Fordlandia: Ford's Utopian Amazon Community

I just finished reading Greg Grandin's book, Fordlandia, The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City.  Grandin is a good writer and he brings to life the story of Ford's attempt to build a model Midwestern town in the Amazon jungle.  The rationale that Henry Ford gave to the world for investing in this ill-fated adventure was that he needed a steady supply of latex rubber. The real reasons, as Grandin makes clear, were far more complex.

In the 1920's, Henry Ford was hailed as one of the most influential businessmen in the country. He not only had created the Model T and the assembly line that built it, but he believed that a robust consumer economy depended upon a middle class that earned enough to have buying power.  His Five Dollar workday was one of the major factors in building such a market of consumers.

Ford's massive operations, first at Highland Park and then at the River Rouge plant in Detroit, were models of efficiency. They were also models of how workers could be turned into cogs in a vast and dehumanizing industrial machine.  Fordism, as it was called, was represented by the stopwatch and the check list. No detail was too mundane to not be improved and made more efficient. His vast industrial operations and those of other large corporations drew people to the cities seeking jobs with steady wages. Industrializing America was the nemesis of Rural America.

Ford was born and raised on a farm and he hated it. As soon as he could, he escaped to Detroit to find work in machine shops and later the Detroit Edison before turning his creative hand to automobiles. But as Ford's empire grew, his nostalgia for a simpler past also grew more important to him. To capture this disappearing America, Ford began collecting old machinery, tools, steam engines, pots and pans, sewing machines - anything that represented the past. He kept all his treasure in one of his warehouses at the Highland Park plant. Later, he started collecting whole buildings: Edison's Menlo Park Laboratory, the Wright Brothers bicycle shop, homes of poets, country churches and schools - even his own family's farmhouse.  He needed a place to put all this stuff. In 1929, he built Greenfield Village and the adjoining museum to house his collections.

Similarly, Ford began to build communities from scratch that were models of his vision of the right balance between industry and agriculture. Several of these were in Michigan's Upper Peninsula where lumbering and the sawmill provided the balancing arms of his vision. He thought he could use the same model to improve the Tennessee Valley, and he envisioned dams and hydroelectric stations that would supply him with power -- built next to new, idyllic communities that had the most modern schools, hospitals, and sewage plants. His dream for transforming the Tennessee Valley was thwarted by local and national politicians.  Ironically, it would be those same politicians who later created Ford's vision themselves during the Great Depression with the formation of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

When latex shortages threatened the automobile industry, Ford decided he could kill two birds with one stone by building a model community in Brazil to tap and export latex rubber. The work began in 1928. By 1945, after building Fordlandia and later Belterra, the failed venture was handed over to the Brazilian government and Ford Motor Company left the Amazon forever.  Grandin's book does a great job of explaining the missteps, naiveté, and bad luck that plagued the operation from beginning to end.

Ford was not the first, nor probably the last, to dream of creating his own vision of what a community should look like. Almost all of these visionary industrial communities have ended in failure. One of the most extensive was Pullman, Illinois. George Pullman built this model community to house his workers for his new railroad car workers. The town lasted barely ten years before it was brought down by labor strife. Like Fordlandia, one man's vision of what should happen was a far cry from what did happen.

Grandin, in his epilogue, sums up the issues well:

"Ford, the man who in the early 1910s helped unleash the power of industrialism to revolutionize human relations, spent most of the rest of his life trying to put the genie back in the bottle, to contain the disruption he himself let loose, only to be continually, inevitably thwarted. Born more from political frustration at home than from the need to acquire control over yet another raw material abroad, Fordlandia represents in crystalline form the utopianism that powered Fordism -- and by extension Americanism. It reveals the faith that a drive towards greater efficiency could be controlled and managed in such a way as to bring balance to the world and that technology itself, without the need for government planning, could solve whatever social problems arose from progress's advance. Fordlandia is a parable of arrogance. The arrogance, though, is not that Henry Ford thought he could tame the Amazon but that he believed that the forces of capitalism, once released, could still be controlled." 

Arrogance, naiveté, hubris, utopianism -- you might think we would know better by now. But in some way, I admire Ford's efforts even as I cringe at the outcomes. Ford was a complex man who could easily be both admired and despised. He legitimately earned both.  But to give up on building dreams such as those that Ford dreamed is perhaps to give up on dreaming at all. If I had the choice, I would take the dreamer.

