Henry Ford tried to build a Midwestern American town in the Amazon rainforest in the 1920s. It's true. And yes, Chuck will say this should be a movie.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
This podcast dynamically inserts audio advertisements of varying lengths for each download.
As a result, the transcription time indexes may be inaccurate.
Get ready to dive into the future with technically speaking, and until I cast the groundbreaking podcast from my heart media's, ruby studios in partnership with intel, each episode unveils incredible ways: a high technology is transforming our world for the better join host, graham class, as he speaks with the experts behind the technological advancements that are powering a brighter and more accessible future for everyone. Listen to technically speaking and intel pot cast on the heart, radio, up apple pie, guests or wherever you get. Your pipe casts. Welcome to stop. You should now production, and I hate radio pay and welcome to the pod casts some Josh and there's chuck injures here to services. Sufi should know
wacky strange history addition yet another
love this, when we had a few people to think up out of the gate for this. If I may, I should first of all we want to take this
their Brennan wilson, who gave this idea to us through email the case today
I had never heard of it before so Brennan citizen and did a quick search as our
is when someone sins in something. Unless it's like good, they went on a soles.
I went something I had heard of always look it up, and I was like a mountain is a really good when you did know about this, so big thanks to breathe.
and big thanks to Libya who put this when together and helped us out
Libya actually said. We should thank a couple of people in particular that sort of wrote the book, while literally and figuratively,
on ford, landy, gregg grandin wrote a book called ford, landy a the right
then followed Henry ford, forgotten jungle, city, spoiler, alert and,
There was a paper in the late seventies by a guy named John gailey in the journal of inter american studies and world affairs that also had a lot of good stuff, so thanks
to everyone involved here we go. There was a lot
I was waiting for you to tell us who great grain said. We should thank you mom, so
we are talking about for here. We are talking about a where you could call ford's folly to second of
If bear right out of the gate was Henry ford's misadventure.
Down in the amazon where he tried to build a model utopian society based on world midwestern america right in the amazon.
In the amazon. That's a big! That's a big catch right there, because in trying to do in omaha or topeka,
He chose the amazon over to Pika and I think that says a lot about topeka yeah. Oh, we love our kids and hope. They know that won all, but one
It's right, so we should talk a little bit about the sort of weirdo.
That was Henry ford
who should do a whole one
upon him. One day I I didn't know a ton about the guy who did a lot of great stuff was also not great in a lot of ways that such a recurring theme
in nineteen o three is where the ford motor company was born in dearborn michigan and thanks to the model t
changed america, it was a car that was
illiberal more avail,
open. Any car had ever been to like regular americans. He paid for his workers a living wage which at the time was five dollars a day
and he also a lot of strings attached to that good wage and those good jobs
along the lines of like hey. I know where a car company but
tebow's sociology department in our company, where we send out hunter
investigators around dearborn into the homes of my employees, to make sure
The kids are going
school and everything is tidy, the wife isn't working and that people aren't drinking booze yeah. It was the
ford motor company, equivalent of the gestapo, the secret police,
who they weren't coming to. Like your
company owned house. They
lived in on the ford motor company camp,
This is your house in Michigan, and these people felt totally fine coming by checking on your family, too
sure that you are living up to henry ford personal standards of old timey squeaky clean american this year, but
At the same time, he would also like it said: pay them a good wage. He would give them great health care.
He would. He would help citizens ship along if he had a immigrants
For them, he would help them with their applications, help them get home loans,
so it was one of the things where he was like. I feel like
I'm paying you well and I'm doing a lot of good for you and your family and that
some me the right as really just you
uber boss to dictate.
You should live your life as well insane. It is here.
he was a anti semite. It pretty well try that
hitler was at least in part, inspired by the writings that anti semites anti semitic writings of Henry ford yeah. He was a huge fan
square dancing it. You could call it an obsession it essentially here. Let's verse
very weird he's. He met his wife at a square dance and apparently he thought that that was the end I'll be all of of rural american life that that was a perfect past time, a perfect symbol.
Everybody should be in the square dancing I mean nothing.
Swear, dancing among knockings, where dancing just to be click. Ok, get on
he so that those about to
He was also big time into soy, like
he apparently some of the early model, tease their knobs,
Stuff are made out of basically a soy plastic. He ate soy as much as it could
he seemed to have kind of fallen in the footsteps of the kellogg brothers. A little bit. I get the that's for sure. He was that kind of old timey vegetarian cook yeah exactly
but he also had some
business acumen was just in saint, like he wasn't just a businessman. He wasn't it.
austria. This guy was a titan of industry.
