PR: American Experience: Henry Ford on DVD Feb 19

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Release Date: February 15, 2013, 8:10 am
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This program presents a fascinating portrait of a farm boy who rose from obscurity to become one of the most influential American innovators of the 20th century. Through his own fierce determination, Ford created the Model T, the most successful car in history, and introduced the groundbreaking five-dollar-a-day wage, ushering in the modern world as we know it.

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American Experience: Henry Ford

PRESENTS A NEW LOOK AT THE MERCURIAL MAN WHO TRANSFORMED AMERICA

Available on DVD from PBS Distribution February 19th

DVD Release Timed with the 150th Anniversary of Ford's Birth, Which is in 2013



Arlington, Va. - January 10, 2013 - PBS Distribution today announced it is releasing American Experience: Henry Ford on DVD. This program presents a fascinating portrait of a farm boy who rose from obscurity to become one of the most influential American innovators of the 20th century. Through his own fierce determination, Ford created the Model T, the most successful car in history, and introduced the groundbreaking five-dollar-a-day wage, ushering in the modern world as we know it. But despite his success, Ford remained restless and driven, always seeking to control what lay just beyond his grasp. The creator of an urban, industrial age, Ford longed for the simpler era he had helped destroy. One of the nation's richest men, he despised the wealthy and blamed Jews for what he deemed society's degeneration. A hero to many ordinary Americans, he battled his workers and bullied those who looked up to him - including, and most tragically, his only son. Henry Ford will be available on DVD February 19, 2013. The program has a run time of 120 minutes. The DVD SRP is $24.99. The program will also be available for Digital Download. Directed by Sarah Colt, Henry Ford will premiere on AMERICAN EXPERIENCE on Tuesday, January 29, 2013 on PBS (check local listings).

Program Synopsis
Henry Ford was born on a Michigan farm in 1863 in the midst of the Civil War. A natural-born tinkerer who loved machines, he hated the drudgery of rural life, setting out as a 16-year-old to pursue his dreams in Detroit. For more than a decade, Ford worked long hours in one shop after another, forging a career as an expert machinist. But Ford's passion lay elsewhere - building a horseless carriage became his off-hours obsession. With his gas-powered vehicle he named the "quadricycle," he attracted the attention of investors and started his first company. Unlike most carmakers at the dawn of the industry who saw the automobile as a plaything for the rich, Ford believed he could build an affordable vehicle for working people. His vision ran counter to that of his backers and they pulled the plug on his company. Ford's lifelong hatred for the wealthy was born.

Ambitious and driven, Ford was undaunted. He set out to make a name for himself in the new and dangerous sport of racecar driving. After a series of highly publicized victories, in 1903 he was able to raise the money to incorporate the Ford Motor Company. Every few months, Ford introduced a new model. With Ford as their leader, his team experimented with innovative designs for igniting the engine and for a more flexible suspension system, and made use of steel that was lighter but tougher.

Finally, in October 1908, Henry Ford introduced his revolutionary Model T. Lightweight, durable and fast, the Model T could reach speeds of 40 miles per hour, and at a time when the average car cost more than $2,000, the Model T cost only $850. The response from the public was immediate and overwhelmingly positive.

With the unprecedented success of the Model T, Ford declared he would soon be producing 1,000 cars a day. Taking its cue from the meatpacking industry, Ford Motor adopted an assembly line method. Under the old system, the record time for building a Model T had been twelve hours and thirteen minutes. Using the assembly line process, it took an hour and 33 minutes. By the fall of 1913, Ford had established the first automobile assembly line in the world and controlled nearly half of the American car market.

But there was a downside to Ford's new production process. Many workers found it so monotonous and physically exhausting, they quit after just a few days. Company managers calculated that every time they wanted to add a hundred men to the rolls, they had to hire nearly a thousand. Desperate to retain his workforce, Ford responded with a revolutionary plan that would stun his employees and infuriate his rivals. In January 1914, he announced his company would double his workers' pay from $2.34 for a nine-hour day to $5 for just eight. Not only would his wage increase reduce turnover, Ford predicted, it would also increase business and propel a new generation of American workers into a shared life of abundance, leisure, and prosperity. Ford's announcement turned him into a national sensation overnight.

