Today's New York Times has an article by a reporter who visited what's left of Fordlandia, the town Henry founded in the Amazon jungle to ensure himself a source of rubber. Look for it at

www.nytimes.com

A little easier to find like this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/20/world/americas/deep-in-brazils-amazon-explori ng-the-ruins-of-fords-fantasyland.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSour ce=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r= 0

It's kind of creepy. Kind of like the ruins of Egypt or Greece or Rome. I wonder what the future has in store for America? Some day will they see the remains of our freeways and our cars and wonder,"How did they make these chariots run? The legends say they didn't use any horses or animals."


Norm

Creepy like Norm said but cool too. The first picture has a Willys or Ford Rural (they were Willys till about 1960 and continued under Ford license till 1976 with the same design). Same sheet metal from the A pillars back. There are a few running around our Andean town.

Very interesting, I never heard about Fordlandia.
Rather tiresome, the usual Times slant, "hate America first" and gleefully peck at the clay feet of giants.

I'm sure the writer of the article would have avoided all the pitfalls of the venture by employing his 21st century wisdom with 20/20 hindsight. "Brasil for Brazilians" eh? sure looks like they've made wonderful improvements on Ford's errors the past 70 years.

Anyhow, Henry's statement "History is bunk" is taken out of context. What he meant was history without a tangible point of reference is meaningless. He was unimpressed by history as a record of wars and battles fought and the succession of rulers is sterile and vacant. He was interested in the historical lives of common people who built things - that's why he established Greenfield Village. Hardly the undertaking of a man who had no respect for history.

Ford's anti-Semitism is often trotted out by his detractors, yet he respected Albert Khan and worked closely with him for years. Conflicted, or misunderstood ?

Brave New World is a novel written in 1931 by Aldous Huxley and published in 1932.

Was Fordlanda the Brave New World?

Fordlanda was brought to life as a brave new world. Beginning year 19 AF. AF refers to After Ford, with the Ford year beginning 1908 - the introduction of the Model T.

'Ford, “My Ford,” “Year of Our Ford,” etc. – throughout Brave New World, the citizens of the World State substitute the name of Henry Ford, the early twentieth-century industrialist and founder of the Ford Motor Company, wherever people in our own world would say Lord” (i.e., Christ). This demonstrates that even at the level of casual conversation and habit, religion has been replaced by reverence for technology—specifically the efficient, mechanized factory production of goods that Henry Ford pioneered.'

Additional stuff on the Brave New World can be found - http://sosinglese.eu/9130/aldous-huxley-brave-new-world/

I agree with Rich.
Sometimes NYT journalists takes a view of history, impugning original intentions and motives using today's prism. That was then and this is now.
To anyone is serioulsy interested in reading about this subject get the book cited in the article "Fordlandia" by Greg Grandin. It provides a detailed balanced view of what actually transpired with Ford's Brazilain experiment.
It is an interesting story of a failed experiment, much like Ford's dogged and unsuccessful attempts to make cement railroad track ties work using no ballast.

The underling theme of the article seems to be a rich industrialist taking advantage of the 'poor folks and their land'.
This is usually the theme liberals use to downgrade anyone who seems to be a robber baron and take advantage of a peoples property. They will always pick apart the lesser goodness of these people.

Henry Ford built an empire and helped create an industrial revolution that will stand the test of time but his lesser qualities will be around to haunt him and his memory by occasional articles written this way.