Is he made the industry himself essentially in what he was responsible for in part,
was the assembly line, but also may not have come up with that
Buddy really adopted something called vertical integration, yeah
that's the idea was say: let's say your building cars like oh well, I want to make
I own tyres instead of buying them from firestone. So on a start
He, my irish and
Well, I want my own rubber, then, to make these sires like
I pay somebody for rubber if enemy, making only sires for myself in these cars, and so that's what inspired the
the four landy is like.
go where the rubber is and by a planned and start nino milk. In these
trees, you don't milk, rubber trees, probably milky tap on tap a match,
and tat these rubber trees and then a basically what you're too.
you do is control control, the entire
supply chain, by owning it
from the bottom up right in which means like buying coal mines to to fuel the,
organization process of hardening rubber by.
railroads to deliver the call to the factories like now like owning every aspect of what you need to produce your final product. That
what he was into that vertical integration, unlike
said, I mean that is why he ended up in brazil. Dino it
and, if, like tighten of industry, have to be for someone to come in and say I tell you what
No one is right. Now the shipping costs and the railroads and he's like wallets by the railroad, then yeah I mean it makes
and most people might even think about it, but you can actually do it the exactly
This idea, though, of buildings
and as you'll see it was much more than let's go to the
amazon and by some land and grow rubber. It was for him.
It seems like even more so like. Let's
down there and build is utopian society that I dream of, where people squared hats and oh and drinks, and curses and stuff like that,
But this wasn't a brand new thing for him in nineteen twenty one he tried it.
a similar thing in northern alabama,
near muscle, shawls, and seventy five mile stretch of of land where there were some sort of abandoned facilities were to nitrate facilities from world war one, and there was a
construction and, while partial construction of the wilson dam- and he said you know it
let's move there, let's restart those projects and get people
work in and kind of found, a new like in society,
they are basically where no one was living. He offered five,
they and bugs to lease the damn. I guess to the government in a lot of you
the government weren't down with it and eventually just gonna, fell apart.
Personally, I was just one senator from Alabama who really posed it yeah and you are not everyone knows he here. Yes,
the tradition, apparently the senator goddamn
threats from people in alabama, not just in the muscle shoals area, but
all over alabama, they had mobilized to start feed
this million million person workforce that Henry was going to like, like they changed every
They were doing inserted a ramp up production and in anticipation of this
and this one senator got in the way and said no
being too sweet a deal and he killed it and he killed it enough that Henry ford was like fine I'll, just go somewhere
else and the guy started getting death threats. Apparently he made a visit, muscle, shawls and head
I have armed bodyguards with him because he was hin damaging.
danger that many people are that mad at them holy cow, alright, so we've covered forward. He was a strange man. He's an anti semite he's a tie.
of industry, and now we got a cover. The rubber part of this
now, where the rubber meets road, but where the rubber meets upon guest, a man that was the saddest little
for anti grown I've ever heard at EU citizens,
interior. I'm I know you couldn't. I could tell you, couldn't even help it boy like
There is no way that you're gonna die before me, but if you happen to her, I feel like I've
just in another you're, not gonna, have an open, gasket funeral either. But let's say you did, I feel, like
go and lean over your body and tell you how great it was working with the others years, and you would make that same sounding.
You sound like an open casket funeral. Do you know something? I don't
I thought you were gonna like either being shot
began entered, cremated and scattered, or sky burial or somethin.
So that's so. Oh no,
I don't know what I'm gonna do yet, but I could ever open cask irregularly cremated after everybody's, like hey good, then I returned
see later good mercer. I don't know who you are but way to go.
that's what I expect people to say have been swift
so the world is being industrialized in the early twentyth century. In the nineteenth century, rubber became a very big deal. Rubber is a product of south america originally and
the amazon region, had a lotta rubber trees down there, so they were like the dominant player arbour, trees down. There grew
sort of where they wanted to grow. It wasn't like a plantation cropper, something like that, but it
we grew and so along the amazon. They were building little cities and stuff to support that industry. For many many years gathered
but a lot of effort into legs
pouring this rubber trade in brazil was like the basin.
