titan of industry. And now we got to cover the

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Speaker 1: rubber part of this, not where the rubber meets the road,

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Speaker 1: but where the rubber meets the podcast. Oh man, that

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Speaker 1: was the saddest little grunty groan I've ever heard out

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Speaker 1: of you.

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Speaker 2: It was involunteer. I'm sorry.

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Speaker 1: I know you couldn't even I could tell you couldn't

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Speaker 1: even help it. Oh boy, Like, there's no way that

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Speaker 1: you're gonna die before me. But if you happen to, huh,

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Speaker 1: I feel like I would just And I know that

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Speaker 1: you're not going to have an open casket funeral either,

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Speaker 1: but let's say you did, Okay, I feel like I

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Speaker 1: would go and lean over your by and just tell

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Speaker 1: you how great it was working with you all those years,

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Speaker 1: and you would make that same sound.

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Speaker 2: Why you say I'm not going to have an open

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Speaker 2: casket funeral? Do you know something I don't. No.

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Speaker 1: I thought you were going to like either be shot

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Speaker 1: out of a canon or cremated and scattered or sky

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Speaker 1: burialed or something.

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Speaker 2: Oh no, that's all. That's so old. No, I don't

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Speaker 2: know what I'm going to do yet, but I could

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Speaker 2: have an open casket. I can be cremated. After everybody's like, hey,

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Speaker 2: good respect to see you later. Good to meet you.

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Speaker 2: I don't know who you are, but way to go.

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Speaker 2: All right, that's what I expect people to say.

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Speaker 1: It might be that that's what today. So the world

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Speaker 1: is being industrialized in the early twentieth century. In the

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Speaker 1: nineteenth century, rubber became a very big deal. Rubber is

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Speaker 1: a product of South America originally, and the Amazon region

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Speaker 1: had a lot of rubber trees down there, so they

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Speaker 1: were like the dominant player. And rubber trees down there

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Speaker 1: grew just sort of where they wanted to grow. It

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Speaker 1: wasn't like a plantation crop or something like that really grew.

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Speaker 1: And so along the Amazon they were building little cities

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Speaker 1: and stuff to support that industry for many, many years.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they put a lot of effort into like supporting

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Speaker 2: this rubber trade. And Brazil was like the basically the

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Speaker 2: only player on the market. That's where the rubber trees were,

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Speaker 2: and if you wanted rubber, that's where you had to

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Speaker 2: go because we didn't have synthetic rubber yet. Yeah, so

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Speaker 2: somebody some brit I don't remember, we've talked about it before. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: don't remember what episode. Maybe we did one on rubber,

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Speaker 2: I'm not sure, but brit said, hey, you know, Sri

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Speaker 2: Lanka has a very similar climate to the Amazon, maybe

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Speaker 2: those rubber trees will grow there. And not only did

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Speaker 2: the rubber trees grow there, the rubber trees had no

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Speaker 2: natural pests or.

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Speaker 1: Enemies.

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Speaker 2: Sure, predators, parasites, yeah, all of those things. It had

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Speaker 2: none of them, I should say. So those things flourished

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Speaker 2: like crazy in Sri Lanka and other parts of I

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Speaker 2: guess central Southeast Asia, that's right, not Central Asia.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and that really put a dent in the rubber

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Speaker 1: economy in Brazil kind of collapsed at basically, and following

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Speaker 1: that in nineteen twenty two, the Stevenson Plan in Britain

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Speaker 1: said basically said hey, if you're a French planter or

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Speaker 1: a British planter in one of our Asian colonies, you

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Speaker 1: can restrict the supply of rubber. You can create a

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Speaker 1: false market basically to raise the rubber prices all around

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Speaker 1: the world. And so all of a sudden America was going,

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Speaker 1: we're being squeezed here by the Stevenson Plan. So at

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Speaker 1: the time Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover Hobalt Hoovel steps

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Speaker 1: up and says, all right, we gotta get some rubber

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Speaker 1: going on our own now and develop our supply chain,

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Speaker 1: So go do it. In nineteen twenty four, he sent

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Speaker 1: a technical mission down to Brazil to look again once

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Speaker 1: again in the Amazon and see if they can bring

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Speaker 1: the Amazon back and make it a player again. And

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Speaker 1: that's what they tried to do. They were It was

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Speaker 1: basically like which companies would go there and which companies

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Speaker 1: would go elsewhere. I think Goodyear ended up going somewhere else,

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Speaker 1: Firestone ended up going somewhere else. They went to Liberia,

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Speaker 1: Goodyear went to the Philippines and Sumatra. But Ford was

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Speaker 1: still like, I want to make my own tires. I

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Speaker 1: don't want to buy from those guys. So there's like,

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Speaker 1: why don't we do it?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? He also so I get the impression after researching

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Speaker 2: this that getting rubber to make his own tires was

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Speaker 2: almost a pretext for him that he that's what he

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Speaker 2: needed to tell people, That's what he needed to spend

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Speaker 2: Ford Motor Company money on. But what he really wanted

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Speaker 2: to do was to basically tame the Amazon to I'm

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Speaker 2: making scare quotes all over the place here, civilize the

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Speaker 2: people of the Amazon, and basically turned them into world

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Speaker 2: Midwestern Americans with square dancing on their mind all time, right,

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Speaker 2: I know. So that's really what he wanted to do.

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Speaker 2: He didn't even care if he made money, he didn't

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Speaker 2: care if he lost tons of money. He wanted to

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Speaker 2: make this utopian society. And the Amazon was as great

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Speaker 2: a place as any because it was such a challenge.

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Speaker 2: And also if you went to Sumatra or he went

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Speaker 2: to the Philippines, like it was a different place, like

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Speaker 2: there were also other colonial powers there. The Amazon was

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Speaker 2: right because everybody went somewhere else, and Ford said, I'm

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Speaker 2: going there.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And they said we would like you to come here,

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Speaker 1: because Henry Ford was, like you said, he was a

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Speaker 1: business magnet. He was a worldwide, well known name, basically

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Speaker 1: a celebrity all around the world. And in Brazil they

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Speaker 1: were like, listen, we need someone like Henry Ford here

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Speaker 1: to kind of put us back on the map rubber wise.

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Speaker 1: And so they basically said, hey, listen, we'll give you

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Speaker 1: land if you come over here and start your rubber

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Speaker 1: business here. And that's what they did. In nineteen twenty seven,

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Speaker 1: they got the Ford Motor Company got a gift of

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Speaker 1: two and a half million acres alongside the Tapajos river,

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Speaker 1: and he said, here's the deal. I made a deal

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Speaker 1: with the government there after twelve years, I could give

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Speaker 1: yourself a dozen years to get going, and then you

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Speaker 1: can start paying Brazil seven percent and then two percent

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Speaker 1: to the local governments. I don't now why they capped

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Speaker 1: it at nine percent. You know that was ten and

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Speaker 1: Ford talked him down like a percentage point or something.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Probably they got some kickbacks, about one hundred and twenty

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Speaker 1: five grand in kickbacks to make it happen between people

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Speaker 1: who sort of negotiated the deal, which really made Ford mad, because,

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Speaker 1: as you know, a guy who loves great answing doesn't

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Speaker 1: like kickbacks, you know what I'm saying.

