Fordlandia

[Travelover]

Anybody ever heard of Fordlandia?

It seems that in 1929 Henry Ford invested a billion dollars (2011 dollars) to build a rubber tree plantation in the middle of the Amazon. He built it like a little American town with a hospital, school, worker's houses, and paved roads.

Bottom line, never shipped a pound of latex. Workers got tired of his social engineering, including forced square dancing, and revolted - management hid out on a boat until the army showed up. Trees did not grow and suffered blight.

"Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City"

Fordl穗dia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[tnjind]

I have read that before.

 

[JDgreen227]

Anybody ever heard of Fordlandia?

It seems that in 1929 Henry Ford invested a billion dollars (2011 dollars) to build a rubber tree plantation in the middle of the Amazon. He built it like a little American town with a hospital, school, worker's houses, and paved roads.

Bottom line, never shipped a pound of latex. Workers got tired of his social engineering, including forced square dancing, and revolted - management hid out on a boat until the army showed up. Trees did not grow and suffered blight.

"Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City"

Fordl穗dia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If I recall correctly, Michigan History magazine had an article about it in the past.

 

[300UGUY]

Henry Ford did a lot of experimental things. Here in southern Michigan, he created a series of small, rural component plants, with the idea that his workers could work their farms and work in his small factories. Many were powered by water wheels. One that I know of was a converted grist mill. There was some social engineering going on, but also he wanted to keep the unions out. I think the Michigan winters doomed his decentralized factory idea, but some survived until quite recently, the Northville Valve plant being the last I know of. Seems that the whole industry has gone from large plants to small & back several times. Now everything favors the large plant.

 

[tallyho8]

And among other things, did you know that he invented charcoal? Henry Ford created the charcoal briquette from the wood scraps and sawdust from his car factory. E.G. Kingsford bought the invention and put the charcoal briquette into commercial production.

Old cars used to have quite a bit of wood in them as can be seen in this photo of our old 1926 Franklin.

 

[Mace Canute]

And among other things, did you know that he invented charcoal? Henry Ford created the charcoal briquette from the wood scraps and sawdust from his car factory. E.G. Kingsford bought the invention and put the charcoal briquette into commercial production.

Old cars used to have quite a bit of wood in them as can be seen in this photo of our old 1926 Franklin.

Google is your friend.

The first recorded use of charcoal comes from the black pigment used in European cave paintings dating from around 32,000 years ago. It is not known whether this charcoal was produced deliberately.

The charcoal briquette was first invented and patented by Ellsworth B. A. Zwoyer of Pennsylvania in 1897 and was produced by the Zwoyer Fuel Company. The process was further popularized by Henry Ford, who used wood and sawdust byproducts from automobile fabrication as a feedstock. Ford Charcoal went on to become the Kingsford Company.

 

[Western]

I watched a show on either the History or Discovery channel about that town. There are still a few of the buildings and some old machinery there.

 

[Taylortractornut]

Muscle Shoals Alabama had a Ford plant out towards the old Reynolds plant. They bought up a ton of land out from it Known as Ford City. I think it had a few houses it all farm land now. Its funny to see a side walk out in a corn field. THey even had precast porch and steps in place to. It was discontinued as Ford was insulted that TVA wouldnt sell the rights to the dam to make his own power. I think the casting plant closed in the 80's and old man the works for me used to be incharge of all the fencing out there.


Look at RG LeTourneau. He built plants in Toccoa Georgia Like that developed the whole town to his specs and had super modern looking building on the mountain. Then he sent alot of his machines to Liberia to start the town of Tournata, and als o one in Peru called TournaVista. He even built machines called TournaLayers that had the power unit of one of his Tournapull scrapers with a set of draft arms holding a set of forms that contained premade conduit and frames and when driven to a site could suat down and make a house.Tournavista Transfers