Folklore: Fordlandia--HENRY FORD'S Amazon Utopia

Subject: Folklore: Fordlandia--HENRY FORD'S Amazon Utopia
From: open mike
Date: 30 Sep 09 - 06:01 PM

I love how a song can teach you a lesson. I just heard a song by
Kate Campbell about Fordlandia, and had to look up more.
Lyrics of the song is included here.

http://www.damninteresting.com/the-ruins-of-fordlandia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordl%C3%A2ndia

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105068620

http://www.katecampbell.com/ is the artist who sings this...she wrote it with Walt Aldridge , Fordlandia is off of her Save The Day c.d.

FORDLANDIA

One day Henry Ford went down
Built his very own new town
Only one for miles around
In the middle of the Amazon
Hospitals and factories
A quarter-million rubber trees
Gonna beat that European squeeze
And raise his bottom line

Fordlandia still standing there
In the jungle air
In the middle of nowhere
Some dreams die hard
Some notions are
Like the city of Fordlandia

A church, a school and a butcher shop
But they never got a single crop
The whole thing was a giant flop
From the day he thought it up
How could anybody know
You can't plant rubber trees in a row
They need a little space to grow
If your gonna send some tires back home

Fordlandia still standing there
In the jungle air
In the middle of nowhere
Some dreams die hard
Some notions are
Like the city of Fordlandia

Speaking now in Ford's defense
Sometimes things make perfect sense
The best laid plans of mice and men
Will often go astray
All of history's greatest minds
Dared to lay it on the line
They came up short a couple of times
Before they made the Model "T"

Fordlandia still standing there
In the jungle air
In the middle of nowhere
Some dreams die hard
Some notions are
Like the city of Fordlandia

By Kate Campbell & Walt Aldridge
© 2006 Large River Music (BMI) / Sony ATV Music

Subject: RE: Folklore: Fordlandia--HENRY FORD'S Amazon Utopia
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 Oct 09 - 12:28 AM

It's amazing to see that there's a song about Ford's Amazon project. My grandfather was involved in it somehow, when he worked for Henry as an engineer. Family fable has it that Grandpa turned down the opportunity to move to the Amazon for a long-term assignment, but I don't know if he got there at all. I think Grandpa worked on the project in a laboratory in Dearborn, Michigan. This is all my grandfather wrote about it:

During one of Mr. Ford's visits at my desk the Brazil Rubber Plant job, which had been engineered at the Rouge Plant, was dropped into my lap by Mr. Ford. He explained that he thought my past experience fitted me for the job but I guess he figured that here was the easiest and quietest place to get his hand right in on the detailed development of one of his own jobs again.

This was sometime in the mid-1920's. Grandpa was an excellent engineer, but kind of cryptic as a writer. My dad is the same - and then I ended up writing investigative and intelligence reports for a living.
But anyhow, it's interesting to see mention of the Amazon project.

-Joe-

P.S. Grandpa had worked for Henry as early as 1908. I have early blueprints of a Model T design, with my grandfather's initials on some of the changes. Oh, and Grandpa wrote that half of the laboratory building in Dearborn was reserved for square dances. This thread tells about the sad end of the space Ford built for dances.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Fordlandia--HENRY FORD'S Amazon Utopia
From: open mike
Date: 01 Oct 09 - 01:57 AM

the articles i read said that Square Dances were manditory in Brazil..for the plant employees both american and brazillian to attend. Some of the social customs enforced on the community were
difficult for the residents to comply with...such as abstinance
from drink and smoke. but there was definately a bldg. where dances
would be held....

too bad the botanical part never flourished...and that no botanists were employed to propagate the plants...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Fordlandia--HENRY FORD'S Amazon Utopia
From: open mike
Date: 10 Oct 09 - 02:20 PM

i will be playing this song on my radio show today. oct 10 2009 see thread on Open Mikes radio show for info, URL, etc.