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Fordlandia: Brazil Isn't Michigan · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, So this is Stuff you
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Should Know. The Wacky Strange History Edition. Get another one.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: I love this one. We got a few people to
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: thank out of the gate for this, if I may sure.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: First of all, we want to thank listener Brennan Wilson,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: who gave this idea to us through email. Okay, I
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: had never heard of it before, so Brennan sent this
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: in and I did a quick search, as I always
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: do when someone sends in something, unless it's like, ooh,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: doing on shoe soles, But when it's something I hadn't
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: heard of, I always look it up. And I was like,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: oh man, this is a really good one. I didn't
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  Speaker 1: know about this, So big thanks to Brennan. Big thanks
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: to Livia who put this one together and helped us out.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: And Livia actually said we should thank a couple of
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: people in particular that sort of wrote the book, well
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: literally and figuratively. On Fordlandia, Greg Grandon wrote a book
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: called Ford Landia Colin The Rise and Fall of Henry
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Ford's Forgotten Jungle City Sporiler Alert. And then there was
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: a paper in the late seventies by a guy named
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: John Gaily in the Journal of Inter American Studies and
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: World Affairs. It also had a lot of good stuff.
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  Speaker 1: So thanks to everyone involved. Here we go.
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  Speaker 2: Wow, that was a lot. I was waiting for you
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: to tell us who Greg Grandon said we should thank Yeah, right, mom,
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: So we are talking about ford Landia. We are talking
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: about what you could call Ford's Folly. Just to kind
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: of strip a bear right out of the gate. It
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: was Henry Ford's misadventure down in the Amazon where he
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: tried to build a model utopian society based on rural Midwestern.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: America right in the Amazon.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: In the Amazon. That's a big that's a big catch
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: right there, because I didn't try to do it in
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Omaha or Topeka. He chose the Amazon over Topeka. And
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: I think that says a lot about Topeka.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, we love our Kansas. I hope they know
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: that all but one. All but one? Right, all right,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: So we should talk a little bit about the sort
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: of weirdo that was Henry Ford. Maybe we should do
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: a hole up on him one day. I didn't know
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: a ton about the guy. It did. A lot of
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: great stuff was also not great in a lot of ways.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: That's such a recurring theme, I know.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: In nineteen oh three is where the Ford Motor Company
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: was born in Dearborn, Michigan, and thanks to the Model T,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: it changed America. It was a car that was available,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: more available than any car had ever been to like
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: regular Americans. He paid his workers a living wage, which
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: at the time was five dollars a day, and he
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: he also had a lot of strings attached to that
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: good wage and those good jobs along the lines of like, hey,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: I know we're a car company, but let's have a
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: sociology department in our company where we send out hundreds
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: of investigators around Dearborn into the homes of my employees
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: to make sure that the kids are going to school
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: and everything is tidy, the wife isn't working, and that
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: people aren't drinking booze.
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It was the Ford Motor Company equivalent of the Gestapo,
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: the secret police, who they weren't coming to your company
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: owned house that you lived in on the Ford Motor
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Company campus. This is your house in Michigan. And these
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: people felt totally fine coming by and checking on your family,
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: to make sure that you were living up to Henry
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Ford's personal standards of old timey, squeaky clean americanness.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but at the same time he would also, like
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: I said, pay them a good wage. He would, would
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: give them great healthcare, he would he would help citizenship along.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: If he had immigrants working for them, he would help
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: them with their applications, help them get home loans. So
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: it was one of those things where he was like,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm paying you well and I'm doing
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: a lot of good for you and your family, and
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: that gives me the right as really just your uber boss,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: to dictate how you should live your life as well.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: It's insane, it is.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: He was an anti Semite. It's pretty well trid that
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: Hitler was at least in part inspired by the writings,
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: the anti semite, anti semitic writings of Henry Ford. Yeah,
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: he was a huge fan of square dancing. You could
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: call it an obsession essentially.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very, very weird.
