What would you do if this guy flagged you down in 1926?

[jeff_a]

Edited December 19, 2019 by jeff_a (see edit history)

[Phillip Cole]

Henry, where are Thomas, Harvey and John?

[keiser31]

31 minutes ago, Phillip Cole said:

Henry, where are Thomas, Harvey and John?

They're hanging out there somewhere.

[edinmass]

Crazy Henry...............and the richest man in the world when the photo was taken.

Edited December 20, 2019 by edinmass (see edit history)

[zipdang]

What would I do? Probably offer to light his cigarette.

[zepher]

In 1926 if someone waved a handgun in your direction you could whip out your Tommy Gun and show 'em who's boss.

[5219]

I thought he was fanatically opposed to cigarettes.

[Tom Boehm]

I thought the same as 5219 above. I don't think that is Henry Ford.

[keiser31]

Oh it's him alright. Here he is with Edison in the full version of that photo....they called themselves, "the Vagabonds"....

Edited December 20, 2019 by keiser31 (see edit history)

[keiser31]

OK....I was wrong. THIS is the full photo....he may have only been posing with the cigarette and not smoking it.

Edited December 20, 2019 by keiser31 (see edit history)

[keiser31]

Check THIS out....https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/camping-cloverland-henry-ford-book-249142385

[wayne sheldon]

THAT is one of the photos I was referring to on a recent Ford Camping thread on this forum. I have seen this one and at least one other taken at the same time when they were clowning around! Henry was wearing the same getup.

[edinmass]

Recently one of Henry’s Vagabonds photo albums recently sold........a scrap book of one of his many trips......it brought huge money. I was surprised there was interest it it ................at a huge number.

[58L-Y8]

13 hours ago, edinmass said:

Crazy Henry...............and the richest man in the world when the photo was taken.

Yeah, birdies were flying around in his head by this time, and those paranoid voices only got worse.  Henry Ford badly outlived his greatness.  

[md murray]

 We should all look back on the great Mr. Ford with dry eyes.

[46 woodie]

He was part of that outlaw cowboy gang of the 1930's, John Wayne, Tom Mix, Buck Jones, Gary Cooper, Hoot Gibson and the notorious "Ole Hank Ford".

[John_S_in_Penna]

12 hours ago, 5219 said:

I thought he was fanatically opposed to cigarettes.

 

If Mr. Ford did not smoke or drink, it was not due to fanaticism.

It was his due to his own sincere convictions.

 

53 minutes ago, 58L-Y8 said:

Yeah, birdies were flying around in his head by this time, and those paranoid voices only got worse.  Henry Ford badly outlived his greatness.  

 

I'm quite sure Mr. Ford was lucid and dedicated

at that time.  I agree that later on (according to others'

observations) he seemed to have some signs of senility.

 

If we are to criticize or lionize a historic figure, it's only

fair that we do so with some empathy, and accuracy. 

Edited December 20, 2019 by John_S_in_Penna (see edit history)

[trini]

In the good old days in England you did not have to flag down the car. There was a fellow running ahead of the car with a flag to warn other users of the road of the dangers .

[Pfeil]

16 hours ago, jeff_a said:

 

 

 I would say:

[md murray]

The whole Henry Ford thing is pretty hilarious. He creates quite a paradox for the Ford Motor Company, public schools, the American people. As much as we should all like to celebrate his genius and accomplishments it is of course impossible to turn a blind eye to his numerous faults.  Luckily Mr. Ford went to great lengths to publish his prolific thoughts surrounding Judaism and other many things between 1920 and 1922 so that we may never have to speculate on or surmise what kind of individual that he truly was.  -Babe Ruth...now there's a great American Hero with his fair share of faults- but his faults were forgivable and in most cases kind of funny. 

 

[edinmass]

Very simply put......Henry Ford was a lousy human being and not very intelligent. No doubt about it..........

[JACK M]

34 minutes ago, edinmass said:

Very simply put......Henry Ford was a lousy human being and not very intelligent. No doubt about it..........

 

Tell us what you really think.

 

I am no historian, but I have heard the same.

[edinmass]

Doesn't bring me any pleasure to state a simple undisputed fact.........I'm a Ford driver and collector. That being said, the old man can only be described as ...............insert any negative or derogatory comment.

 

Read any of the Ford biography's.

[JamesR]

The thing that I disliked most about Henry Ford was the very poor relationship he established with his son. Henry grew up in relatively modest means, and Edsel grew up the son of the world's richest man so they clashed as a result that difference. Edsel gave a lot to the Company, but he probably could of brought a lot more to it had Henry not jealously guarded his own personal legacy so much. He expected his son to be a carbon copy of himself...and that rarely works out.

 

OTOH, Henry gave a lot to the world, and it wasn't all just a byproduct of his financial self interest. He could be genuinely altruistic and concerned about society at large. Sometimes he was misguided, but in many ways he was ahead of the other industrialists of his era. Like many other historical figures, especially those who were very bright, he was a complicated person who cannot be adequately summed up or defined by either his successes or failures.