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Speaker 2: No, and one hundred and twenty five grand in kickbacks

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Speaker 2: in nineteen twenty seven is two point one seven million

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Speaker 2: dollars today, a lot of money. Yeah, one point seven

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Speaker 2: h nine million pounds and one point ninety seven one

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Speaker 2: million euros.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, which he might have thought, that's very thorough.

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Speaker 2: Well, you called me out for not having the euro

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Speaker 2: conversion before, so I would made sure I was prepared today.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, he might have been a little rankled because he

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Speaker 1: might have thought he could have paid less for two

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Speaker 1: and a half million acres there.

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Speaker 2: I don't know. I think it was the moral part

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Speaker 2: of it. Yeah, you hit it on the head. He

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Speaker 2: was a square dancer.

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Speaker 1: That's right.

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Speaker 2: So but that was just part for the course, apparently.

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Speaker 2: I think it's changed dramatically since then.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but what you were saying about his like his

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Speaker 1: desire was more to make that thing. There's a quote

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Speaker 1: where he said was his desire was not to make money,

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Speaker 1: but to develop that wonderful and fertile land.

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Speaker 2: Yes, the very quote I was searching for while I

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Speaker 2: was making that point, but couldn't object. So thank you,

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Speaker 2: because that's yeah, that's what he wanted to do. But

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Speaker 2: as far as Ford Motor companies concerned, like they're going

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Speaker 2: down there to start up a rubber plantation and make

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Speaker 2: their own rubber, to make their own tires, part of

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Speaker 2: the vertical integration plan, and so there were there were

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Speaker 2: not not everybody was on board with this. Yeah, because

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Speaker 2: anybody who anything about the rubber market said, hey, that

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Speaker 2: Stevenson planned that the Brits enacted in nineteen twenty two.

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Speaker 2: They shot themselves in the foot. They kept from exporting

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Speaker 2: rubber to try to artificially influence prices. But the Dutch

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Speaker 2: didn't go along with it, and they undercut the Brits,

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Speaker 2: and now the Dutch control most of the American market

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Speaker 2: and they're selling at perfectly reasonable prices. We don't actually

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Speaker 2: need to set up our own rubber plantations. And they

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Speaker 2: said for it, said no, We're going down to the Amazon,

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Speaker 2: and he made it happen. He did.

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Speaker 1: August nineteen twenty eight. He started shipping stuff down to Brazil.

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Speaker 1: The problem initially, and boy, there were a lot of problems,

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Speaker 1: but let's call this problem number one. They chose a

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Speaker 1: site high up in elevation because they didn't want to

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Speaker 1: be involved in flooding, which sort of makes sense. But

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Speaker 1: it was so far inland that these steamerships pulling these barges,

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Speaker 1: taking all these supplies to literally build a city, essentially,

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Speaker 1: they couldn't get down these these shallow rivers. So it

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Speaker 1: took forever. It took like over like well not over

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Speaker 1: a year, but you know, nine to ten months for

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Speaker 1: the supplies to finally get there. So the timeline from

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Speaker 1: the beginning was just super slow.

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Speaker 2: Yes, they finally did get there in early nineteen twenty nine,

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Speaker 2: and the steamer captain who was the captain of the

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Speaker 2: steamership that pulled the barge of supplies down there. Initially

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Speaker 2: was a Danish man named Einard Oxholm, and he is

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Speaker 2: a really great example of Ford and Ford Motor Company's

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Speaker 2: idea that if you are competent at one thing, you

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Speaker 2: can be competent at anything. I saw it described as

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Speaker 2: basically a corporate wide arrogant optimism that you could just

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Speaker 2: get in there and get things done. If you were

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Speaker 2: a smart person and you applied scientific principles, you could

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Speaker 2: do anything. So he appointed innerd Oxholm as the manager

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Speaker 2: of this plantation and settlement. This, Yeah, the steamship captain

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Speaker 2: is now run the entire show down there.

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Speaker 1: Now. Yeah, he had no experience at all and anything

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Speaker 1: like this. But like you said, Ford thought he's a

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Speaker 1: good guy. I like the cut of his jib. Have

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Speaker 1: you seen him? Have you seen him square dance?

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Speaker 2: Right exactly.

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Speaker 1: Let's get this guy some cloggy shoes or what. I

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Speaker 1: don't even know what those are called. We got to

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Speaker 1: do one in square dancings.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they're called clogs. I think.

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Speaker 1: Okay, they're gonna be so mad at us.

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Speaker 2: Who the square dancers?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know.

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Speaker 2: Man, Maybe we'll find out it's actually super interesting and cool.

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Speaker 1: No, no, no, we'll do a podcast on it. But I'm

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Speaker 1: just saying we're gonna get emails. But the anger's email

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Speaker 1: you're gonna get from a square dancer is maybe how

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Speaker 1: dare you right? And that's where it's capped.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, in all caps.

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Speaker 1: So Oxholme hired a bunch of locals. Obviously, they cleared

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Speaker 1: out the jungle, they started setting up their buildings. The

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Speaker 1: initial name of the community was Boa Vista, as you

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Speaker 1: can tell by the name of the title. It was

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Speaker 1: eventually renamed Ford Landia. This would be a great I

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Speaker 1: don't know why this hasn't been a movie yet.

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Speaker 2: It's surprising.

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Speaker 1: I'd say that a lot. But I think in this

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Speaker 1: case it would be pretty good to be.

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Speaker 2: In, like the the spirit of Road to Wellville.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, totally.

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Speaker 2: Okay.

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Speaker 1: So they're down there working these locals literally to death

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Speaker 1: at times. Disease was killing a lot of them, a

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Speaker 1: lot of these and as we'll see, there are a

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Speaker 1: lot of these workers would revolt given the working conditions

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Speaker 1: for numerous reasons that will hit on. But there there

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Speaker 1: were a number of riots over the period of time

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Speaker 1: that they tried to get Fordlandia up and off the ground,

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Speaker 1: and you know, things were going very slow. So Ford

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Speaker 1: was like, you know what, we're tearing down this forest.

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Speaker 1: Why don't we at least sell this wood and we

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Speaker 1: can make a little scratch. But no one wanted it,

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Speaker 1: so there was no market for the woods. So that

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Speaker 1: was another thing that kind of went down the tubes.

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Speaker 2: What else, oh, everything else? Basically they they I don't

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Speaker 2: understand why, if you believe in applying scientific principles and

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Speaker 2: all that to get something done, they didn't hire an agronomist, Yeah, agronomist.

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Speaker 1: Agronomist maybe I don't know.

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Speaker 2: I think I finally hit a pot. They didn't hire

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Speaker 2: anybody who had any experience with plants. They hired Ford

404
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Speaker 2: Motor Company executives who had been working in Dearborn, Michigan,

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Speaker 2: to go down and make this thing happen. Like again,

406
00:21:23,760 --> 00:21:26,439
Speaker 2: arrogant optimism that they these guys could do this even

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Speaker 2: though they knew nothing about plants and rubber plants, and

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Speaker 2: that would just immediately start to come back and bite them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they did things like, oh, I don't know, plant

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Speaker 1: trees at the wrong time, plant trees in the wrong places. Nothing.

