GREAT DEPRESSION, THE: A JOB AT FORD'S {PART 1 OF 7} (TV)
Summary
One in this series of documentaries chronicling the Great Depression in the United States during the 1930s. These programs are supported by interviews with people who lived during this era, and archival footage and photographs of the major events of this period. This program, "A Job at Ford's," details the temporary economic boom which occurred in Detroit, Michigan, in the mid-1920s -- especially at the automotive plants of American industrialist Henry Ford -- and the subsequent high unemployment and abject poverty which devestated the "Motor City" and the rest of the nation by the summer of 1932.
Highlights include: comments from and footage of assembly line workers employed at Ford's Detroit "Rouge" plant during 1920s; recollections by workers and their children who assert that being a Ford employee was considered an honor at that time; footage of some of the 6,000 Model T Fords that were produced daily; the impact of the automobile's popularization on the nation, particularly in the farm belt; a description of the strict work rules that were enforced at the "Rouge"; how the compact between dynast Henry Ford and his workers began to unravel once Chrysler and GM began to emerge as strong competitors; footage of Fordlandia, a rubber plantation the size of Connecticut that the automobile magnate built in the Brazilian Rain Forest; Detroit News reporter Martin Hayden's account of how Ford attempted to control his workers' personal lives; Ford's niece Francis Immoberstag's memories of how Ford demanded that his employees' families attend weekly ballroom dancing classes; how Ford's weekly international newspaper, the "Dearborn Independent," began publishing a series of anti-Semitic articles, and the subsequent influence these articles had on Nazi leader Adolf Hitler; the regular occurence of routine seasonal layoffs by Ford and the other major automakers during the late 1920s; Ford's shutdown of his Detroit plant in 1927 while preparing to launch a new automobile -- which devestated his workers' economic status; Ford's great success launching the Model A; the worst crash in the history of the New York Stock Exchange; the sharp dip in employment which soon followed the crash, forcing newly impoverished workers to stand in soup lines and accept welfare; footage of President Herbert Hoover opening the 1930 baseball season; footage of Communist Party marches in Detroit, protesting the abject conditions of American citizens; Ford's opinion that the Depression was "a wholesome thing"; Ford's layoff of 60,000 workers; photos and footage of "Hoovervilles," shanties covering burrowed holes where homeless people lived, while President Hoover waited for big business to regain its footing; the emergence of unemployment councils; Detroit Mayor Frank Murphy's appeal to the government for aid in for his city, claiming the situation in Detroit has grown, "dangerous"; and footage and photographs of unemployed Ford workers marching to the "Rouge" on March 7, 1932, and their subsequent lethal conflict with police and private security forces.
Details
- NETWORK: PBS WGBH Boston, MA
- DATE: 9:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:56:43
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: B:77240
- GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: Public affairs/Documentaries; Depressions (economic) - 1930s; History - American
- SERIES RUN: PBS - TV series, 1993
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Henry Hampton … Executive Producer
- Terry Kay Rockefeller … Senior Producer
- Stephen Stept … Supervising Producer
- Alison Bassett … Supervising Producer
- Jon Else … Producer, Director, Writer
- Leslie D. Farrell … Associate Producer
- Steve Fayer … Writer
- Brian Keane … Music by
- Joe Morton … Narrator
- Henry Ford
- Martin Hayden
- Adolf Hitler
- Herbert Hoover
- Francis Immoberstag
- Frank Murphy