 

 

[md murray]

1 hour ago, JamesR said:

He could be genuinely altruistic and concerned about society at large. Sometimes he was misguided, but in many ways he was ahead of the other industrialists of his era.

Yeah altruistic behavior is what he did best -just read the accounts of anyone working there before the war.  

[mdh7475]

Wheels for the World is a very difficult read at times, but gives a relatively unbiased look at Henry Ford from many angles.  As most people with incredible power and wealth came a feeling of dominance.  He became a hero offering $5 a day for work when half of that was customary, yet later became an employee adversary when he felt threatened by the power given to unions by the federal government.  His son Edsel did not embrace his lifestyle or values, so was heavily chastised by his father to the point that it probably adversely affected his health.  His views on Judism stemmed from his intense dislike for the banking establishment as they are the group that ousted him from his previous two business attempts.  Even the bankers replacement for Ford, Henry Leland later succumbed to Fords revenge when Lincoln was sold to Ford (one of the greatest eat crap pictures in history is the signing of Lincoln over to Ford).  Henry Ford is many contradictions in personality, from the thousands of people  who lined the streets of Detroit upon his death to honor him , to receiving awards from Adolph Hitler during his life for his anti semetic views.  For good or bad he will definitely never be forgotten...

[wayne sheldon]

My favorite quote about Henry Ford came from Will Rogers, " It'll probably be a hundred years before we know if Henry Ford helped us or hurt us, but he sure didn't leave us where he found us."

 

As historians, we need to be a bit careful about which we are talking about, the earlier young man, the one that brought us the model T, or the aging and bitter one.

"Altruistic"? Maybe in his earlier to middle age. But it was not entirely altruism then either. Henry gave the five dollar day because he got the best workers, and got them to stay which in the long run made more money for him. He also out of his own pocket bought, built, furnished, and staffed one of the first major real family healthcare plans provided by a major corporation to its employees AND their families! And again, he knew his employees would do better work if they were healthier and not worried about their family's health.

Unfortunately, those are lessons the business world of today has forgotten as more and more wage earners struggle to survive on minimum wages and mandated healthcare plans they cannot afford.

Henry is often remembered by the cruel battles against labor during the '30s. However, was that really Henry? Debatable. Much of that was run by Harry Bennett and thugs hired to protect Henry and his family during those difficult times. They abused their power at a time when Henry was a bit too feeble to control them, and stayed until Henry Ford II forced them out when he was put into power by the federal government.

 

The surest thing that can be said about Henry Ford? He was a complicated man. An uneducated true genius that understood much more than he was ever taught, and much less than he needed to for his lofty place in the world.

[John_S_in_Penna]

7 hours ago, mdh7475 said:

As most people with incredible power and wealth came a feeling of dominance.  

 

I agree that Mr. Ford was a mixed personage.

He certainly had some high ideals to go along with

a few undesirable traits.

 

However, I'll say that, in my experience, most people of 

"incredible power and wealth" are just the same as

you and me.  The opposite statement may come from

unfamiliarity.  If you know them, you will likely find them

friendly and modest.  And most are always very busy, even

into "retirement" age, continuing to accomplish things.

In my experience as an antique-car newsletter editor,

I've become acquainted with:

 

---A man whose salary--not including other income--

was $30,000,000 a year.  He is as friendly and modest as you and I,

if not more so.

---A man living in a house of 30,000 to 40,000 square feet.

He grew up with a butler, 3 chauffeurs, and assorted other servants.

He too is modest, and his everyday driver was a Chevette for many years.

He still goes to the office part-time, more than 30 years after many

his age have retired.

---Another well-known collector who has endowed his

car collection for $100,000,000.  When I asked him what

he'd like to be remembered for, he didn't say his worldwide

business, nor his collection of more than 150 cars.  He said

he'd like to be remembered for being a nice person.

[mercer09]

What cant be argued is that Mr Edison always appears to be the consummate gentleman.......................

 

whether true or not.

[wayne sheldon]

As a person that has been passionate about history since the age of four, I was "taught"about both Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. As I went on learning more and more about both men (and hundreds of others), I found that although I admired Edison early on for his inventiveness, as I learned more, he was a greedy controlling person that demanded ridiculous royalties for anything he patented. Among MANY other things, he wanted and tried to keep absolute control over the movie industry even demanding the right to approve or refuse use of the moving picture process for films he didn't like the story of. In film history circles, all that is well documented. Some very strange different mechanisms had to be invented by others in order to break Edison's control over the film industry, by working around his patents.  (Because I worked for more than thirty years in cutting edge technologies including systems that eventually became the internet, I could write pages of modern parallels to that)

Taking Henry Ford "on balance", looking at the good and the bad, and putting the bad in the light of the times he grew up in, I find I admire Henry Ford a lot more than Edison.

And an absolute truth or two. Nobody is perfect. No two people in the world will agree on absolutely everything. (Putting aside the old philosopher's joke, "There are absolutely NO absolutes!)

