Author's notes: Research for this article was made possible by the generous assistance of the following organizations: National Science Foundation, History and Philosophy of Science Program (Research Grants No. SES-8218636, December 1982, and SES-8408874, July 1984); American Council of Learned Societies (Grant-in-Aid, April 1983); American Association for State and Local History (Grant-in-Aid, October 1983); and National Endowment for the Humanities (Travel to Collections Grant, November, 1985). I am extremely grateful for their support.

I would also like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of the following persons at the Edison Institute (Greenfield Village and Henry Ford Museum), Dearborn, Michigan, during my repeated visits: Mr. David Crippen, Curator of Special Collections; Mr. Steven Hamp, Director of Collections and Chief Curator, Archives and Records; and Mrs. Cynthia Read-Miller, Curator of Graphics. In addition, Mrs. Darleen Flaherty, Archivist of the Ford Industrial Archives in Redford, Michigan, and Mrs. Eleanor Poteracki of Detroit assisted me in my research in holdings there. Harvard undergraduates Charlotte Chiu and Soo Lee were excellent research assistants. Finally, Mr. John Tobin, now a graduate student at Wayne State University, kindly allowed me to read his unpublished 1985 master's thesis at Eastern Michigan University, “Henry Ford and His Village Industries in Southeastern Michigan.” I learned about his thesis only after completing most of my research and writing, but it has been a useful source for additional information and for comparisons with my own findings and reflections.

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21. Voorhess, , The Reminiscences of Mr. Charles Voorhess, Ford Motor Company Archives, Oral History Section, 11 1952, p. 96Google Scholar. As Voorhess recalled, “As far as I know, this idea of the village industries was Mr. Ford's alone. I don't have any information that anyone brought it to his mind” (ibid., p. 94).

22. Liebold, , Reminiscences, pp. 540–41.Google Scholar

23. As Ford told Pearson in that 1924 Motor World interview, “Go out and see for yourself. Go into the country and visit some of our village factories where we are manufacturing small parts. We have been doing some experimenting” (p. 9).

24. “America's Ruggedest Individual Takes A $35,000,000 Crack at Depression,” Life 4 (05 30, 1938): 13.Google Scholar

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29. Ibid.

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31. Ford quoted in Voorhess, , “Information Regarding Village Industries,”Google Scholar no page number, and Voorhess, ibid.

32. See Schumacher, E. F., Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered (New York: Harper and Row, 1973)Google Scholar, the key work of this orientation.

33. Voorhess, , Reminiscences, pp. 100–01.Google Scholar

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35. Smith, , Reminiscences, pp. 51, 43.Google Scholar

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39. Editorial quoted in Lewis, , p. 163Google Scholar. Nevertheless, Ford was quoted that same year as boasting that “Our plan is not to be confined to one portion of the United States, but will extend throughout the country. We will probably not limit it to the United States. England offers many opportunities of this kind” (Literary Digest 68 [02 26, 1921]: 42)Google Scholar. However, as Liebold recalled,

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46. Ford quoted in Barton, Bruce, “‘It would be Fun to Start Over Again,’” American Magazine 91 (04 1921): 122.Google Scholar

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49. Van Vlissingen, , p. 50Google Scholar. See also Bird, , p. 48.Google Scholar

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53. See (untitled) Press Release, Ford News Bureau, Dearborn, 08 16, 1948, p. 3Google Scholar. Ruddiman, Stanley, Reminiscences, pp. 5–6Google Scholar, confirms these unexpected developments.

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56. Ford quoted in Van Vlissingen, , “Henry Ford Discusses the Farm Surplus Problem: An Authorized Interview,” American Legion Monthly 21 (09 1936): 8, 9Google Scholar. On Ford's plastic car, see Lewis, , “Henry Ford's Plastic Car,” Michigan History 56 (Winter 1972): 319–30.Google Scholar

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58. Ford quoted in “messages” cited in note 50 above; no page number.