In 1958, Disney Imagines the Future of the Highway

As long as I seem to be on an automotive futures theme, I want to draw your attention to part of a Disney television production from 1958, entitled Magic Highway USA. The show was part of the Wonderful World of Disney series, Most of this program explored the history of the highway in the United States. But the last ten minutes looked to the future.  You can watch the whole thing at the link about or just the last nine minutes here:

I love these old predictions of the future. Almost all of them have people flying around in their personal helicopters or living in some undersea colony. The buildings all look like they came out of the Jetsons. But just like in the Futurama exhibit that I wrote about a couple of entries ago, some of the predictions turn out to be remarkably accurate. Others turn out to be true but are embodied in some way other than that described. And of course, there are the "dead wrong" predictions. So how did the Magic Highway USA predictions turn out?  Here's a list of what was in our futures, circa 1958:

Dead Wrong Predictions:

- Multi-colored highway lanes to give motorists a color-coded path to their destination
- Radar screens to allow drivers to see in poor visibility
- Fog-eliminating devices to clear the roadway
- Atomic reactors to melt tunnels through mountains in a single pass
- Cantilevered highways hung from the side of mountains
- Automatic servicing of the car in the homeowner's garage
- Tandem vehicles that separate into parts for different destinations
- Special highways for new forms of vehicles (e.g., tubular highways)
- Individual parking spot for your car in your office at work
- Massive parking "cylinders" at shopping malls instead of parking lots
- Highway "elevators" to lift cars up sheer cliffs
- Gas turbine-powered automobiles
- Atomic-powered automobiles
- Jet engine-powered automobiles
- Cars that convert from highway vehicles to cabin cruisers



Nothing much surprising in this first list. This is the usual science fiction view of the future. What was more interesting to me was the number of predictions that turned out to be true, even if they were accomplished in a slightly different way. Have a look:

More-or-Less Correct Predictions:

- Larger, simpler highway signs that can be easily read at high speeds
- Roads specifically designed for better visibility
- Electronic navigation controls (at least there are now onboard navigation and traffic monitoring GPS systems)
- Rear view mirrors are television cameras (back-up cameras are becoming common)
- Helicopter rescue of traffic accident victims
- Integrated road building machinery that can lay down whole roadways at one pass
- Prefabricated bridges and overpasses
- Form-in-place concrete structures, such as bridges
- Wider, faster expressways that extend the areas from which people can commute to work
- A nation crisscrossed by a network of super highways
- Communities that are built around the design of the freeways for better access and commuting
- Preprogrammed route selectors (think GPS systems)
- Electronics that drive the car to its destination (not here yet but Google is working on a driverless car)
- Business conferences on video screens (... at least for a passenger)
- Family entertainment systems in the car (think DVD and game counsels)
- Ability to know your location on a synchronized electronic map (GPS again)
- Office buildings that combine multi-level parking and office facilities
- Moving sidewalks (at least in airports and convention centers)
- Solar powered automobiles (experimental cars are here. Production cars?  Hmmm).
- Air-conditioned routes across hot deserts (in-car AC is now virtually standard).
- Roads over subfreezing mountains (high-speed roads over subfreezing terrain are common in the northern parts of the country)
- Vehicle travel under the ocean (the Chunnel between the UK and France pops to mind)



Like most technology visions, this program also had its moments where it lapsed into the rhapsodic:

"These giant arteries will link together all the nations and help to create a better understanding among the peoples of the world. As in the past the highway will continue to play a vital role in the progress of civilization. It will be our magic carpet to new hopes, new dreams, and a better way of life for the future!"

Have you ever noticed how technology (whether embodied in better highways or in the internet) is always predicted to improve the relationships between peoples? There is some truth in these euphoric predictions but there is an equally true and opposite reality: technology creates frictions between the peoples of the world. Technology has never been a panacea. And predicting the future of technology remains one of our most difficult challenges.

The Horseless Age

In my last post, I wrote about Futurama, an exhibit sponsored by General Motors at the 1939 World's Fair. Futurama was Norman Bel Geddes vision of an America of 1960, fully connected by interstate highways. That vision became reality.

But visionaries have always been with us. I recently came across an editorial written in 1896 in the first publication that exclusively focused on the automobile. The magazine was called The Horseless Age and the publisher was a man named E.P. Ingersoll. He was a tireless reporter and promoter of all things automotive. In the fifth issue of Volume 1 of his journal, he penned an editorial with the very sedate title of "Effects on Land Values and the Distribution of Population."  But what he wrote was an insightful analysis of things to come.

The first thing that caught my eye when I read his piece was that it was the trolley and bicycle that began the movement of people to the suburbs - even before the advent of the automobile. When this editorial was written, there were essentially zero automobile companies in the U.S.  Any cars that were being purchased were imported from France and then only by the wealthy. It was this same trend to the suburbs that was illuminated in the Futurama exhibit forty-five years later. 