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Speaker 1: They did seemed to work as far as the botany

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Speaker 1: angle goes and the biology angle goes. The trees. Like

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Speaker 1: I said earlier, the rubber trees are naturally growth through

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Speaker 1: the Amazon. But he was like he wanted to set

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Speaker 1: up like the plantation style thing where he just had

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Speaker 1: these huge plots of rubber trees as a monoculture, which

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Speaker 1: they successfully did in Asia where they didn't have those

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Speaker 1: enemies like you were talking about, those pests, so it

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Speaker 1: flourished there. But in South America, as Lvia puts it,

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Speaker 1: it was like an all you can eat buffet for

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Speaker 1: these pests. That was bad enough. Then at one point

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Speaker 1: they said, oh, here's what we'll do. Well, let's introduce

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Speaker 1: these ants, these salva ants, because they eat the caterpillars

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Speaker 1: that are killing our rubber trees. So they introduce all

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Speaker 1: these ants, and the ants are like, you know, it

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Speaker 1: tastes better than caterpillar rubber trees. So they literally introduced

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Speaker 1: a new pest on top of all that.

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Speaker 2: Exactly, they just like wave it like the caterpillars they

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Speaker 2: walk past while they were both eating the rubber tree, and.

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Speaker 1: They said, you know, it tastes better than rubber trees.

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Speaker 1: Clogging shoes.

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Speaker 2: You know, it tastes better than clogging shoes salva ants.

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Speaker 1: Wait, clogging is different in square antsing. Someone's going to

434
00:22:48,160 --> 00:22:48,840
Speaker 1: call us out on that.

435
00:22:48,840 --> 00:22:51,320
Speaker 2: That's fine, doesn't matter. The point is that salva ants

436
00:22:51,320 --> 00:22:53,680
Speaker 2: are one of the few species of insects that are

437
00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:58,760
Speaker 2: are prepared and served as food because they're tasting, not

438
00:22:58,800 --> 00:23:01,200
Speaker 2: for their protein, kind of because they're taste.

439
00:23:01,480 --> 00:23:03,480
Speaker 1: See, I get your joke now. Yeah, they thought you

440
00:23:03,560 --> 00:23:04,320
Speaker 1: were just being cheeky.

441
00:23:04,359 --> 00:23:08,159
Speaker 2: No, no, it's true. I was, but it was also true.

442
00:23:08,200 --> 00:23:10,720
Speaker 1: Yet cheeky with a point, which is sort of your motto.

443
00:23:10,840 --> 00:23:14,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an album name right there, right, so it's.

444
00:23:14,520 --> 00:23:15,280
Speaker 1: A squeeze album.

445
00:23:15,280 --> 00:23:20,480
Speaker 2: I think they that's a great, great one. The oh yeah,

446
00:23:20,520 --> 00:23:25,119
Speaker 2: salva ants tasting. They taste like ginger, lemon, grass and

447
00:23:25,240 --> 00:23:27,320
Speaker 2: part of them, and you can serve them on raw

448
00:23:27,440 --> 00:23:33,040
Speaker 2: pineapple and they taste amazing. Apparently it really pops. I

449
00:23:33,080 --> 00:23:35,639
Speaker 2: don't know if any of the executives are workers in

450
00:23:35,680 --> 00:23:38,880
Speaker 2: Ford Landia knew this. I'm guessing the workers probably did.

451
00:23:38,960 --> 00:23:41,280
Speaker 2: And I wonder how many ants were eaten right just

452
00:23:41,280 --> 00:23:44,120
Speaker 2: because they were so tasty. But either way, it didn't

453
00:23:44,160 --> 00:23:45,960
Speaker 2: work to get rid of the caterpillars. And that's just

454
00:23:46,040 --> 00:23:50,160
Speaker 2: one of just so many examples of them just trying

455
00:23:50,400 --> 00:23:53,720
Speaker 2: something that seems like it would work, but only ending

456
00:23:53,800 --> 00:23:57,040
Speaker 2: up demonstrating their complete and total ignorance of this.

457
00:23:57,680 --> 00:24:01,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, So things are going well. In September of

458
00:24:01,040 --> 00:24:04,200
Speaker 1: twenty nine, Ford sitting down a trouble shooter to get

459
00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:06,719
Speaker 1: a report, like, what's going on down there? Really? And

460
00:24:06,760 --> 00:24:09,240
Speaker 1: he came back and said, there's a quote complete lack

461
00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:13,800
Speaker 1: of organization. The Minister of Agriculture in Brazil thinks Henry

462
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:17,520
Speaker 1: Ford is crazy and a quote at present, it's like

463
00:24:17,600 --> 00:24:19,800
Speaker 1: dropping money into a sewer the end.

464
00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:23,240
Speaker 2: So things are not going well, Chuck, Do you want

465
00:24:23,280 --> 00:24:25,320
Speaker 2: to take a break and come back and talk about

466
00:24:25,320 --> 00:24:26,960
Speaker 2: how things continued to not go well?

467
00:24:28,080 --> 00:24:28,399
Speaker 1: Yeah?

468
00:24:28,520 --> 00:24:54,600
Speaker 2: Okay, So things are not going very well for the

469
00:24:54,800 --> 00:24:58,080
Speaker 2: Ford Motor Company down in Brazil. But just like with

470
00:24:58,119 --> 00:25:02,359
Speaker 2: his workers in Michigan, Ard did fulfill his promises to

471
00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:06,920
Speaker 2: the workers in the Amazon in Brazil that he would

472
00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:09,360
Speaker 2: take care of them in exchange for them trying to

473
00:25:09,520 --> 00:25:13,840
Speaker 2: act like rural midwesterners pretend to like square dancing. So

474
00:25:13,920 --> 00:25:17,320
Speaker 2: they built hospitals. They built a really great cutting edge

475
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 2: hospital right there in the middle of the Amazon. They

476
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:23,399
Speaker 2: erected a water tower, which was the highest structure of

477
00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:25,439
Speaker 2: the tallest structure of the Amazon for quite a while.

478
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:31,000
Speaker 2: They installed swimming pools and golf courses. There were generators

479
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:34,360
Speaker 2: that produced electricity, their sawmills, like they created the city,

480
00:25:34,680 --> 00:25:38,840
Speaker 2: and they also added prefab houses for the workers to

481
00:25:38,920 --> 00:25:41,840
Speaker 2: live in. The thing is is like all this stuff

482
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:45,240
Speaker 2: was delivered to them, was given to the workers in

483
00:25:45,280 --> 00:25:48,040
Speaker 2: exchange for their labor. But also they paid something like

484
00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:51,159
Speaker 2: thirty five cents a day, which is better than the

485
00:25:51,200 --> 00:25:56,000
Speaker 2: slave labor they were engaged in before. But the thing is,

486
00:25:57,040 --> 00:26:01,760
Speaker 2: I think the Ford Motor executives were just expected the

487
00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:06,720
Speaker 2: Brazilians to say, oh, thank you for giving us running water,

488
00:26:06,800 --> 00:26:09,960
Speaker 2: even we'll do anything you want. And they found over time,

489
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:12,000
Speaker 2: as we'll see time and time again, that no, the

490
00:26:12,119 --> 00:26:15,760
Speaker 2: people of the Amazon have a tremendous amount of pride

491
00:26:16,080 --> 00:26:17,840
Speaker 2: and they're not willing to just kind of roll over

492
00:26:17,920 --> 00:26:21,760
Speaker 2: for somebody like Henry Ford or his incompetent boobs from Dearborn.