The only player on the market, that's where the river trees were, and if you want a rubber, that's where he had to go, because we don't have synthetic rubber. Yet yes, so somebody some
writ, I dont remember. We ve talked about it before the door. Remember what episode? Maybe
It went on rubber, I'm not sure, but a bridge said hey
you know, sri lanka has a very similar climate.
you the amazon, maybe those rubber
these will grow there and not only to the rubber trees grow there. The rubber trees had no natural pests or enemies, sure most predators pair
yeah, all those things that had none of them. I should say I'm so those things flourished like
crazy in sri lanka and other parts of a central southeast asia that right, not central asia, yeah and at that
really put a dent in the rubber economy in Brazil kind asked it. Basically,
and following that nineteen, twenty two, the stevenson plan in Britain said basically said hey,
If you're a french planter or british planter in one of our asian colonies, you can restrict the supply of rubber. You can create
false market, basically to raise the rubber price
all around the world into all of a sudden,
amerika was goin were being squeezed here by the stevenson plan right. So at the time secretary of commerce herbert hoover global tuneful steps up
says, are we gotta get some rubber going on our own now and develop our supply chain. So go do it in writing.
twenty four he sinner,
the commission down to brazil to look again
and once again in the amazon and see if they can bring the amazon back and make it a player again
that's what they tragedy.
they were. It was basically like which
and he would go there in which companies would go elsewhere. I think good year ended up going somewhere else. Firestone ended up going somewhere else. They went to Liberia didier, went to the philippines. In sumatra, but ford was still,
I want to make my own tyres on- don't want buy from those guys. So there's like why don't we do it? Yeah here
So so I get the impression after researching this that,
getting rubber to make his own tyres was almost a pretext for him that he that's what he knew
did, you tell people as what he needs to spend ford motor company money on board.
Really wanted to do was to basically team the amazon, yes to a making scarecrow dollar.
Place. Your civilized the people of the amazon, the abyss.
it turned them into rural midwestern americans with square dancing on their mind all the time right now, so that's really what he wanted to do. He didn't even care if he made money didn't care if he lost tons of money. He wanted to make this this utopian society
We in the amazon was ass, great, a places any because it was so
the challenge and also, if
but to sumatra, or he went to the philippines like these. This was a different place like
there are also other colonial powers there. The amazon was right because everybody went somewhere else and affords
I'm going there here and there
We would like you to come here because Henry ford was like you said he was a business magnet
he was a world wide. Well, no name, basically, a celebrity all around the world and it
in Brazil there like listen. We we need someone like Henry ford here to kind of put his back on the map rubber, wise, and so they they basically said. Hey, listen will
give you land. If you come over here and and start your rubber boots,
this year and that's what they did in nineteen twenty seven they got. The ford motor company got a gift
two and a half million acres,
alongside the topmost river and he said,
Here's the deal made a deal with the government there after twelve years. I could get give yourself a dozen years to get down,
and then you can start paying brazil, seven percent and then two percent to the local governments.
I don't know why they kept it at nine percent. You know that was ten and ford talked him down like a percentage point or something yeah. Probably they got some kick
bags about a hundred twenty five grand kickbacks to make it happen between people who sorted nego,
created hated the deal which really made for matches as
a guy who was square dancing, doesn't like kickbacks. You know what I'm saying no and one hundred and twenty five grand and kickbacks in nineteen. Twenty seven is two point
seven million dollars today my money, one point: seven, oh nine million pounds and
I'm point nine seven, one million euros yeah, which he might have thought this very thorough work,
You called me for not having the euro and arisen before I would lay I prepared today.