[Pfeil]

55 minutes ago, wayne sheldon said:

As a person that has been passionate about history since the age of four, I was "taught"about both Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. As I went on learning more and more about both men (and hundreds of others), I found that although I admired Edison early on for his inventiveness, as I learned more, he was a greedy controlling person that demanded ridiculous royalties for anything he patented. Among MANY other things, he wanted and tried to keep absolute control over the movie industry even demanding the right to approve or refuse use of the moving picture process for films he didn't like the story of. In film history circles, all that is well documented. Some very strange different mechanisms had to be invented by others in order to break Edison's control over the film industry, by working around his patents.  (Because I worked for more than thirty years in cutting edge technologies including systems that eventually became the internet, I could write pages of modern parallels to that)

Taking Henry Ford "on balance", looking at the good and the bad, and putting the bad in the light of the times he grew up in, I find I admire Henry Ford a lot more than Edison.

And an absolute truth or two. Nobody is perfect. No two people in the world will agree on absolutely everything. (Putting aside the old philosopher's joke, "There are absolutely NO absolutes!)

On your take of Edison. Edison probably got that way over the movie industry considering what happened earlier in his dealings with J.P. Morgan and DC power.  

Edited December 22, 2019 by Pfeil (see edit history)

[JamesR]

On 12/20/2019 at 3:55 PM, md murray said:

Yeah altruistic behavior is what he did best -just read the accounts of anyone working there before the war.  

 

 

Henry Ford was far more complicated than a single photograph that reflects poorly on him. In fact, that’s kind of true of everyone…including me and you! He was the “working man’s friend”, and later, the enemy of unions. The reason communism never took hold in a big way in the US during the 1930’s – when the Great Depression raged, the New Deal grew and Soviet influence became much more prominent throughout the world – was (in part) because of an economic idea called “Fordism,’ which kind of revolved around the idea that working people should have a promising economic future that included eventually being able to buy the products that they produced. Ford disliked many Jews on the one hand, but wouldn’t discriminate against blacks when hiring line workers on the other hand.  And he tried to pay them the same that whites were paid. No other major industrialist of the era would hire blacks 1n 1912, let alone pay them the same as whites. How does one easily summarize this type of person? One doesn’t. Not accurately, anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 22, 2019 by JamesR (see edit history)

[zepher]

I don't think Tesla would have had a single nice word to say about Edison.

 

[1935Packard]

6 hours ago, JamesR said:

Ford disliked many Jews on the one hand, . . . 

 

 

I think it goes pretty far beyond Ford "disliking many Jews."  For those unfamiliar with Ford's virulent anti-semitism and conspiracy-mongering, here's a taste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_International_Jew .    And as this article notes, "Adolf Hitler himself called Ford an inspiration and kept a photo of the automaker behind his desk. In a 1923 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Hitler said . . . . he wished he could send some of his “shock troops to America” to help Ford get elected president."

 

 

 

 

[edinmass]

On top of his rabid anti-semitism he was also racist................and in a bent and distorted way. Add to that the sociological department going inside the homes of his employees.............and then there are the parasites.........I mean investors who he forced out of the company......for pennies on the dollar...........and the previous companies he left high and dry. There’s no doubt he was a self centered, ignorant, vindictive, hypocrite who was a lousy human being. Almost forgot.........a cheating husband with a woman forty years younger than he was for a decade...........Shall I continue?

 

And I agree .......none of us are perfect or without fault.........

Edited December 22, 2019 by edinmass (see edit history)

[John Kelso]

Two books I enjoyed were Vagabonds and Edsel the forgotten son of Henry Ford.

None of us should be the same person we were in our past, we are all shaped by our past experiences.

All history should be viewed taking into context the times

[Pfeil]

7 hours ago, edinmass said:

On top of his rabid anti-semitism he was also racist................and in a bent and distorted way. Add to that the sociological department going inside the homes of his employees.............and then there are the parasites.........I mean investors who he forced out of the company......for pennies on the dollar...........and the previous companies he left high and dry. There’s no doubt he was a self centered, ignorant, vindictive, hypocrite who was a lousy human being. Almost forgot.........a cheating husband with a woman forty years younger than he was for a decade...........Shall I continue?

 

And I agree .......none of us are perfect or without fault.........

 

OK , OK now that we know how you feel, regather your emotions and tell us..... 

 

What would you do if this guy flagged you down in 1926???????

[edinmass]

I usually try and help out any fellow human being when I can........I believe in karma..........

[JamesR]

All I'm saying is that simple assessments of complicated historical figures generally don't work. You may feel extremely comforted or justified by those assessments, so I'm not going to harass anyone into accepting my perceptions, but perceptions that are presented  with a fair degree of animus, resentment, etc. are hard for me to accept as dispassionate versions of the truth.

 

A lot of comments about anti-Semitism and not very much about integrated Ford work camps during the '30's in Georgia where whites and blacks worked along side of each other. In GEORGIA...in the THIRTIES. Both of those things are true. I'm no historian, but taking off one's 21st century moral glasses when viewing the past seems essential IF your intent is to be historically accurate. That's what allows historians to look at the Aztecs without degenerating into an assessment of "murderous cannibalistic savages." And that's good because the Aztecs did some pretty amazing things, too. 

[John Kelso]

I'd pick him up, I agree with Ed