493
00:26:22,280 --> 00:26:25,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it was also it's also we should point

494
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:28,439
Speaker 1: out that it wasn't it was segregated still like the

495
00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:32,680
Speaker 1: Via Americana, which was the neighborhood with the swimming pool

496
00:26:32,720 --> 00:26:34,359
Speaker 1: and the golf course and the tennis courts and all

497
00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:37,639
Speaker 1: that stuff that was for the US staff and their families.

498
00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:41,000
Speaker 1: They did have running water. The Brazilian workers, I think

499
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:44,399
Speaker 1: they could use the pool and stuff like that, but

500
00:26:44,680 --> 00:26:49,840
Speaker 1: they had their accommodations weren't as good. They had well water.

501
00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:54,200
Speaker 1: They had to live in these and this was again

502
00:26:54,440 --> 00:26:58,960
Speaker 1: just thinking you can just transplant a Midwestern American city

503
00:26:59,119 --> 00:27:02,200
Speaker 1: and drop it in Brazil. Ill it doesn't work. Because

504
00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:05,600
Speaker 1: they had their homes traditionally built off the ground with

505
00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:09,399
Speaker 1: thatch roofs to keep it cool. Henry Ford built iron

506
00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:14,920
Speaker 1: roofed square duplexes that were steaming hot. Said here, eat

507
00:27:14,960 --> 00:27:17,280
Speaker 1: this food that we eat, Eat this whole wheat bread,

508
00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:20,479
Speaker 1: and eat this canned fruit. And they were getting like

509
00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:23,160
Speaker 1: stomach aches and they were getting sick. Because you can't

510
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:27,320
Speaker 1: just go in and radically change a culture's diet overnight either.

511
00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:29,160
Speaker 2: The microbiome does not like that.

512
00:27:29,760 --> 00:27:34,919
Speaker 1: No, So they had square dances though they really did.

513
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:37,680
Speaker 2: They did have square dances like Not only that, they

514
00:27:37,720 --> 00:27:41,800
Speaker 2: also had readings of Walt Whitmen and other American poets

515
00:27:42,080 --> 00:27:47,040
Speaker 2: that were pre industrial translated into Portuguese. They said no, no, no,

516
00:27:47,119 --> 00:27:49,359
Speaker 2: you can't drink, just like our workers in Dearborn they

517
00:27:49,400 --> 00:27:51,479
Speaker 2: said no, no, no, we're not going to listen to you.

518
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:54,800
Speaker 2: And so that one didn't stick. But apparently there was

519
00:27:54,840 --> 00:28:00,040
Speaker 2: square dancing, like you said. The problems, though, were not

520
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:04,359
Speaker 2: so much like the houses being too hot or the

521
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:09,240
Speaker 2: square dancing being just non never ending. It was things

522
00:28:09,359 --> 00:28:15,520
Speaker 2: like really instituting American ideas like an eight hour ten

523
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:19,440
Speaker 2: or probably ten or twelve hour work day among the workers,

524
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:23,840
Speaker 2: and that's not how they worked before. They would take

525
00:28:24,119 --> 00:28:27,200
Speaker 2: time off during the hottest part of the day. Traditionally

526
00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:29,720
Speaker 2: when it was the rainy season, they would work less.

527
00:28:29,720 --> 00:28:31,440
Speaker 2: When it was a drier season, they would work more.

528
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:34,080
Speaker 2: This is not what Ford expected them to do. So

529
00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:36,399
Speaker 2: there were cultural clashes like right out of the gate,

530
00:28:36,760 --> 00:28:41,040
Speaker 2: and rather than even ask what the problem was with

531
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:44,520
Speaker 2: the Brazilians, the people of the Amazon, the Ford Motor

532
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:47,040
Speaker 2: executives just expected them to fall into line and to

533
00:28:47,160 --> 00:28:50,400
Speaker 2: acquiesce and just do what Ford was telling them to do.

534
00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:55,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then just little things like many of the

535
00:28:55,120 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 1: Brazilians would sleep in hammocks every night, and all of

536
00:28:58,800 --> 00:29:01,760
Speaker 1: a sudden they were in bed, which isn't the same.

537
00:29:02,320 --> 00:29:03,960
Speaker 1: You would think, oh, you get a bed instead of

538
00:29:03,960 --> 00:29:06,320
Speaker 1: a hammock. But if you're if you're not used to it,

539
00:29:06,680 --> 00:29:09,040
Speaker 1: that's like throwing us in a hammock. Although some people

540
00:29:09,080 --> 00:29:11,040
Speaker 1: say brad and hammocks. I don't say good in a hammock,

541
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:13,880
Speaker 1: but they I think. There was an interview in nineteen

542
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:17,360
Speaker 1: ninety four in the South Florida Sun Sentinel with a

543
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:20,000
Speaker 1: doctor from that hospital, doctor Emerick.

544
00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:22,720
Speaker 2: Oh boy, I'm so glad you tried.

545
00:29:23,040 --> 00:29:30,040
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say zilagy. Okay, jeez, a word when a

546
00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:33,080
Speaker 1: name starts with s z here in trouble right out

547
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:34,840
Speaker 1: of the gate, for sure. But there was a you know,

548
00:29:34,840 --> 00:29:37,200
Speaker 1: a nineteen ninety four interview with him. He ran the

549
00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:39,400
Speaker 1: hospital for like three years, and he was like, listen,

550
00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:42,360
Speaker 1: we would put them in these hospital beds. They're used

551
00:29:42,400 --> 00:29:44,760
Speaker 1: to hammocks. And we would come back and they had

552
00:29:45,040 --> 00:29:47,640
Speaker 1: like cut the mattresses open and dug holes in this

553
00:29:47,800 --> 00:29:50,640
Speaker 1: center so they could have that sort of hammocky curve

554
00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:55,000
Speaker 1: in their beds. They'd liked midwives to deliver their babies,

555
00:29:55,040 --> 00:29:58,840
Speaker 1: and he even admitted we withheld food from these pregnant

556
00:29:58,880 --> 00:30:02,280
Speaker 1: women and until they agreed to go to a hospital

557
00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:03,160
Speaker 1: and have a nurse to it.

558
00:30:03,520 --> 00:30:07,680
Speaker 2: Right. So in Ford's mind, like we're giving you guys

559
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:12,920
Speaker 2: cutting edge hospital equipment and medical care, but you have

560
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:16,720
Speaker 2: to accept it exactly the way that we're presenting it, right,

561
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:18,960
Speaker 2: and not just the medical care, but everything, just the

562
00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:21,720
Speaker 2: very existence. As a worker in Ford Landy, you had

563
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 2: to accept it as it was being presented. There was

564
00:30:24,040 --> 00:30:31,840
Speaker 2: no adapting to local traditions, local climate, local anything. It

565
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:35,360
Speaker 2: was so that anytime somebody is taking something from somewhere

566
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:39,240
Speaker 2: else and is rigidly refusing to adapt it to this

567
00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:42,960
Speaker 2: new environment, that thing is going to fail. I can't

568
00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:48,400
Speaker 2: think of a single project that has succeeded in that respect.

569
00:30:48,600 --> 00:30:52,400
Speaker 2: Maybe when we start living in space, like on the

570
00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:57,120
Speaker 2: Moon or something like that, that would qualify. Maybe the

571
00:30:57,160 --> 00:31:01,480
Speaker 2: ISS qualifies in that sense. It's submarine that people live

572
00:31:01,520 --> 00:31:04,400
Speaker 2: on that would qualify too, Right, there's all sorts of

573
00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:05,560
Speaker 2: ones that actually qualify.