I have been a little rankled because he might have thought he could have paid less for two and a half million acres there,
I don't know, I think it would have been a part of it
you it on the head. He was a square dancer nets, so that was his par for the course. Apparently. I think it's change dramatically since
yeah. I know what you're saying about his like his desire was more to make that thing. There's a quote where he said his was his does
I was not to make money but to develop that wonderful and fertile land. Yes, the very core
but I was searching for was making that point, but couldn't thank you gazette yeah. He that's what he wanted to do better
whereas foreboded companies concerned like
we're going down there to start up a rubber plantation make their own rubber to make their own tyres part of the vertical integration plan, and so there were there,
not another. Everybody was on board with this year, because anybody who knew anything
but the rubber market said: hey that stevenson plan that the brits enacted-
eighteen twenty two they shot themselves in the foot there they kept from ex
morning rubber to try to artificially influence prices, but the dutch
didn't go along with it and they undercut the brits and now the dutch control most of the american market and their selling it perfectly reasonable
ices, we don't actually need to set up our own rubber again taken and they said further
we're going down to the amazon and he made it happen. He did August nineteen twenty eight. He started shipping stuff down to Brazil
the problem initially and boy. There were a lot of problems, but let's go
this problem number one nokia, they chose a sigh,
its high up an elevation cause. They don't want to be involved and flooding, which sort of make sense, sir
it was so far inland that these steamer ships pulling these barges taking all these supplies
dude literally builded city. Essentially they they couldn't get down these
these shallow rivers, so they took
ever took like over like,
over a year, but me no nine to ten months for the supplies to finally get. There said
hi, mind from the beginning with super slow. Yes,
they finally dig it there and in early nineteen, twenty nine in the steamer captain who well was the captain of the steamer ship that pulled the bar
Supplies down their initially was
this man named einer oxen
he is a really great example of ford
and ford motor company idea that if you are competent, one thing you can be,
competent anything I saw described as a basically corporate wide, arrogant up
Madame and tracked. You could just get in there and get things done if you're, smart person and you applied scientific principles, you could do anything so he appointed honoured axel, as
manager of this plantation and settlement decision
the fears and yet the same ship captain is now running the entire showdown there now yeah. He had no experience at all
in anything like this, but, like you said for thought, he's a good guy
I, like the cut of his jib. Have you seen him actually seen him square dance right exactly
get this guy some clog issues or what I didn't even know, what those are called, which we gotta do a square dance hall, yeah they're called clogs. I think they're gonna be so mad at us with the square dancers
yeah, I dunno man, maybe we'll find out. It's actually super interesting and cool.
do a on it, but I'm saying we're gonna get emails, but then
email, you're gonna, get from a square dancer is maybe how dare you and that's where its is kept here in all caps.
so awesome hired a bunch of locals. Obviously they cleared out the jungle they started, setting up their buildings,
the initial name of the community was boa vista
I can tell by the name of the title it was eventually renamed before Landa. This would be a great movie
This has been a movie at surprising. I say that lot, but nothing in this case. It would perhaps be pretty good,
be unlike the spirit of
road to well ville area totally.
Look, I'm so they're down their working. These locals literally to death. At times disease was killing a lot of them
out of these will see. There are a lot of these workers would revolt, given the working conditions for
immerse reasons it will will hit on, but there were there were a number of riots over the period of time that they try to get portlandia landy up off the ground, and you know
things were going very slow supporters, like you know what the word tearing down this for us when we leave
this would and we can make a little scratch
but no one wanted it. So there was no market for the
that wasn't anything that can it went down the tube. What else out everything else? Basically, they think
I don't understand why, if you believe in applying scientific principles and all that to get something done, they didn't higher an aggregate, honest agronomist, the guns
I think I found they had a, but they didn't higher anybody who had any experience with plants. They hired ford motor
many executives who had been
working in dearborn michigan.
go down and make this thing happen like again arrogant optimism that thing
guys could do this, even though they knew nothing about plants, a rubber plants, and there were just immediately start to come back and bite them yeah they didn't.
like. Oh, I dunno plant trees,
wrong time. Plant trees in the wrong places. Nothing
They did seem to work as far as the the botany angle goes in the biology angle goes the trees,
like, I said earlier. The rubber trees are now
The growth in the amazon, but he was like you wanted to set up like the painting
install thing where that you just had these huge plot
rubber trees as a monoculture which they,
success we did in asia, where they didn't have as enemies right like he retorted mothers pests, so it flourish there
in south america, as Libya puts it, it was like an all. You can eat parfait for these past. That was bad.
then at one point visit, oh here's. What will do what was introduced these ants, these salver ants cause? They either
caterpillars that are killing our rubber treason, so the
introduce all these ants and the answer like me, you know it tastes better than
caterpillar rubber trees.
so they literally introduced a new pest on top of all that exactly
They dislike waiver like the caterpillars, they walk past, while they are both meaning the rubber tree, and they said you know a teaspoon
in rubber trees, clogging shoes
it's better than clogging shoes, sour ants wait: clogging zero
freelancing someone's going to call us out on that. That's fine doesn't matter! The point is that silva answer. One of the few species of insects that are and are
parent and served as food, because their tasty not for the approach
come at waste see I get your job now yeah thing about you,
to be intriguing. No, no! It's true! They too,
I was, but it is also true yet cheeky with a point which is his sort of your money.
