Recasting the Machine Age
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Amer
American factory decentralization
American industrial decentralization
anti-union strategies in industry
automotive production decentralization
Category=KN
Category=NHK
decentralized automotive plants
decentralized manufacturing history
early 20th century industrial innovation
early automotive decentralization
early automotive production history
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eq_business-finance-law
eq_history
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eq_non-fiction
Ford and labor relations
Ford and regional economic development
Ford decentralized plants revival
Ford factory system evolution
Ford industrial culture
Ford industrial experiments
Ford industrial strategy
Ford manufacturing legacy
Ford Motor Company history
Ford Motor Company industrial policy
Ford Motor production history
Ford production experiments
Ford village industries
Ford village industry planning
Henry Ford biography industrial focus
Henry Ford manufacturing reforms
Henry Ford production strategy
Henry Ford small-scale plants
Highland Park factory
historical study of Ford plants
history of American manufacturing
ideological shifts in American industry
industrial decentralization in Dearborn
industrial experiments in Michigan
industrial heritage preservation
industrial innovation between world wars
interwar American industry
interwar industrial culture
Michigan industrial heritage
Michigan industrial landmarks
River Rouge plant
small factory operations
small-scale factory innovation
small-scale industry development
small-scale manufacturing models
social and cultural impact of Ford industries
village industries and labor
village industry movement
Product details
- ISBN 9781558496422
- Weight: 389g
- Dimensions: 154 x 225mm
- Publication Date: 19 May 2008
- Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Recasting the Machine Age recounts the history of Henry Ford's efforts to shift the production of Ford cars and trucks from the large-scale factories he had pioneered in the Detroit area to nineteen decentralized, small-scale plants within sixty miles of Ford headquarters in Dearborn. The visionary who had become famous in the early twentieth century for his huge and technologically advanced Highland Park and River Rouge complexes gradually changed his focus beginning in the teens and continuing until his death in 1947.Ford may well have been motivated to spend great sums on the village industries in part to prevent the unionization of his company. But these industrial experiments represented much more than ""union busting."" They were significant examples of profound social, cultural, and ideological shifts in America between the World Wars as reflected in the thought and practice of one notable industrialist.Howard P. Segal recounts the development of the plants, their fate after Ford's death, their recent revival as part of Michigan's renewed appreciation of its industrial heritage, and their connections to contemporary efforts to decentralize high-tech working and living arrangements.
HOWARD P. SEGAL is professor of history at the University of Maine and author of Future Imperfect: The Mixed Blessings of Technology in America (University of Massachusetts Press, 1994).