574
00:31:05,840 --> 00:31:08,160
Speaker 1: But in this sale, land on planet Earth.

575
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 2: Okay, in this case it did not work because they

576
00:31:11,000 --> 00:31:14,120
Speaker 2: were too rigid and they would not adapt to local conditions.

577
00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:19,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a man crazed with an idea, and

578
00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:23,120
Speaker 1: that never leads to success. It seems like because they're usually,

579
00:31:23,520 --> 00:31:26,600
Speaker 1: like you said, rigid and nonconforming, and that's just no

580
00:31:26,640 --> 00:31:30,280
Speaker 1: way to run an operation, right exactly. So, speaking of

581
00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:34,440
Speaker 1: not running an operation, Oxholm left in nineteen thirty. He

582
00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:37,120
Speaker 1: was the original ship captain and then manager of the

583
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:40,080
Speaker 1: whole thing m He told the Detroit News it was

584
00:31:40,120 --> 00:31:43,120
Speaker 1: the hardest proposition I ever tackled in my life. A

585
00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:46,520
Speaker 1: couple of other guys cycled through pretty quickly in that position,

586
00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:51,080
Speaker 1: and things started getting more and more heated, and these

587
00:31:51,520 --> 00:31:54,120
Speaker 1: sort of you know I talked about the riots that

588
00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:56,600
Speaker 1: broke out, they became more frequent and more serious.

589
00:31:57,280 --> 00:32:00,280
Speaker 2: Yeah. One of the problems was these the executives didn't

590
00:32:00,280 --> 00:32:02,480
Speaker 2: even speak Portuguese. They would just sit there and like

591
00:32:02,520 --> 00:32:07,440
Speaker 2: boss around the Brazilian workers in English and expect them

592
00:32:07,480 --> 00:32:09,400
Speaker 2: to do what they were saying and expect them to

593
00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:12,800
Speaker 2: understand what they were saying. One of the things that

594
00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:16,680
Speaker 2: really that's there's a couple of chapters of Ford Landy,

595
00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:20,560
Speaker 2: and the thing that ended the first chapter was, strangely

596
00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:27,240
Speaker 2: a transition from table table service cafeteria seating right where

597
00:32:27,240 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 2: you would just sit at a table and somebody would

598
00:32:29,160 --> 00:32:32,320
Speaker 2: come over and bring you food to a cafeteria line

599
00:32:32,640 --> 00:32:35,560
Speaker 2: type of food service.

600
00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:38,040
Speaker 1: Right and goes stand in the hot sun for your food.

601
00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:40,360
Speaker 2: Exactly, and they did not like that. They ended up

602
00:32:40,400 --> 00:32:43,200
Speaker 2: getting very hot and getting very angry and very hungry.

603
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:46,000
Speaker 2: Angry you could even say hot and angry in the

604
00:32:46,040 --> 00:32:49,440
Speaker 2: Amazon is not a good combination. So tensions were already

605
00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:52,680
Speaker 2: high among the workers just from having to do this now.

606
00:32:53,600 --> 00:33:00,520
Speaker 2: And apparently a man named Manuel Keaitano DeJesus, who was

607
00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:05,880
Speaker 2: a brick mason at Fordlandia, said something to Kaj Ostenfeldt,

608
00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:08,959
Speaker 2: who was a Ford supervisor at Fordlandia, about the new

609
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:14,400
Speaker 2: cafeteria plan, and ostin feld just basically laughed in Dejesus's face. Right,

610
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 2: And not only did that upset to Hayesus, it upset

611
00:33:18,120 --> 00:33:21,080
Speaker 2: it upseted as coworkers who were around two, and in

612
00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:22,840
Speaker 2: very short order they started rioting.

613
00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:26,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were like, guess what, we have machetes. They

614
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:29,400
Speaker 1: wrecked the cafeteria, they wrecked the generators, they wrecked a

615
00:33:29,440 --> 00:33:32,200
Speaker 1: lot of the equipment, and the buildings, the residential buildings.

616
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:34,880
Speaker 1: And this is the best part, and I love that

617
00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:39,640
Speaker 1: Livia dug this out. They sort of like an office

618
00:33:39,640 --> 00:33:42,800
Speaker 1: space with that copier. They put a real hurtin on

619
00:33:42,800 --> 00:33:45,960
Speaker 1: those time clocks. Yeah, that they were punching every day.

620
00:33:46,040 --> 00:33:48,840
Speaker 2: And they ended up actually occupying Ford Landia for three

621
00:33:48,920 --> 00:33:53,920
Speaker 2: days because apparently the Ford executives had fast boats hidden

622
00:33:54,040 --> 00:33:56,880
Speaker 2: along the river for just such an emergency, and they fled.

623
00:33:57,240 --> 00:34:00,480
Speaker 2: So the workers took over Fordlandia and occupied it, and

624
00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:05,959
Speaker 2: the Ford Motor Companies executives were friends with Juan tripp

625
00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:09,640
Speaker 2: Or Gpe, who was the president of pan AM, who said, sure,

626
00:34:09,640 --> 00:34:11,920
Speaker 2: we'll let you charter a few of our jets and

627
00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:14,880
Speaker 2: get some of the Brazilian military in there to suppress

628
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:18,239
Speaker 2: this rebellion, and they did. After three days, the workers

629
00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:22,440
Speaker 2: gave up peacefully and left. They left because they were fired.

630
00:34:22,640 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 2: Apparently Ford paid them up to December twenty second, which

631
00:34:26,080 --> 00:34:29,239
Speaker 2: was the beginning of the rioting day, and they were

632
00:34:29,280 --> 00:34:33,000
Speaker 2: fired on Christmas Day, I believe, And that was the

633
00:34:33,120 --> 00:34:35,399
Speaker 2: end of the first chapter. Ford Landy just kind of

634
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:41,760
Speaker 2: fell into disuse momentarily, but in very short order Ford

635
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:44,960
Speaker 2: sent another guy, and this guy was the best manager

636
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:47,960
Speaker 2: Ford Landy ever saw. His name was Archibald Johnston. He

637
00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:48,839
Speaker 2: was a Scotsman.

638
00:34:49,480 --> 00:34:52,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, he came in. He said, we need roads,

639
00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:55,440
Speaker 1: we need paved roads. We need to connect all this stuff.

640
00:34:57,600 --> 00:35:00,239
Speaker 1: He built more houses, he built a movie theater, he

641
00:35:00,239 --> 00:35:01,719
Speaker 1: built that dance all because he had to have the

642
00:35:01,760 --> 00:35:05,840
Speaker 1: square dancing. Yeah, basically just kind of improvement en mass

643
00:35:05,840 --> 00:35:08,880
Speaker 1: to everything, the hospitals, the schools, the living conditions and everything.

644
00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:13,480
Speaker 1: He said, hey, worker, set up a garden, but you

645
00:35:13,480 --> 00:35:15,799
Speaker 1: should also still adopt this diet and grow the things

646
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:17,919
Speaker 1: that Henry Ford says you should eat and grow.