yeah that's an album name right there right, so the squeeze album. I think they that's a great great one and they say oh yeah, salva ants tasting the tasting
the ginger lemongrass even harder- and you can
serve them on raw pineapple and they taste amazing. Apparently it really pops the trainers. I don't know if the any of the
executives, our workers and fourthly, india knew this. I'm guessing the workers probably did, and I wonder how many ants were eaten right cause. They were so tasty, but not in the way it did
to get rid of the caterpillars. Let's just one of
so many examples of them just trying something
seems like it would work but
only ending up, demonstrating their complete and total ignorance of this event
So things are going well in september of twenty nine afford sit down a troubleshooter to get around
or like what's going on, and there really and he came back and said, there's a quote complete,
lack of organization. The minister
agriculture in Brazil thinks Henry ford is crazy and a quote at present. It's like dropping money into a sewer the end.
so things are not going well chuck. Do you want to take a break in come back and talk about how things continued not go? Well. Yeah, ok,
in a world where modern technology is rapidly reshaping our day to day lives. The newport cast, technically speaking, and until I cast uncovers the remarkable ways tat is improving our livelihood across the globe, brought you buy Ruby studios from my heart media in partnership with intel. Technically speaking, is your passport to the forefront of hiv marbles and modern technology. Each episode will take you on a riveting journey, as you discover the on sparring innovations of our modern world from game, changing innovations, revolutionizing early cancer detection, to a software that the text, pests on crops that can be detrimental to seasonal yields, tuna for conversations that are shaping tomorrow
today, listen to technically speaking, an entire podcast on thy heart, radio, app apple pie casts or wherever you get. Your pipe casts so
things are not going very well for ford motor company down in brazil, but dislike with his workers in michigan for did fulfil his problem,
as to the workers in the amazon in Brazil that he
take care of them in exchange for them. Trying to act
it's like rural, mid westerners, pretend to like square dancing, so they built hospitals. They built a really great cutting edge hospital right there. In the middle of the amazon, they erected a water tower, which was the highest structure, the tallest, strict
amazon for quite a while. They installed swimming pools and golf courses.
There were generators that produce electricity. There saw mills like they created the city and they also in like added prefab houses for the workers to live in. The thing is
like all this stuff was delivered to them was given to the to the workers in exchange for their labour, but also their paid some, like thirty five cents a day.
which is better than the slave labor. They were engaged in before. But the thing is, I think, the ford motor executives were. It is expected that the brazilians to say
thank you for for giving us running water even will do anything. You want
He found over time. It will see time time again that now that the people of amazon have a tremendous amount of power
and they're not willingly can a roll over for somebody like henry ford or his incompetent boobs from Dearborn yeah.
It was us it's also. We should point out
it wasn't. It was segregated still bright, like the view
america, which was the the neighbourhood with a swimming pool on the golf course in the tennis court and all that stuff. That was for the? U s: staff in there,
emily's. They did have running water, the brazilian workers. I think they could use the pool and stuff like that
but they had their accounts,
Since the word is good, they had well water, they
add to live in these, and this is again just thinking you can just transplant amid
turn american city and drop it in brazil. It doesn't work because
A had their homes traditionally built off the ground with that's routes to keep it cool.
Reform, built iron, roofed square duplexes that were steaming hot said here, eat this food.
That we eat, eat this whole wheat, bread and eat this canned fruit and
we're getting my stomach aches and they were getting sick because you
it is going to radically change of cultures.
I had overnight either the micro biomass is not like that, so they
swear it answers, though they really did. They did have skirt answers like out, not only that they also head I'm readings of white women and other american poets that were pre industry.
Translated into portuguese
He said. No, no! You can't drink just like our workers in dearborn. They said no, no, we're not going to listen to you,
and so that one net didn't stick, but apparently there was square dancing like you said, the the
the problems that were not so much like the house,
this is being too hot or the square
sing being distant non. Never ending. It was things like really instituting
american ideas like eight hour, ten, are probably ten or twelve our work day, yeah among
workers and that's not how they worked before they they would take
time off during the hardest part of the day, traditionally
when it was the rainy season. They would work lesson as drier season. They would work more. This is not what for it expected them to do so. There are cultural clashes like right over there.
eight and you're other than
even ask what the with the problem lies with the brazilians the people of the amazon, the ford motor executives to six.
then the fall line into acquiescent. Just do what form was telling them to do
yeah and then just little things like the many.
