The People's Tycoon is an insightful and well-balanced biography of Henry Ford, the man who helped usher in the new mass consumer society along with the concept of mass production which produced his famed Model T. This car became a symbol of the ordinary person's ability to partake in this new era of plenty and opportunity. Henry Ford, a leader of this vision, is presented with both his accomplishments as well as the contradictions behind the man and the changes he wrought as well as some of his darker qualities. Watts succeeds fairly well in presenting Ford as the people's tycoon.
Henry Ford's early business ventures in the rising automobile industry were unsuccessful, but Ford had a knack for taking the pulse of the American people and learning how to exploit the benefits of grabbing headlines and advertising, an example being his early interest in automobile racing. But Ford's populist streak led to a vision that became central to the man and his life's work; that vision was producing an affordable car that could be purchased by the average American. This also led to the concept of mass production, which would help lower the cost for the consumer.
Of course this wasn't the product of one man, many people played important roles in the success of the Ford Motor Company. That's another strength of this book in that we get to see who some of these players were in this rising business. Ford seemed to have a genuine appreciation of ordinary people as he disdained the elite, both in the financial and academic sense, and this concern for the worker seemed to be exhibited when he implemented the new $5 dollar workday for employees. His company was also the sponsor of a sociological department that helped steer employees into better habits of learning how to spend their money wisely and even in how to live better lives. This in some ways had noble qualities, but also had the tendency to become too intrusive.
The success of the Ford vision and its results with the Model T can not be denied, but you can't help but notice the contradictions in what Ford believed in and how his work was changing the rural landscape he so loved. America was changing rapidly from an agricultural and rural society to an urban culture driven by a desire for better opportunities, greater material wealth and other general changes in the"old values". By Ford's late career, he was evincing this nostalgia for the past with the creation of the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, where various aspects of America's past he considered important were collected and opened to the public, all in the face of major cultural changes his company was partly responsible for.
Ford wanted to help the ordinary American, and Watts's presentation makes him out to be a true Populist. Ford also displayed an inherent nativism in the face of major global changes during both World War I and World War II. His attempt to settle the First World War with his Peace Ship was perhaps so naive as to border on the absurd. As Watts mentioned, Ford wasn't the academic type, rather he acted from instinct and intuition. Ford could be both visionary and backwards. His ideas (and some quite out there) and views on many topics are at least mentioned to some degree on varied topics including agriculture, war, education, FDR and the New Deal, reincarnation, dieting and more.
Ford possessed traits that made him less respectable. For all his belief in the ordinary American, his nativist streak revealed deep and abiding prejudice against Jews, which he associated with the same Wall Street financiers he so loathed. The use of his own newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, got him into a lot of trouble with his views on the Jewish people. The disputes with labor which led to a bloody confrontation known as the battle of the overpass was a major blot on Ford's reputation. Ford's own business habits of pitting influential men in his company against others and his use of Harry Bennett and his thugs was less than admirable. Perhaps most regrettable was his treatment of his son Edsel, who had taken over the presidency of the company, but in name only.
Edsel's decisions were being constantly obstructed by his father. Edsel bore all this with a resigned acceptance, never forcefully confronting his father. Henry Ford doesn't come off looking good at all in this episode, and nor should he. Edsel died in 1943, and as Watts stated, Ford lost a part of himself after this tragic event. Henry Ford probably realized that his own actions had contributed to Edsel's death. The last years of this former titan in American industry and American culture are indeed quite sad to read about.
I've left out a lot, but this is an unusually well written and good, balanced view of Ford the man, what he accomplished in his field and how he played a role in the changing nature of American society. Personally, I would have liked to have known a little more about some of the ordinary workers of the Ford Motor Company and their thoughts on their employer. Ford is portrayed as a folk hero for many average Americans. Watts continually evokes his actions and beliefs in the Populist mold. But Ford's many different facets are given rightful attention that will make you both acknowledge his achievements, yet loathe some of his other qualities. A good book.
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The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century
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Top reviews from other countries
- Molten BeaksReviewed in the United Kingdom on April 27, 2017
Solid read if not a classic
- Mike the TurkReviewed in the United Kingdom on December 5, 2022
Comprehensive biography