Ingersoll clearly understood the impact of transportation systems on land values. What Ingersoll didn't state was that it was the cost of transportation and not just its availability that drove land values. I think of the falling home prices today in the outer exurbs as people respond to high fuel costs by trying to move closer to the urban centers. The problem, of course, is that their homes are worth less than they owe on them, essentially trapping them in the exurbs.

Finally, I think Ingersoll deserves credit for not mincing words about congestion in the cities. He understood that the poorest people in the cities could never afford their own cars and hence would remain locked in the slums. Today, the poor are still locked in the slums of cities and run-down neighborhoods. They might have a car but if they do, it is usually very old and in very poor condition. Their upward mobility is close to zero.

Ingersoll's editorial isn't that long. I repeat it here verbatim:

"One of the most interesting phases of speculation called up by the motor movement relates to its probable effect on land values and distribution of population.


 In the aggregate the constant tendency of land values is to increase as population increases, and there is no reason to believe that this tendency, now very strong in this country, will be checked for some time to come. Every mechanical improvement introduced adds to land values, which may be considered as the capitalized value of civilization.


 But while the general tendency to increase will in all human probability remain unchanged, local changes are bound to result from the general introduction of motor vehicles as the have resulted from the introduction of other improvements in locomotion.


The trolley car has opened the suburban property, and by connecting rural towns has made populous streets where before were farmers' houses.


The bicycle has had a similar effect upon land values, pushing the line of possible residence near business centers further out, and hence making such outlying sites more desirable and more valuable.


The slight depreciation which these new agencies of locomotion have caused in the case of land devoted to industries injuriously affected by them is but a sign of the stimulating effect in other directions. The bicycle and the trolley depressed the prices of certain grades of horses and this has undoubtedly depressed the values of some lands devoted to raising such grade of horses, though this depression is apt to be quickly relieved by putting the land to more profitable uses.


Country hotel sites have in many sections been given additional value from the fact that they are frequented by bicycle riders seeking rest and refreshments on their outings.


The general adoption of the motor vehicle will intensify these tendencies. It will make suburbs easier of access, improve the trade of country hotels in many places, and still further depress the business of horse-raising. Much of the land now used for horse-raising and growing horse feed will in process of time find other uses more in harmony with the trend of progress.


The establishing of new factories will stimulate the growth of population locally, as has been observed in the case of the bicycle industry, but there is not the slightest hope that the motor vehicle will relieve the congestion of cities; for the congested districts are inhabited by the very poor, who cannot afford to buy a vehicle of any kind."


Note: The Horseless Age remains in publication today but its name was changed around World War I to Automotive Industries. You can read all the early volumes of the magazines on Google Books.

Our Futurama

The lines formed as soon as the gates opened. It was the premier attraction. People were willing to wait for hours in the hot summer sun to see it. Many saw it multiple times during their visits. When they finally got into the building and entered one of the moving cars, the magic began.

Exhibit Building. Note the lines.

I might be talking about the iconic ride, Spaceship Earth, the geodesic-like sphere at Epcot in Disney World.  It is the the ride that most captivates people in our modern-day version of a permanent "world's fair".  But I am writing about General Motor's Futurama exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Futurama was the single most popular attraction at the fair by a large margin. People would wait for hours in the long snaking lines that wound up a curved ramp to finally enter the building through a deep-red slit in a towering wall. Huge letters, "G" and "M", defined the edges of the opening. Once inside, visitors would seat themselves in one of moving modules called "carry-go-rounds" that formed an endless loop slowly moving past the perimeter of the exhibit. Music and narration would emanate from a speaker in the back of each module, exquisitely timed to what the passengers were viewing.

Futurama was industrial and stage designer Norman Bel Geddes vision of what the United States would look like in the future of 1960. His vision was conveyed in a massive, 36,000 square-foot model of a city and countryside of that distant time 21 years in the future. The model contained over half a million individually-fabricated structures, a million trees, and fifty thousand vehicles.  Viewers were, in essence, flying over the landscape at a low altitude and witnessing what they might look forward to in the years ahead.

Model city. The tall buildings are actually about four feet in height.

The central theme of Futurama was that a network of better roads and superhighways would provide for a transformation of the nation. The current dirty and congested cities and clogged local highways would be replaced by cities that were clean and accessible by multilane, limited-access highways.  People would be able to live in green communities outside of the city and drive to work on modern roadways with higher speeds, better safety, and a minimum of congestion.