647
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:21,160
Speaker 2: Right. But the thing about Johnston, the workers called him

648
00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:24,440
Speaker 2: the white tiger because he was. He got there and

649
00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:26,920
Speaker 2: he was like, Okay, I can make this work. And

650
00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:29,600
Speaker 2: he did. He adapted to the local situation. He was

651
00:35:31,360 --> 00:35:36,520
Speaker 2: willing to understand where the Brazilians were coming from, where

652
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:39,799
Speaker 2: the workers were coming from. He was less rigid as

653
00:35:39,800 --> 00:35:44,120
Speaker 2: far as we're old Midwestern expectations were concerned, right, And

654
00:35:44,160 --> 00:35:47,799
Speaker 2: he was a success as a result. And I think

655
00:35:48,680 --> 00:35:52,440
Speaker 2: he showed up in nineteen thirty one, I believe is

656
00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:54,040
Speaker 2: when he took over, and he was there for several

657
00:35:54,160 --> 00:36:01,960
Speaker 2: years and under his overseas ship overseership, Yeah, his oversight

658
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:07,719
Speaker 2: as watch. Finally, finally Ford hires a plant person, not

659
00:36:07,880 --> 00:36:10,520
Speaker 2: even not even like a botanist. It was a plant

660
00:36:10,560 --> 00:36:14,799
Speaker 2: pathologist who is good with figuring out what things that

661
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:17,760
Speaker 2: are plaguing plants, but they're not necessarily good at getting

662
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:20,560
Speaker 2: plantations going. But they hired at least somebody who knew

663
00:36:20,560 --> 00:36:22,840
Speaker 2: what they were talking about with plants, named James Weir.

664
00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:27,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, he hired someone who knew plant right, that was

665
00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:31,520
Speaker 1: as basic as a guy. Yeah, James Weir, like you said,

666
00:36:31,800 --> 00:36:34,680
Speaker 1: and you know, and this was because you know, they

667
00:36:34,680 --> 00:36:36,640
Speaker 1: had the city going and they were building this town.

668
00:36:37,080 --> 00:36:39,360
Speaker 1: But there was also the rubber operation that we kind of,

669
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:41,440
Speaker 1: you know, forget about at times in this crazy story.

670
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:44,000
Speaker 1: But they were like, maybe we should actually start, you know,

671
00:36:44,040 --> 00:36:48,239
Speaker 1: getting the rubber growing. So he Weir came in and

672
00:36:48,280 --> 00:36:51,920
Speaker 1: he tried some new methods, didn't work out too well,

673
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:53,960
Speaker 1: and he said, you know, what we need to do, really,

674
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:57,520
Speaker 1: this is garbage area now because of everything that we've

675
00:36:57,560 --> 00:37:00,320
Speaker 1: done to it. What we really need is to start

676
00:37:00,320 --> 00:37:04,120
Speaker 1: over in an area close by. So in nineteen thirty four,

677
00:37:05,400 --> 00:37:09,279
Speaker 1: Henry Ford managed to work out a land swap of

678
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:13,120
Speaker 1: a parcel about eighty miles downstream where they built a

679
00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:18,680
Speaker 1: new plantation called Belterra, and this actually produced some rubber.

680
00:37:18,680 --> 00:37:21,920
Speaker 1: They brought in some of those successful trees from Asia,

681
00:37:21,960 --> 00:37:26,040
Speaker 1: and they grew. I believe they capped out at about

682
00:37:26,040 --> 00:37:29,480
Speaker 1: twenty five hundred employees compared to ford Landia's four or

683
00:37:29,560 --> 00:37:32,960
Speaker 1: five hundred, so things were going better, but they still

684
00:37:33,560 --> 00:37:36,359
Speaker 1: I think at their max. In nineteen forty two, they

685
00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:39,680
Speaker 1: produced seven hundred and fifty tons of latex, which sounds

686
00:37:39,719 --> 00:37:41,520
Speaker 1: like a lot, but apparently that was just like a

687
00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:44,400
Speaker 1: drop in the bucket of what Ford needed for their tires.

688
00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:47,360
Speaker 1: So even though it was more successful, it still didn't

689
00:37:47,400 --> 00:37:50,640
Speaker 1: satisfy what they wanted or what they needed from the beginning.

690
00:37:50,800 --> 00:37:52,839
Speaker 2: And to kind of add insult to injury to all

691
00:37:52,840 --> 00:37:57,120
Speaker 2: the people who donated blood, sweat, and tears and sometimes

692
00:37:57,120 --> 00:38:01,279
Speaker 2: their lives to getting Ford's rubber per used. Ford gave

693
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:03,400
Speaker 2: up on the idea of making it his own tires

694
00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:07,160
Speaker 2: the same year they started getting rubber from the rubber

695
00:38:07,200 --> 00:38:08,240
Speaker 2: trees down in Brazil.

696
00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:09,480
Speaker 1: That's right.

697
00:38:10,080 --> 00:38:15,200
Speaker 2: So Ford he his I don't have the impression that

698
00:38:15,239 --> 00:38:18,640
Speaker 2: he ever made it down there. I think, oh yeah,

699
00:38:18,680 --> 00:38:22,640
Speaker 2: I don't believe he ever did, but he he kind

700
00:38:22,640 --> 00:38:26,200
Speaker 2: of ended up getting a little distracted from his company.

701
00:38:26,719 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 2: He set up a museum of like a rural like

702
00:38:31,360 --> 00:38:34,759
Speaker 2: an ode to rural, pre industrial American life that you

703
00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:37,719
Speaker 2: can still go to today. It's called Greenfield, it's in Dearborn.

704
00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:41,640
Speaker 2: He just got he was he got less interested in

705
00:38:41,680 --> 00:38:44,239
Speaker 2: the company, and so his son became president. I think

706
00:38:44,239 --> 00:38:47,400
Speaker 2: all the way back in nineteen ninety nineteen edzel Ford.

707
00:38:47,960 --> 00:38:50,239
Speaker 2: But to Henry Ford, his son was just a figurehead.

708
00:38:50,239 --> 00:38:54,120
Speaker 2: Apparently at one executive board beating, ezel Ford said that

709
00:38:54,200 --> 00:38:57,360
Speaker 2: he was in favor of adding hydraulic breaks to the cars,

710
00:38:57,719 --> 00:39:00,120
Speaker 2: and Henry Ford jumped to his feet and said, will

711
00:39:00,160 --> 00:39:02,799
Speaker 2: you shut up in the state and the cars the

712
00:39:02,800 --> 00:39:05,160
Speaker 2: board meeting. Yeah, and he's the president of Ford, so

713
00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:07,719
Speaker 2: he had to put up with a lot. But he

714
00:39:07,960 --> 00:39:09,920
Speaker 2: was like, we need to sell this. As early as

715
00:39:09,960 --> 00:39:12,840
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty five he was looking for buyers. The problem

716
00:39:12,920 --> 00:39:16,080
Speaker 2: is everybody knew the kind of problems for was having

717
00:39:16,120 --> 00:39:17,640
Speaker 2: done in Brazil, and.

718
00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:20,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, no one wanted No one wanted it. Yeah, I

719
00:39:20,520 --> 00:39:24,040
Speaker 1: don't blame him. Nineteen forty three is when Edsel died.