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  Speaker 2: He met his wife at a square dance and apparently
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  Speaker 2: he thought that that was the end I'll be all
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  Speaker 2: of rural American life, that that was a perfect pastime,
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  Speaker 2: a perfect symbol everybody should be into square dancing.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: I mean nothing wrong with square dancing. I'm not knocking
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: square dancing. Just to be clear.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, God, I'm glad you said that, because I
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: was about to. He was also big time into soy
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Like he apparently some of the early model t's, their
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: knobs and stuff were made out of basically a proto
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: soy plastic. He ate soy as much as he could.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: He seemed to have kind of fallen in the footsteps
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: of the Kellogg brothers a little bit. I get the Yeah,
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: he was that kind of old timey vegetarian cook yag exactly,
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: but he also had some His business acumen was just insane. Like,
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: he wasn't just a businessman, he was an industrialist. This
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: guy was a titan of industry because he made the
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: industry himself essentially, and what he was responsible for in
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: part was the assembly line. But also it might not
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: have come up with the concept, but he really adopted
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: something called vertical integration.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the idea. Say let's say you're building cars
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, well, I want to make my
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: own tires instead of buying them from Firestone. So I'm
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: going to start making my tires, and uh, well, I
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: want my own rubber then to make these tires, Like
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: why pay somebody for rubber if I'm going to be
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: making all these tires for myself and these cars. And
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: so that's what inspired the idea for Landy is like,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: let's go where the rubber is and buy up land
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  Speaker 1: and start, you know, milking these rubber trees. You know,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: milk rubber trees, probably m milk. Tap them, tap them,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: that's right, and tap these rubber trees. And then basically
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: what you're trying to do is control control the entire
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  Speaker 1: supply chain by owning it from the from the bottom up.
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  Speaker 2: Right, which means like buying coal mines to to fuel
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  Speaker 2: the vulcanization process of hardening rubber, buying up railroads to
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: deliver the coal to the factories like that. Yeah, like
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: owning every aspect of what you need to produce use
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: your final product. That was what he was into, that
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: vertical integration. And like you said, I mean that is
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: why he ended up in Brazil. Yeah.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Do you know what kind of like titan of industry
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: you have to be for someone to come in and say,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what's killing us right now? These shipping
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: costs on the railroads, and he's like, well, let's buy
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: the railroad then.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it makes sense and most people might
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: even think about it, but you can't actually do it.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So this idea though, of building, and as
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: you'll see, it was much more than let's go to
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: the Amazon and buy some land and grow rubber. It
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: was for him it seems like even more so, like
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: let's go down there and build this utopian society that
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: I dream of where people square dance, you know, and
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: drinks and curses and stuff like that. But this wasn't
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: a brand new thing for him. In nineteen twenty one,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: he tried to do a similar thing in northern Alabama,
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  Speaker 1: near Muscle Shoals, on a seventy five mile stretch of
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  Speaker 1: land where there were some sort of abandoned facil were
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: two nitrate facilities from World War One, and there was
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: the construction and well partial construction of the Wilson Dam.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: And he said, you know what, let's move there, Let's
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: restart those projects and get people working and kind of
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: found a new society there basically where no one was living.
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  Speaker 1: He offered five million bucks to lease the dam. I
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: guess to the government, and a lot of people in
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  Speaker 1: the government weren't down with it, and it eventually just
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  Speaker 1: kind of fell apart.
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  Speaker 2: Well, supposedly it was just one senator from Alabama who
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: you really opposed it, Yeah, and it was yeah, yeah,
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: that's a tradition. Apparently this senator got death threats from
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: people in Alabama, not just in the Muscle Shoals area,
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: but like all over Alabama. They had mobilized to start
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: feeding this million million person workforce that Henry Stower's gun employment. Like,
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: they changed everything they were doing and started to ramp
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: up production in anticipation of this, and this one senator
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: got in the way and said, nope, I was getting
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: too sweet a deal. And he killed it. And he
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: killed it enough that Henry Ford was like, fine, I'll
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: just go somewhere else. And the guy started getting death threats.
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  Speaker 2: Apparently he made a visit to Muscle Shoals and had
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: to have armed bodyguards with him because he was in
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: that much in danger that many people were that mad
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  Speaker 2: at him.
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  Speaker 1: Holy cow. All right, so we've covered Ford. He was
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: a strange man, he was an anti Semite, he's a
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  Speaker 1: titan of industry. And now we got to cover the
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  Speaker 1: rubber part of this, not where the rubber meets the road,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: but where the rubber meets the podcast. Oh man, that
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: was the saddest little grunty groan I've ever heard out
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  Speaker 1: of you.