The brazilians, would sleep in hammocks,
every night and all of a sudden therein beds which isn't the same
You would think only get a bed instead of a hammock, but if you're you're not used to it, that's like throwing us in a hammock, although some people see braden hammocks kidnapping,
today, I think it was an interview and nineteen. Ninety four in the south florida son sentinel with a doktor from that house,
of doktor emirate, oh boy, I'm so glad tried, I'm gonna say since the lag e k,
she's when a word when an aim starts with s. Z here in trouble rather gave her
but there was a you know, a nineteen eighty four interview with him. He ran a hospice,
for three years and he was like listen. We would put them in these
hospital beds theories to hammocks and we will come back and they had like cut them.
actresses open and dug holes in that centre. So they could have that sort of hammock curve in their beds. Yet they bite me
wives to deliver their babies and he even emitted. We withheld food from these pregnant women and then too,
they agreed to go to a hospital and have a nurse. Do it right so so
ford mind like like giving you guys cutting edge hospital equipment and in medical care, but you have to x,
exactly the way they were presenting it right and not just the man
care, but everything just the very existence as a worker in fourthly, india, you had to accept it as it was being present. There was no.
Acting the local traditions, local area, climate, local, anything, yet
It was so that any time somebody's taking something from somewhere else and is rigid,
Lee refusing to adapted to this new environment. Nothing is going to fail. I can't think of a single project,
has succeeded in that. In that respect, maybe
we start living in space
like on the moon or something like that that would qualify.
maybe the ices qualifies in that sense.
its submarine that people live on that would qualified to write
all sorts of ones that actually qualify but
in this land on a planet, or in this case it did not work because they were.
rigid and they would not adapt to local conditions.
it was, it was a man crazed with an idea and that's never
That never leads to success. It seems like, as they're usually like you said,
rigid in non conforming, and this is no way to run an operation right, exactly so sweet
not running an operation oxen left in nineteen thirty
is the original ship captain and then manager of the whole thing he told
the detroit news. It was the hardest proposition. I were tackled in my life
couple of other guys cycled through pretty quickly in that position and
I started getting more and more heated and these sort of you now talk about the right.
broke out. They became more frequent and more serious yeah one
the problems was these the executives didn't even speak portuguese. They would just sit there and like boss around the the the brazilian workers in english yeah and expect them to do
but they were saying and expect them to understand what they were saying. One of the things that really that's there's a couple:
If there's a fourthly indian, the thing that ended the first chapter was strangely
transition from table table service. You cafeteria seeding right where you
sit at the table and somebody come over many food too.
effort, aerial line, type of rude service right and understand.
hot sun for your food exactly and they did not like that. They ended up getting very hot and getting very angry and very hungry hanging
You can even say hot hungry in amazon is not a good combination,
tensions rarity high among the workers from having to to to do this now and apply
at a
A man named men well K, K, tonneau debases who was a brick mason. Fourthly, india said something to cause austin
I'll do is afford supervisor. Fourthly, india about the new cafeteria plan in Austin fell just basically
after, to hasten his face bright and not only to the upset the faces. It upset
upset it is Co. Workers who were around too
in very short order. They started writing yeah. They like guess what we have machetes erected
if materia they wrecked the generators they wrecked a lot of the equipment and the buildings, the residential buildings- and this is the best part and I loved that livia dug this out. They
this sort of like in office space with that copier
They put a real herndon on those time, clocks, yeah that they were punch in every day.
ended up actually occupying for lay india for three days, because apparently the ford executives head fast boats,
hidden along the river for just such an emergency and they fled. So the workers took,
over four lay indian occupied it and the ford motor company
executives were friends with one trip or who
is the president a pan am who said sure we'll charter a few of our
That's and get some of the brazilian military and though to suppress this this rebellion, and they did after
three days the workers gave up peacefully and left there
because they were fired apparently, for
paid them up to december. Twenty second, which was the beginning of the writing day.
You're fired on christmas day. I believe and that
it was the end of the first chapter. Four lane is kinda fell into this
use momentarily, but in very short order. Ford sent another guy, and this guy was the best manager
Thirdly, India ever saw zoom is was archibald Johnston. He was a scotsman, yeah yeah he came in. He said we need road, sweeney pave roads, we need it.
All this stuff. In the wit he built more houses. He built a movie theater. He built a dance all because he had had the square dance, india, basically just kind of
movement on mass to everything. The hospitals. Schools are living conditions in everything he said: hey worker set up a garden.