With his newfound celebrity, Ford made clear that his ambitions extended well beyond car manufacturing. Insisting that self-discipline had been critical to his success - he rose at dawn and exercised every day, didn't smoke, never drank and did not allow alcohol in his house - he expected the same from everyone around him. As one close associate observed, "cars are the
by-products of his real business, which is the making of men." Ford designed the five-dollar-a-day wage with strings attached. He required his immigrant workers, who represented as many as 53 nationalities, to attend the company's English language school and sent inspectors from his "Sociological Department" to probe into the most intimate corners of workers' lives. If a man failed inspection, he was given time to amend his ways and his additional wages were held for him. If he failed a second time, he was fired.

Although Ford was now one of the richest men in the world, his hatred for the wealthy elite only increased. Determined to rid himself of parasitic investors he had eschewed since early in his career, Ford carried out an elaborate plan to trick his stockholders and take full control of his company. With increased power, his ego expanded.

Battered by the press after his inarticulate performance on the stand during a libel trial he initiated against the Chicago Tribune in 1919, Ford became more certain of his allegiance to the common people of America - shopkeepers, village leaders, farmers. He purchased The Dearborn Independent, his hometown weekly, to share his incendiary ideas about Jews who he vilified as the power behind Wall Street, banks and the degeneration of society. He distributed the newspaper through his 2,000 dealerships to spread his vitriolic anti-Semitic articles nationwide. By 1926, circulation had reached 900,000.

Buying up hundreds of acres in Dearborn, where he and his wife Clara had settled, he set out to create what became one of the largest factories in the world, known as the River Rouge plant, a massive industrial complex that included 15 miles of roadways, 93 buildings, and consumed more water per day than Detroit, Cincinnati and New Orleans combined. No sooner was the Rouge plant complete than Ford began to hate it. He retreated into a world of nostalgia and created a monument to the past, a living museum he dubbed "Greenfield Village." Increasingly, Ford spent more time at the Village than overseeing his company, where a battle brewed between management and workers over unfair labor practices. Any lingering perceptions of Ford as a benevolent employer had vanished at the Rouge, which was run by Ford's thuggish and violent security chief, Harry Bennett.

Ford's all-encompassing desire for control was perhaps no more evident than in his relationship with his only son, Edsel. Although Ford made Edsel president of Ford Motor when his son was just 25, Henry never allowed Edsel to take the reins, undermining him at every turn. In the 1920s, when Edsel finally stood up to his father, insisting that the Model T needed to be replaced with a more modern car, Henry never forgave him. Henry's withering cruelty continued until Edsel died at 49 - a death many blamed on the unrelenting stress of trying to please his father. Shattered by Edsel's death, Henry Ford spent his final years a broken man.

An absorbing life story, Henry Ford also offers the long history of struggles between labor and management, a thought-provoking reminder of how Ford's automobile forever changed the way we work, where we live, and our ideas about individuality, freedom, and possibility.



About AMERICAN EXPERIENCE
Television's most-watched history series, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2013. The series has been hailed as "peerless" (Wall Street Journal), "the most consistently enriching program on television" (Chicago Tribune), and "a beacon of intelligence and purpose" (Houston Chronicle). On air and online, the series brings to life the incredible characters and epic stories that have shaped America's past and present. Acclaimed by viewers and critics alike, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE documentaries have been honored with every major broadcast award, including 30 Emmy Awards, four duPont-Columbia Awards, and 16 George Foster Peabody Awards, one most recently for the series represented by Freedom Riders, Triangle Fire, and Stonewall Uprising.

Exclusive corporate funding for AMERICAN EXPERIENCE is provided by Liberty Mutual Insurance. Major funding provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Major funding for Henry Ford provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor; and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Public Television Viewers. AMERICAN EXPERIENCE is produced for PBS by WGBH Boston.

About PBS Distribution
PBS Distribution is the leading media distributor for the public television community, both domestically and internationally, extending the reach of these programs beyond broadcast while generating revenue for the public television system and our production partners.

PBS Distribution offers a diverse range of programming to our customers, including Ken Burns's films, documentaries from award-winning series such as NOVA, FRONTLINE, AMERICAN MASTERS, NATURE, and AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, dramas from MASTERPIECE, as well as films from independent producers and popular children's programming. As a multi-channel distributor, PBS Distribution pursues wholesale/retail sales, consumer and educational sales through PBS-branded catalogs and online shops, and international broadcast and video sales. PBS Distribution is also a leader in offering programming through digital platforms including internet and mobile devices.

American Experience: Henry Ford
Street Date: February 19, 2013
Genre: Documentary
Run Time: 120 Minutes
SRP: $24.99
Format: DVD

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News Editor February 15, 2013, 8:10 am