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The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century
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Published:
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group 2009
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Description
How a Michigan farm boy became the richest man in America is a classic, almost mythic tale, but never before has Henry Ford’s outsized genius been brought to life so vividly as it is in this engaging and superbly researched biography. The real Henry Ford was a tangle of contradictions. He set off the consumer revolution by producing a car affordable to the masses, all the while lamenting the moral toll exacted by consumerism. He believed in giving his workers a living wage, though he was entirely opposed to union labor. He had a warm and loving relationship with his wife, but sired a son with another woman. A rabid anti-Semite, he nonetheless embraced African American workers in the era of Jim Crow. Uncovering the man behind the myth, situating his achievements and their attendant controversies firmly within the context of early twentieth-century America, Watts has given us a comprehensive, illuminating, and fascinating biography of one of America’s first mass-culture celebrities.
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Format:
Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read
Street Date:
03/04/2009
Language:
English
ISBN:
9780307558978
ASIN:
B001ULOPO0
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Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

Steven Watts. (2009). The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Steven Watts. 2009. The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Steven Watts, The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2009.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Steven Watts. The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2009.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
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Date Added:
Jun 12, 2018 16:57:57
Date Updated:
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        Steven Watts is a historian and writer who has charted the sweeping evolution of American culture in a number of highly-praised books. His series of biographies of major figures—Henry Ford, Dale Carnegie, Walt Disney, Hugh Hefner—has explored the shaping of a modern value-system devoted to consumerism, self-fulfillment, leisure, and personality. Two earlier books on the Early Republic era examined the shift from an older society of republican virtue to a 19th-century Victorian era devoted to self-control, individual character, and the self-made man. 
        Watts’ books have led to involvement in a number of media projects, including several films for PBS, the History Channel, and documentary venues in Germany and Brazil. He also has appeared in a variety of programs on CBS, NBC, CNBC, NPR, Fox, Fox News, C-Span, Bloomberg News, MSNBC, BBC, and Irish National Radio. He is currently a professor of history at the University of Missouri.

      • name: Steven Watts
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Vintage
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2009-03-04T00:00:00-05:00
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title
The People's Tycoon
fullDescription
How a Michigan farm boy became the richest man in America is a classic, almost mythic tale, but never before has Henry Ford’s outsized genius been brought to life so vividly as it is in this engaging and superbly researched biography. The real Henry Ford was a tangle of contradictions. He set off the consumer revolution by producing a car affordable to the masses, all the while lamenting the moral toll exacted by consumerism. He believed in giving his workers a living wage, though he was entirely opposed to union labor. He had a warm and loving relationship with his wife, but sired a son with another woman. A rabid anti-Semite, he nonetheless embraced African American workers in the era of Jim Crow. Uncovering the man behind the myth, situating his achievements and their attendant controversies firmly within the context of early twentieth-century America, Watts has given us a comprehensive, illuminating, and fascinating biography of one of America’s first mass-culture celebrities.
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      • source: The New York Times
      • content: "The implicit claim of Watts's admirable book is almost inarguable--that it's impossible to understand 20th-century America without knowing the story of Henry Ford."
      • premium: False
      • source: Chicago Tribune
      • content: "Ford has had many biographers. . . . None, however, comes close to Steven Watts. . . . He brilliantly reveals the nature of Ford's genius."
      • premium: False
      • source: San Francisco Chronicle
      • content: "Steven Watts attempts the most integrated understanding to date of Ford's enormous influence and varied appeal. . . . The fascinating result may change the way Henry Ford is remembered."
      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
      • content:

        Starred review from June 27, 2005
        Performing the same magnificent feat for Henry Ford as he did for Walt Disney (in The Magic Kingdom
        ), historian Watts offers a magisterial and balanced biography of one of America's business legends. As a farm boy in Michigan, Ford (1863–1947) followed the beat of his own drum, avoiding hard work but watching farm machinery with fascination. He objected to wasting physical energy when a machine could accomplish the same task in less time, and spent much of his leisure taking watches apart and rebuilding them to learn about their mechanisms. Once he moved to Detroit, Ford worked as an engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company, where he quickly became famous for his ability to patch up engines. Then, in 1898, he invented the prototype of his Model A car, secured investors to set up a business and established the first unit of what would become the Ford Motor Company. Watts deftly traces Ford's rise to fame and the innovations, such as the "five-dollar" workday, which doubled factory workers' salaries, that he brought to the workplace, while a chapter titled "Bigot" delineates his notorious anti-Semitism. Watts also brilliantly reveals the contradictions of Ford's business philosophy and his personal and work life. While Ford thought of himself as a man of the people and strove to improve working conditions and wages in his factory, for example, he opposed unions. As Watts points out, Ford embodied both the promises and pitfalls of modern American democracy: "its devotion to opportunity, openness to new ideas, lack of pretension" as well as its anti-intellectualism and "faith in the redemptive power of material goods." Agent, Ronald Goldfarb.

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How a Michigan farm boy became the richest man in America is a classic, almost mythic tale, but never before has Henry Ford’s outsized genius been brought to life so vividly as it is in this engaging and superbly researched biography. The real Henry Ford was a tangle of contradictions. He set off the consumer revolution by producing a car affordable to the masses, all the while lamenting the moral toll exacted by consumerism. He believed in giving his workers a living wage, though he was entirely opposed to union labor. He had a warm and loving relationship with his wife, but sired a son with another woman. A rabid anti-Semite, he nonetheless embraced African American workers in the era of Jim Crow. Uncovering the man behind the myth, situating his achievements and their attendant controversies firmly within the context of early twentieth-century America, Watts has given us a comprehensive, illuminating, and fascinating biography of one of America’s first...
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