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70. Ford quoted in Kellogg, , “The Play of a Big Man with a Little River, Part I,” p. 641.Google Scholar

71. Liebold, , Reminiscences, pp. 542–43Google Scholar. Crosman, , pp. 8–9Google Scholar, says the same about Ford's priorities. And Edward Cutler recalled that “The only time he [Ford] tried to estimate the number of people that would work in these mills by the available man power in the surrounding area, so they wouldn't have to bring in people from the outside area to work, was when we were working on Dundee, to the best of my knowledge” (The Reminiscences of Mr. Edward J. Cutler, Ford Motor Company Archives, Oral History Section, 03 1952, pp. 149–50).Google Scholar

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75. On these formal and informal educational programs, see Tobin, , pp. 44–45, 83–84, 91.Google Scholar

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84. Kellogg, , “The Play of a Big Man with a Little River, Part I,” pp. 639–40.Google Scholar

85. Voorhess, , Reminiscences, p. 122.Google Scholar

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94. Van Vlissingen, , “The BIG Idea Behind Those SMALL Plants of Ford's,” pp. 47–48Google Scholar. See also, e.g., Cessna, Ralph W., “Down By the New Mill Stream,” Christian Science Monitor Weekly Magazine 32 (12 30, 1939): 8–9.Google Scholar

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96. Tobin, , p. 182.Google Scholar

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100. See, e.g., Wright, Thomas H., “Why Ford's Men Strike,” Christian Century 50 (11 29, 1933): 1501–04Google Scholar; Weybright, Victor, “Henry Ford at the Wheel,” Survey Graphic 26 (12 1937): 686–88, 717–21, 723Google Scholar; and Weybright, , “Ford Puts on the Union Label,” Survey Graphic 30 (11 1941): 554–59, 651–53.Google Scholar

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102. On these unionization developments and their impact on the village industries, see Tobin, , pp. 154–56.Google Scholar

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104. Quoted in TVA and Electric Power (Knoxville, Tenn., n.d.), p. 3Google Scholar; the pamphlet lists no author.

105. Susman, Warren, “The Thirties,” in The Development of an American Culture, eds. Coben, Stanley and Ratner, Lorman (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970), p. 188.Google Scholar

106. Geschelin, Joseph, “Is Decentralization Industry's Next Step?” Automotive Industries 68 (05 13, 1933): 584.Google Scholar

107. Cabot, Philip, “The New Industrial Era,” Harvard Business Review 12 (01 1934): 227.Google Scholar

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111. Tugwell, Rexford Guy, “Henry Ford in This World,” Saturday Review of Literature 3 (08 7, 1926): 19Google Scholar. The article was a review of Ford and Crowther's Today and Tomorrow.

112. See Shahn, Ben, “In Homage,” New Yorker 38 (09 29, 1962): 31–33.Google Scholar

113. As Crosman and Gerry wrote in their (1945?) report, “The success of the village industries is particularly significant when compared to the failure of many of the U.S. government's so-called subsistence homestead projects also designed to combine industrial with agricultural employment” (p. 13). See ibid., pp. 13–14, for their specific points, although they cite no particular government projects.

114. Cameron, , “Decentralization of Industry,” Mechanical Engineering 59 (07 1937): 483.Google Scholar

115. Ibid., p. 484. Yet Ford, Voorhess recalled, “felt he had overdeveloped the Rouge. It was too large a plant, and he felt it wasn't what he should have done. Development of the small, so-called village industries resulted from a lesson that he got in developing the Rouge” (Reminiscences, p. 92)Google Scholar. See also ibid., p. 93.

116. Cameron, , “Decentralization of Industry,” p. 487Google Scholar. See also Liebold, , Reminiscences, p. 539, in confirmation of this point.Google Scholar

117. Ford, , “‘If My Business Were Small,’” System: The Magazine of Business 43 (06 1923): 735Google Scholar. As Ford and Crowther argued three years later, “Size is only a stage; at one stage your finances will let you do only this. In the next stage you can do a little more. And so on” (p. 242). “Size is purely an incident to a policy of manufacturing. It is nothing in itself” (p. 243). And, finally, “The way for the little man to use the best methods is to get big” (p. 249).

118. Ford, , “‘If My Business Were Small,’” p. 788Google Scholar. As Ford and Crowther also argued three years later, “To effect the economies, to bring in the power, to cut out the waste, and thus fully to realize the wage motive, we must have big business—which does not, however, necessarily mean centralized business. We are decentralizing” (p. 10). See also ibid., p. 136.

119. Ibid., p. 12.

120. Ford, and Crowther, , “Management and Size,” Saturday Evening Post 203 (09 20, 1930): 153, 150, 153Google Scholar. See also Liebold, , Reminiscences, pp. 538–39Google Scholar, in confirmation of Ford's intentions here.