The Last Intersection 

The last scene in this futuristic vision of 1960 was of a city intersection with multilevel roads and modernistic buildings. When the visitor left the carry-go-round and walked through the exit doors, they found themselves in a full-sized version of the same intersection they had seen in the model. The illusion must have been startling. Perhaps most startling of all was that the vision, in fact, came true. The superhighways that Norman Bel Geddes portrayed became our interstate highways and toll roads. The green spaces where people lived away from the cities became our suburbs. We might not have quite gotten there by 1960 but most of us finally did.  And has it been the utopian vision described in Futurama?  We would, of course, say no. But we are not the same people who looked at it from afar and saw it in sharp contrast to their own world of 1939.

We don't have world's fairs in this country any more. The last one was held in 1984 in New Orleans and it declared bankruptcy halfway through its six-month run. Maybe because of television and computer imagery we can no longer related to the seemingly-quaint idea of a physical model of the future.  Dioramas to portray the world to come are expensive to build and go out of date quickly. Even Spaceship Earth at Epcot requires constant updating on what its vision of the future of communications looks like.  But let's just imagine for a moment that we could hire someone like a Norman Bel Geddes of 2012 to build a Futurama of 2035. What would it look like?  Would we see a better world ahead, as Futurama did, or would we see something much more worrisome?

I think we have become more cynical about the promise of technology.  At least we no longer believe in the illusion that it can solve all our problems. More often that not, we see technology as creating as many problems as it removes.  The internet and its attendant privacy issues are just the latest example of the duality of every new technology.  It might be easy to fall into envying the untroubled vision of technology portrayed in the 1939 World's Fair but these people were not naive, either. They saw their world being torn apart by the beginnings of World War II. They didn't know yet about atomic bombs but they saw - correctly - a horrific conflict ahead. Yet most people interviewed at the fair were optimistic about the longer-term future of the country. The American Way promised a brighter future for themselves and their children.  We might be tempted to disagree with them in our own times.

They say that hope dies last. I don't think we are anywhere near the end of hope but I do think we are facing some tremendous challenges in the coming decades and we have only just begun to see them looming ahead of us.  I would suggest that we build a new Futurama that would be a marker to help us get a better fix on the future.  I, for one, would even volunteer to help pay for it. And I would certainly stand in line for a few hours to see it.

Note: General Motors produced a film about Futurama, entitled "New Horizons". You can watch it on YouTube below. It runs about 23 minutes but is worth the time.

Technology and the City: For Better and For Worse

Roosevelt Center
Greenbelt, MD

The city was created by technology. Technology has also made the city a poorer place to live. This cycle of creation and degradation has gone on since people started building their mud and straw huts close together. The by-products of cohabitation, whether sewage or air pollution or even epidemic diseases, has been the price one paid for living close to markets or places of work.

This pattern was reinforced for me by a film I happened upon entitled simply The City. The  film is a documentary created for the 1939 New York World's Fair City of Tomorrow which was part of the Futurama exhibit.  The film was the brainchild of Catherine Bauer Wurster who was the leading member of a small group of idealists known as "The Housers" who were committed to improving housing for low-income families. The New York architect, Robert D. Kohn, shared her interest in low-income housing and commissioned the documentary.

The film focused much of its attention on the planned community of Greenbelt, Maryland which was constructed under Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal as a model community. The idea was to build an ideal community near Washington, D.C. to relieve a severe housing shortage in the area of the Capital which existed at that time.  Two other cities were also planned and built - Greendale, Wisconsin (near Milwaukee) and Greenhills, Ohio (near Cincinnati).

The film was originally written by FDR's filmmaker, Pare Lorentz, but was re-scripted by the noted architectural critic and advocate of planned suburban communities, Lewis Mumford. Interestingly, the documentary's music was the first commissioned film score for composer Aaron Copeland and had largely been forgotten until this film was rediscovered in the archives a few years ago.

When I watched the film (which is available on YouTube in four parts), I was struck by how many of the problems we face today were already there in 1938: traffic congestion, over-crowding, air pollution, and terrible housing for low-income people. The model city of Greenbelt, MD looks like a little utopia compared to the squalor of the mill towns and the congestion of New York City. In many ways, however, the future longed for in the film has come to pass. Many of us live in nicely laid out suburban communities with good roads, schools, housing, and shopping. Yet many of the problems are still with us or have even grown worse over time. Despite our advancing technology, the city remains challenged to perpetually come up with new - mostly technical - solutions.

Quite coincidentally, the latest special issue of Scientific American is about the future of cities.  Must be something in the air about cities lately. I keep coming across all these connections. In any event, the 1939 documentary is linked below. If you want a better view, click through to the YouTube site and watch the video.