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- Ford retired from the rubber industry in 1945 after losing over $20 million in the Amazon (over $200 million in today’s dollars). The Brazilian government purchased all of Ford’s land for a measly $250,000. Today some of the structures of Fordlândia and Belterra still remain and are marked as spots for Amazon tours.
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Feb 20, 2017 · Feb. 20, 2017. Leer en español. See how this article appeared when it was originally published on NYTimes.com. Aging vehicles are stored in the old workshops of Fordlândia, Brazil, a community...
Nov 3, 2021 · Ford never visited his last great project and the Amazonian plantation failed miserably for a litany of reasons — from the hubris of the Ford men to a blight that prevented the mass production of...
Jul 28, 2023 · By Terrence McCoy. July 28, 2023 at 5:00 a.m. EDT. A view of Fordlândia, founded almost a century ago by Henry Ford, who envisioned an oasis of civilization in the remote Brazilian...
Jun 6, 2009 · There was a huge clash of culture between mechanized America, Ford's utopian ideals and the way the indigenous people lived. The first failure of Fordlandia was social. "The first years of the...
- The Rise of Rubber
- Ford Sets His Sights on Brazil
- The Founding of Fordlândia
- Fordlândia’S Workers Revolt
- The End of Fordlândia
With the invention of the pneumatic tire and the combustion engine at the end of the 19th century, horseless carriages were, at last, a reality. But for years, the car remained the preserve of the wealthy and the privileged, leaving working and middle-class people to rely on trains, horses, and shoe leather. That all changed in the 1908, when Ford’...
In a move that now seems blatantly dystopian, Ford named his rubber town Fordlândia. Ignorant of the difficulties of creating a British-style rubber plantation in the Amazon, Ford reasoned that rubber ought to be grown in its natural homeland, Brazil. In fact, Brazilian officials had been courting Ford for years to attract his interest to rubber gr...
In 1928, the British backed out of the Stevenson Plan, once again leaving rubber prices to the free market. The plan to begin rubber production in the Amazon no longer made financial sense, but Ford carried on with his vision nevertheless. Ford secured 2.5 million acres of free land, promising to pay 7% of Fordlândia’s profits to the Brazilian gove...
The 3,000 local employees of the Companhia Ford Industrial do Brasilhad come to work for the eccentric industrialist expecting to be paid the $5 their northern counterparts enjoyed, and thinking they would be able to live their lives much as they had before. Instead, they were dismayed to learn that they would receive $0.35 per day. They were force...
In 1933, the Ford Company’s management shifted most of its rubber production 80 miles downriver to Belterra, where factional rivalries within the company continued to hinder productivity as the effort struggled on. By 1940, only 500 employees remained at Fordlândia, while 2,500 worked at the new site in Belterra. Employees at Belterra weren’t subje...
May 6, 2021 · Most of Fordlandia’s original buildings still stand. There’s a local bank, a pharmacy, and a watering hole called Bar Do Doca, but no Ford rubber factory. Henry Ford himself never visited the ...
Aug 4, 2009 · In 2005, when Grandin first visited the ruins of Fordlandia — still an 18-hour journey by riverboat from the nearest provincial city — a few elderly residents still remained who remembered the...