720
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:26,800
Speaker 1: There was a bit of a power struggle, but eventually

721
00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:30,319
Speaker 1: Henry Ford the second, who was Henry's grandson, came on

722
00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:33,480
Speaker 1: board in nineteen forty five as president and kind of

723
00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:36,400
Speaker 1: started cleaning house in the company, and any operation in

724
00:39:36,440 --> 00:39:39,640
Speaker 1: the company that wasn't doing well went away. And this

725
00:39:39,840 --> 00:39:41,759
Speaker 1: and Ford landy it was kind of the tops on

726
00:39:41,800 --> 00:39:44,520
Speaker 1: the list, basically, and they managed to sell it back

727
00:39:44,560 --> 00:39:48,759
Speaker 1: to the Brazilian government right after all those years.

728
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:51,719
Speaker 2: At a loss, with all the land and all the improvements,

729
00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:54,480
Speaker 2: Brazilian government should sure, why not, We'll take.

730
00:39:54,360 --> 00:39:55,760
Speaker 1: It back exactly.

731
00:39:56,520 --> 00:39:59,359
Speaker 2: The Brazilians turned into a cattle ranch. Is a bit

732
00:39:59,440 --> 00:40:05,279
Speaker 2: ironic because Henry Ford was famous for hating cows. I

733
00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:07,000
Speaker 2: don't know if we touched upon that at the very

734
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:08,759
Speaker 2: outset when we were talking about how weird he is,

735
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:12,799
Speaker 2: but he hated cows. He didn't like horses either, but

736
00:40:12,880 --> 00:40:16,000
Speaker 2: he really hated cows. And that makes edzel Ford's death

737
00:40:16,040 --> 00:40:21,120
Speaker 2: even more ironic too, because edzel Ford got ulcers and

738
00:40:21,160 --> 00:40:24,680
Speaker 2: his father insisted that he drinks some unpasteurized milk from

739
00:40:24,719 --> 00:40:27,560
Speaker 2: one of Henry Ford's farms, and the bugs in the

740
00:40:27,560 --> 00:40:31,200
Speaker 2: milk killed edzel in nineteen forty three. Wow. Yeah, his

741
00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:34,959
Speaker 2: own father bossing him around, making him drink unpasteurized milk

742
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:37,560
Speaker 2: from a cow that he didn't even like, killed his son.

743
00:40:37,640 --> 00:40:38,640
Speaker 2: That's how Edzell went.

744
00:40:39,600 --> 00:40:41,400
Speaker 1: But he hated cows before that, right.

745
00:40:41,320 --> 00:40:43,279
Speaker 2: Yes, he grew up on a farm, so as much

746
00:40:43,280 --> 00:40:47,320
Speaker 2: as he idealized royal life, he couldn't stand farm animals.

747
00:40:48,160 --> 00:40:50,520
Speaker 1: You know what, I love square dancing exactly know what

748
00:40:50,560 --> 00:40:51,680
Speaker 1: I hate? Cows?

749
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:54,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, they ate the hay that he used to square

750
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:57,000
Speaker 2: dance on, and so he didn't like them.

751
00:40:57,239 --> 00:40:58,960
Speaker 1: I'm looking at a picture of Henry Ford now and

752
00:40:58,960 --> 00:41:02,680
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of who would play him today, Sam.

753
00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:05,279
Speaker 2: Rockwell, Sam Rockwall will play everybody.

754
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:07,920
Speaker 1: Hey, that that wouldn't be too bad. You'd have to

755
00:41:07,960 --> 00:41:09,920
Speaker 1: age him up a little bit, but that's not a

756
00:41:09,920 --> 00:41:10,400
Speaker 1: bad idea.

757
00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:13,040
Speaker 2: Actually, you know a movie I keep going back to that.

758
00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:16,080
Speaker 2: I just I can watch it almost anytime. I get

759
00:41:16,120 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 2: the notion I am the pretty thing that lives in

760
00:41:19,640 --> 00:41:22,400
Speaker 2: the house. That Osgoode Perkins movie.

761
00:41:23,560 --> 00:41:24,160
Speaker 1: I didn't see that.

762
00:41:24,880 --> 00:41:28,160
Speaker 2: I have definitely told you about it multiple times. Do

763
00:41:28,200 --> 00:41:30,000
Speaker 2: you need to put it towards the top of your list?

764
00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:34,200
Speaker 1: Well, you told me about The Devil's his other movie.

765
00:41:34,239 --> 00:41:35,560
Speaker 1: What was it about the girls in the.

766
00:41:35,719 --> 00:41:36,680
Speaker 2: The Black Coat's Daughter?

767
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:37,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, Black Coats Daughter.

768
00:41:37,640 --> 00:41:38,760
Speaker 2: I still haven't seen that either.

769
00:41:39,239 --> 00:41:40,680
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I saw it and I didn't like it.

770
00:41:40,680 --> 00:41:42,200
Speaker 1: And even Mad at me because of that, like a

771
00:41:42,280 --> 00:41:42,520
Speaker 1: year you.

772
00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:46,480
Speaker 2: Well, what the good thing about me is I forget

773
00:41:46,600 --> 00:41:48,960
Speaker 2: very quickly, so I'm not mad at you anymore. No,

774
00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:51,239
Speaker 2: this is this is much much different than The Black

775
00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:52,640
Speaker 2: Coat's Daughter, much different.

776
00:41:53,120 --> 00:41:54,040
Speaker 1: I don't have to check that out.

777
00:41:54,120 --> 00:41:58,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's a it's a cozy, cozy, haunted.

778
00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:00,600
Speaker 1: House story, the same rock Well in it.

779
00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:02,880
Speaker 2: No, I was just thinking about that movie.

780
00:42:03,920 --> 00:42:07,279
Speaker 1: Gary Oleman could blame too. He does that aged up thing,

781
00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:08,719
Speaker 1: chameleon thing pretty well.

782
00:42:08,719 --> 00:42:11,000
Speaker 2: What about Harrison Ford? They have to age him down?

783
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:16,040
Speaker 1: Love Harrison Ford. Don't like the aging I thought they

784
00:42:16,080 --> 00:42:19,080
Speaker 1: did a good job from the trailers. Did you see

785
00:42:19,120 --> 00:42:20,680
Speaker 1: Oppenheimer yet? No?

786
00:42:20,800 --> 00:42:21,520
Speaker 2: I haven't yet.

787
00:42:22,200 --> 00:42:23,360
Speaker 1: Gary Olman pops up in that.

788
00:42:23,960 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, I heard a lot of people. Do Have you

789
00:42:26,640 --> 00:42:27,920
Speaker 2: seen Barbie going tonight?

790
00:42:29,200 --> 00:42:31,120
Speaker 1: It's great, Capital G.

791
00:42:31,440 --> 00:42:33,279
Speaker 2: You're not tell me anything else about it, but I

792
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:35,000
Speaker 2: heard it already hit a billion dollars.

793
00:42:35,719 --> 00:42:38,360
Speaker 1: Well, it's Capital G great and it's about Barbie.

794
00:42:38,440 --> 00:42:40,400
Speaker 2: Okay, don't tell me anything else though, please?

795
00:42:42,360 --> 00:42:47,120
Speaker 1: You know who plays Barbie? Shh, yes, you know what

796
00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:48,239
Speaker 1: I mean? You know, right?

797
00:42:48,320 --> 00:42:50,279
Speaker 2: Yeah? Of course? Why are you telling me more stuff

798
00:42:50,320 --> 00:42:50,880
Speaker 2: about Barbie?