121. Cameron, , “Decentralization of Industry,” pp. 484, 487.Google Scholar

122. See La Croix, Charles, Village Industries: Record of War Effort (Dear born, Mich.: n.p., 2 vols., 1942)Google Scholar, and “Village Industries,” typed report, no date (although it is clearly from 1944 or 1945); the latter lists no author.

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124. See Tobin, , p. 161.Google Scholar

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126. Voorhess, , Reminiscences, p. 124.Google Scholar

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129. Tobin, , p. 126Google Scholar. See also “Ford Reshapes His Empire,” Business Week 1043 (08 27, 1949): 20–22Google Scholar; the article lists no author.

130. Harder, Del S., (untitled). Address at Ypsilanti, 10 1, 1948Google Scholar, in Press Release, Ford News Bureau, Dearborn, same date, pp. 1–2.

131. See (untitled) News Release, News Department, Dearborn, March 20, 1970.

132. Quoted in Corbin, Val, “Village Industries: Northville Closing Is Final Chapter In Their History,” Ford World 18 (n.d.): no page number.Google Scholar

133. See Lewis, , “Ford Country” (column), Cars and Parts 26 (08 1983): 158.Google Scholar

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135. Lewis, , “Old Henry Ford's Village Industries: A Tour of Practically Perfect Places to Work,” Detroit Magazine, Detroit Free Press, 09 24, 1972, no page numbers.Google Scholar

136. Kellogg, , “The Play of a Big Man with a Little River, Part II,” p. 52.Google Scholar

137. Ibid.

138. See, e.g., Miller, Zane L., The Urbanization of Modern America (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973), pp. 165–69, 207–10Google Scholar; Ferkiss, Victor C., “Bureaucracy,” in Technology and Change, ed. Burke, John G. and Eakin, Marshall C. (San Francisco: Boyd and Fraser, 1979), pp. 86–91Google Scholar; and Charney, Joseph P., “In Mexico an Urgent Need to Decentralize,” Letter to the New York Times, 10 11, 1985.Google Scholar

139. Prokesch, Steven E., “U.S. Companies Weed Out Many Operations,” New York Times, 09 30, 1985, sec. A, p. 1, sec. D, p. 5.Google Scholar

140. Lewis, , “Ford Country” (column), Cars and Parts 26 (12 1983): 64.Google Scholar

141. See Yamamoto, Kenichi, President, Mazda Motor Corporation, “Remarks,” at groundbreaking for Flat Rock plant, 05 29, 1985, pp. 6–7Google Scholar, and Chira, Susan, “For Mazda, a U.S. Car Plant,” New York Times, 12 1, 1984, Business Sec, pp. 1, 33.Google Scholar

142. Ford, and Crowther, , Today and Tomorrow, p. 145.Google Scholar

143. “Ford Would Replace Plants with Small Contractor's Shops,” 06 28, 1933Google Scholar, no page number, Federated Press clipping in Joe Brown Collection, Reuther Labor Archives, Wayne State University; the article lists no author. On the general historical background to such concerns by organized labor, see Montgomery, David, Workers' Control in America: Studies in the History of Work, Technology, and Labor Struggles (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979).Google Scholar

144. Press Release, Ford News Bureau, August 16, 1948, p. 4; this was the same untitled item cited in notes 53, 83, and 128 above.

145. Cameron, , “Decentralization of Industry,” p. 486Google Scholar. As Liebold recalled about these experiments, Ford “thought they were performing a wonderful service for [all] his various reasons” (Reminiscences, p. 577).Google Scholar

146. Mullin, , p. 429.Google Scholar

147. Lilienthal, David E., “Lost Megawatts Flow Over Nation's Myriad Spillways,” Smithsonian 8 (09 1977): 83, 83–84.Google Scholar

148. Ford, “quoted”Google Scholar in Wik, , Henry Ford and Grass-roots America, p. 207Google Scholar; the words are not formally quoted there.

149. Ford, and Crowther, , Today and Tomorrow, p. 227.Google Scholar

150. See Hamp, Steven K., “Subject Over Object: Interpreting the Museum as Artifact,” Museum News 63 (12 1984): 33–37Google Scholar, for a perceptive elaboration of this interpretation of Ford's efforts in the village industries and elsewhere.