But you should also still adopt this diet and grow the things that Henry ford says. You should eat and grow right, but the thing about Johnston, the more
There's call him the white tiger because he was
He got there and he was like ok. I can make this work and he did he adapted to the local situation he was
he was willing to understand
where the brazilians were coming from, where the workers coming from. He was less rigid as far as world midwestern expect.
nations were concerned rain. He was a success as a result, and I think he showed up in nineteen
We won, I believe, is when he took over and he was there for several years and
her his his oversee ship overseership, his oversight,
watch have finally finally ford hires a plant person, not even a not even like a botanist. It was a plant pathologist who is good, with figuring out what things that are plaguing.
plants but they're, not a surly good it getting plantations going, but they hired at least somebody who knew what they are talking about with plants named james, we're the the yard, someone who knew plant that was his basic
the guy you James, we are like he said, and you know- and this was because you know they had the city.
Knowing the rebuilding this town, but though,
also the rubber operation that we kind of me no forget about at times in this crazy story there.
maybe we should actually start again beginner getting there, the rubber growing. So
but he aware came in and he tried some new methods
didn't work out too well, and he said you know
Did you really? This is good.
bridge area. Now, because of everything that we ve done to it.
What we really need is to start over an area close by so nineteen
thirty. Four
reform, managed to work out a land swap
partial about eighty miles down stream, where they built
You plantation, called bell terror in this actually produce
some rubber. They brought in some, though successful trees from asia and
they grew, I believe they kept out about twenty
at hundred employees compared to ford landy is
or five hundred, so things
doing better, but they still
get their max in nineteen. Forty two. They produce seven hundred and fifty tonnes of latex.
Which sounds like a lot, but apparently that was just like a drop in the bucket right of what ford needed for their tyre. So, even though, was more successful, it still didn't satisfy what they wanted, or were they
from the beginning and a kind of add insult to injury to all the people who you know donated blood,
sweat and tears, and sometimes their lives to getting ford's rubber produced food
gave up on the idea of making its own tyres that same year they started guinea.
rubber from the rubber trees down in brazil, the trade.
So the ford where he is
You don't have the impression that he ever made it down there. I
like in person. I dont believe he ever did, but he he kind of
ended up getting a little distracted from his company. He
set up, a museum of like rural life,
an ode to whirl pre industrial american life that you can still go to the day. It's called greenfield. It's in dearborn. He just
He was, he got less interested in the company in so his son became president. I think all the way back in ninety nine nineteen ed's afford, but the Henry ford
his son. Resist a figurehead, apparently at one executive board meeting as afford said that he was
favor of adding hydraulic breaks to the cars in Henry ford jumped to,
said Ethel, you shut up in
in the corner board meeting and he's the president afford. So
with a lot, but he was like
need to sell this as early as nineteen, thirty five, he was looking for buyers. The problem is, everybody knew the kind of problems
where was having down in brazil
yet no one to no one wanted it here on a blame of niger,
forty three is when it's died, those
bit of a power struggle, but eventually Henry ford. The second who was in grandson, came on board and nineteen forty five,
I was president and kind of started
The house in the company and in
operation in the company that wasn't doing well went away, and this informed lady was canada, tops on the list basically and they managed to sell it back to the brazilian government.
Right after all those years with that, at a loss with all the all the land and all the improvements brazilian government should sure. Why not we'll take it back, exactly
the brazilian turned into a cattle ranch? Mrs is a bit ironic because Henry ford was famous for heating. Cows
I don't know if we touched upon that at the very outset, weren't homer, how weary is by he hated cows,
didn't like horses either, but he really hated cows, and that makes exile for
death even more ironic to because Ed's afford got ulcers
and his father insisted that he drink some on pasteurized milk from one of henry ford farms,
the bugs in the milk killed exile in nineteen forty three yeah, his own father,
passing around making him drink on pasteurized milk, from a cow that he didn't even like, killed his son. That's how heads went, but he hated cows before that right.
He he grew up on a farm. So as much as he ideal.
as rural life. He couldn't stand farm animals. You know what I love
square dancing, exact note. I hate cow here they are
the hay that he used to square dance on. So he didn't like them. I'm looking at you
DR henry ford now and I'm trying to think of who would play him,
today, I am rockwell samara
play everybody hate that that would.
he too bad you that the age up a little bit, but that that's not a bad idea,
You know a movie. I keep going back to their. I just I can
I could almost any time I get the notion I am the pretty.
lives in the house, the osgood perkins movie. I didn't see that
definitely told you about a multiple times. They need to put it towards the top. Your list
Why will you tell me about the devils
his other movie. What was it about? The girls in the other blackouts daughter, thereby could start irrelevancy nanny there now,
I saw it and I didn't like it for like a year, you knew. What would the good thing about me is. I forget very quick right, so I'm not mad anymore. No! This is. This is much much different than the black coats daughter. Much do I have to check that out. Yeah, it's it's a it's! A cozy cozy haunted house story the same rockwell in it. No, I was just thinking about that movie. Gharial
to blame too. He he does that aged up thing, chameleon thing pretty what about harrison ford they have to age him down the left. Harrison ford! Don't like the aging. I thought they did a good job from the trailers.