799
00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:51,040
Speaker 1: Though?

800
00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:53,360
Speaker 2: When I've very clearly asked you not to.

801
00:42:54,040 --> 00:42:56,399
Speaker 1: I just wondered if like saying things like it's about

802
00:42:56,440 --> 00:42:57,719
Speaker 1: Barbie was too much.

803
00:42:58,080 --> 00:42:59,680
Speaker 2: Yes, it is. That's what I'm saying. I like to

804
00:42:59,719 --> 00:43:04,000
Speaker 2: go in totally fresh, Well, Sanza.

805
00:43:03,680 --> 00:43:05,920
Speaker 1: It's called Barbie, but it's about Henry Fort.

806
00:43:06,360 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 2: Awesome and you who plays Henry Port, who's Sam Rockwell,

807
00:43:09,840 --> 00:43:11,360
Speaker 2: Margo Roby. Oh, very nice.

808
00:43:11,719 --> 00:43:12,680
Speaker 1: It's quite a transformation.

809
00:43:12,719 --> 00:43:14,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was all very unexpected.

810
00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:19,320
Speaker 1: All right, well let's wind this up. So rubber, synthetic

811
00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:23,840
Speaker 1: rubber comes along. Everything changes. The rubber tree is not

812
00:43:24,080 --> 00:43:25,400
Speaker 1: as useful as it.

813
00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:28,240
Speaker 2: Was before because from hero to zero, that's.

814
00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:31,120
Speaker 1: Right, pretty quickly, and ford Landia, though parts of ford

815
00:43:31,160 --> 00:43:34,680
Speaker 1: Landia are still there, it is now what's known as

816
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:38,399
Speaker 1: sort of well, I won't see abandoned city because there

817
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:41,080
Speaker 1: were a few hundred people that live there for a

818
00:43:41,080 --> 00:43:46,160
Speaker 1: few decades. But in twenty sixteen there was a writer

819
00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:48,840
Speaker 1: for The Guardian who went down there to report and

820
00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:51,840
Speaker 1: they're now like several thousand people who have now moved

821
00:43:51,840 --> 00:43:56,600
Speaker 1: into Fordlandia and live there. Working with gypsum, right.

822
00:43:56,640 --> 00:44:00,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's really high quality gypsum deposits discovered shortly after

823
00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:04,040
Speaker 2: Ford left and so these people like support the miners

824
00:44:04,120 --> 00:44:08,440
Speaker 2: or mine themselves. So yeah, if you like, to the

825
00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:10,880
Speaker 2: people of America who know this story, it's like, oh,

826
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:14,239
Speaker 2: Ford Landy and bell Terra are these abandoned failed you know,

827
00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:17,280
Speaker 2: cities that Ford tried. If you ask people in Brazil,

828
00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:20,240
Speaker 2: it's like, no, bel Terra and Ford Landy are cities

829
00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:23,920
Speaker 2: in Paris State in Brazil. Like they're they They've been

830
00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:26,439
Speaker 2: inhabited this entire time and they still are. So they're

831
00:44:26,640 --> 00:44:28,760
Speaker 2: they were abandoned by Ford, but not Brazil.

832
00:44:29,560 --> 00:44:31,920
Speaker 1: Yeah. But and you can look up pictures today for

833
00:44:31,960 --> 00:44:35,799
Speaker 1: Orlandia there are still warehouses. That water tower I think

834
00:44:35,960 --> 00:44:36,919
Speaker 1: is still standing, right.

835
00:44:36,880 --> 00:44:39,160
Speaker 2: Yes, I think it might still be operating.

836
00:44:39,880 --> 00:44:43,279
Speaker 1: Oh wow. Yeah, but it is definitely interesting to see

837
00:44:43,280 --> 00:44:48,279
Speaker 1: sort of the remnants of this place that it's This

838
00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:49,880
Speaker 1: has got to be a movie one day. I'm telling you,

839
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:51,160
Speaker 1: you just put Margot Roby in it.

840
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:54,399
Speaker 2: In your golden Okay, you got anything else?

841
00:44:55,600 --> 00:44:58,480
Speaker 1: I don't think I have anything else, sir, I don't either.

842
00:44:58,480 --> 00:45:04,239
Speaker 2: Chuck Well, Chuck mentioned Margot Robie again. He unlocked listener mail.

843
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:10,759
Speaker 1: That's right, but instead of listener mail, we would love

844
00:45:11,040 --> 00:45:14,600
Speaker 1: to talk very briefly about our kids book that is

845
00:45:14,719 --> 00:45:17,320
Speaker 1: now available for purchase. Yes, yeah, let's do that.

846
00:45:17,719 --> 00:45:17,879
Speaker 2: Yeah.

847
00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:20,320
Speaker 1: So what we did with McMillan Publishing is is we

848
00:45:20,400 --> 00:45:23,200
Speaker 1: took our book for adults, not like it was triple

849
00:45:23,239 --> 00:45:25,800
Speaker 1: lex or anyhow, and we kidified it.

850
00:45:25,920 --> 00:45:26,080
Speaker 2: You know.

851
00:45:26,200 --> 00:45:27,480
Speaker 1: We took out some of the stuff, some of the

852
00:45:27,560 --> 00:45:30,640
Speaker 1: chapters that shouldn't be there. We added some stuff, we

853
00:45:31,000 --> 00:45:33,400
Speaker 1: rewrote some things to make it a little more kid friendly.

854
00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:35,839
Speaker 1: And what we ended up was was what I think

855
00:45:35,960 --> 00:45:37,080
Speaker 1: is a great kids.

856
00:45:36,920 --> 00:45:39,120
Speaker 2: Book, a dynamo book for young readers.

857
00:45:39,880 --> 00:45:43,759
Speaker 1: That's right, and it's available now, get one for your kids.

858
00:45:43,840 --> 00:45:47,640
Speaker 1: It looks great. Everyone at McMillan was so wonderful to

859
00:45:47,680 --> 00:45:51,360
Speaker 1: work with, for sure, and it makes a great Christmas

860
00:45:51,440 --> 00:45:54,799
Speaker 1: gift or birthday Kiff the stocking stuffer, and it's called

861
00:45:54,840 --> 00:45:58,560
Speaker 1: stuff Kids Should Know by you and I and our

862
00:45:58,560 --> 00:46:01,680
Speaker 1: buddy Nil's Parker who helped us write this thing.

863
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:03,759
Speaker 2: Yes, So where can you get a chuck?

864
00:46:04,360 --> 00:46:06,360
Speaker 1: You can get it everywhere, you know. Our advice is

865
00:46:06,400 --> 00:46:09,680
Speaker 1: always to seek out a local bookseller and support your

866
00:46:09,719 --> 00:46:12,200
Speaker 1: local bookstores and get one there. They're all over the

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Speaker 1: place at regular bookstores, kids bookstores. But throw a rock

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Speaker 1: and you're gonna hit one of these books, probably, yeah, but.

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Speaker 2: If you hit it with the rock, you have to

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Speaker 2: buy it store polish. Well, that was a very good idea, Chuck,

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Speaker 2: So everybody, I hope if you go out and get

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Speaker 2: our book, you enjoy it thoroughly and you can let

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Speaker 2: us know what you think about it via email. You

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Speaker 2: can send those emails to Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.

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Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

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Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.