Did you see oppenheimer? Yet? No, I haven't yet gary omen pops up in that yeah. I heard a lot of people do
Have you seen barbie going tonight? It's great care.
Well gee forgot to tell me anything else about it, but I heard it already hit a billion dollars. Well, it's capital g, great, and it's about barbie. Okay, don't tell me anything else, though. Please you know who plays barbie. She.
yes, you know, I mean you know, of course. Why are you telling me more stuff about barbie, though, when I have very clearly asked you not to? I just wondered if, like saying things like it's about, barbie was too much
yes, it is that's what I'm saying I like to go in totally fresh
I won't idly answer. It's called barbie, but it's about in report.
a new place, Henry ford who say morocco, mark margo, roby, a very nice squadrons for me
As all very unexpected
I will ask why this up so
rubber synthetic rubber,
comes along
breathing changes the
Her is not as useful as it was before. It is from here or zero. That's right, pretty quickly,
and fourthly, any though parts afford land area
still there. It is now what's known, ass, sort of why
see abandon city because there were a few hunt
people that live there for a few decades, but in twenty sixteen
There was a writer for the guardian who went down data to report and they are now like several
some people who now moved it
into portlandia- and
live there working with the gibson right yeah. There is really high quality, gypsum d.
This discovered shortly after ford laughed, and so these people like support them.
I know your mind themselves. So yes, if you like to do,
the people of amerika. You know the story. I go for landing and bell terror. These abandoned failed in of cities that ford tried.
You ask people in Brazil is like nobel terror and fourthly, india, our cities in paris, state in brazil like there they ve been in here.
Did this entire time and they still are so there.
abandoned by ford, but not brazil yeah. But you can look up pictures today for lady it there
we're still warehouses that water tower, I think, is still standing right. Yes,
think it might be operating out here, but it is
definitely interesting to see whether the remnants of this place that it's this is gonna, be moving one
don't get just put Margot robbie roby in it and your golden. Ok, you anything else. I
I don't think I have anything else, sir. I don't either chuck Wilson
that mention margo Roby again he unlocked listener mail.
That's right, but instead of listener male. We would love to talk very briefly about our kids book
that is now available for purchase yeah yeah. What stephen? Yes,
What we did with macmillan publishing is, as we took our book for adults network, is triple x or need, and we can
fight it. You know we took out some stuff, some of the chapters it shouldn't, be there we added some stuff.
We re wrote some things to make a little more kid friendly, and what we ended up with was what I think is a great kids book
dynamo book for young readers that
it's available now, given for your kids? It's there
great everyone, a macmillan, was so wonderful. The work whether sir
and it makes a great christmas gift or birthday gift or stocking stuffer is called stuff
kids should know by you and I and our nobody knows parker who helped us right, the snake? Yes, so where can I get a chance
and get it everywhere. You know our advice is always to seek out a local bookseller and support you.
bookstores in and get when they're they're all over the place. It regular bookstores, kids bookstores, but
Iraq and you're going to hit one of these books, probably yeah
If you had ever the rocky at the buyer, scared foolishly-
well. That was a very good idea check. So everybody, I hope. If you go out and get our book, you enjoy it thoroughly and you can. Let us know what you think about it: the email you can send those emails to stuff pod cast an eye heart radio,
stuff, you should know, is the production of I heard radio for more podcast.
My heart radio visit thy heart radioactive apple had passed
You listen to your favorite shows you can pick up a bad or tennis racket, or maybe you take to the track. One laugh at a time.
Being active, is all up to you and the journey is only worth it if you enjoy it. That's why michelob?
ultra bruce allied larger for those who live life to the fullest, with only two point: six cards and ninety five calories, michelob ultra
Michelob, ultra dot com to learn more waste in your response must be twenty one or of an heizer bush michelob ultra light here, Saint Louis Missouri
Transcript generated on 2023-11-13.