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  Speaker 2: It was involunteer. I'm sorry.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: I know you couldn't even I could tell you couldn't
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: even help it. Oh boy, Like, there's no way that
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: you're gonna die before me. But if you happen to, huh,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: I feel like I would just And I know that
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: you're not going to have an open casket funeral either,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: but let's say you did, Okay, I feel like I
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: would go and lean over your by and just tell
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: you how great it was working with you all those years,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: and you would make that same sound.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: Why you say I'm not going to have an open
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: casket funeral? Do you know something I don't. No.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: I thought you were going to like either be shot
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: out of a canon or cremated and scattered or sky
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: burialed or something.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: Oh no, that's all. That's so old. No, I don't
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: know what I'm going to do yet, but I could
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: have an open casket. I can be cremated. After everybody's like, hey,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: good respect to see you later. Good to meet you.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: I don't know who you are, but way to go.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: All right, that's what I expect people to say.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: It might be that that's what today. So the world
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: is being industrialized in the early twentieth century. In the
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: nineteenth century, rubber became a very big deal. Rubber is
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: a product of South America originally, and the Amazon region
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: had a lot of rubber trees down there, so they
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: were like the dominant player. And rubber trees down there
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: grew just sort of where they wanted to grow. It
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: wasn't like a plantation crop or something like that really grew.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: And so along the Amazon they were building little cities
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: and stuff to support that industry for many, many years.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they put a lot of effort into like supporting
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: this rubber trade. And Brazil was like the basically the
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: only player on the market. That's where the rubber trees were,
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: and if you wanted rubber, that's where you had to
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: go because we didn't have synthetic rubber yet. Yeah, so
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: somebody some brit I don't remember, we've talked about it before. Yeah,
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: don't remember what episode. Maybe we did one on rubber,
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure, but brit said, hey, you know, Sri
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Lanka has a very similar climate to the Amazon, maybe
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: those rubber trees will grow there. And not only did
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: the rubber trees grow there, the rubber trees had no
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: natural pests or.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Enemies.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: Sure, predators, parasites, yeah, all of those things. It had
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: none of them, I should say. So those things flourished
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: like crazy in Sri Lanka and other parts of I
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: guess central Southeast Asia, that's right, not Central Asia.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that really put a dent in the rubber
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: economy in Brazil kind of collapsed at basically, and following
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: that in nineteen twenty two, the Stevenson Plan in Britain
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: said basically said hey, if you're a French planter or
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: a British planter in one of our Asian colonies, you
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: can restrict the supply of rubber. You can create a
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: false market basically to raise the rubber prices all around
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: the world. And so all of a sudden America was going,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: we're being squeezed here by the Stevenson Plan. So at
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: the time Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover Hobalt Hoovel steps
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: up and says, all right, we gotta get some rubber
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: going on our own now and develop our supply chain,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: So go do it. In nineteen twenty four, he sent
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: a technical mission down to Brazil to look again once
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: again in the Amazon and see if they can bring
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: the Amazon back and make it a player again. And
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: that's what they tried to do. They were It was
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: basically like which companies would go there and which companies
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: would go elsewhere. I think Goodyear ended up going somewhere else,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Firestone ended up going somewhere else. They went to Liberia,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Goodyear went to the Philippines and Sumatra. But Ford was
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: still like, I want to make my own tires. I
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: don't want to buy from those guys. So there's like,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: why don't we do it?
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah? He also so I get the impression after researching
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: this that getting rubber to make his own tires was
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: almost a pretext for him that he that's what he
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: needed to tell people, That's what he needed to spend
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Ford Motor Company money on. But what he really wanted
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: to do was to basically tame the Amazon to I'm
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: making scare quotes all over the place here, civilize the
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: people of the Amazon, and basically turned them into world
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Midwestern Americans with square dancing on their mind all time, right,
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: I know. So that's really what he wanted to do.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: He didn't even care if he made money, he didn't
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: care if he lost tons of money. He wanted to
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: make this utopian society. And the Amazon was as great
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: a place as any because it was such a challenge.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: And also if you went to Sumatra or he went
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: to the Philippines, like it was a different place, like
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: there were also other colonial powers there. The Amazon was
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: right because everybody went somewhere else, and Ford said, I'm
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: going there.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And they said we would like you to come here,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: because Henry Ford was, like you said, he was a
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: business magnet. He was a worldwide, well known name, basically
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: a celebrity all around the world. And in Brazil they
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: were like, listen, we need someone like Henry Ford here
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: to kind of put us back on the map rubber wise.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: And so they basically said, hey, listen, we'll give you
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: land if you come over here and start your rubber
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: business here. And that's what they did. In nineteen twenty seven,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: they got the Ford Motor Company got a gift of
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: two and a half million acres alongside the Tapajos river,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: and he said, here's the deal. I made a deal
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: with the government there after twelve years, I could give
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: yourself a dozen years to get going, and then you
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: can start paying Brazil seven percent and then two percent
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: to the local governments. I don't now why they capped
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: it at nine percent. You know that was ten and
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Ford talked him down like a percentage point or something.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Probably they got some kickbacks, about one hundred and twenty
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: five grand in kickbacks to make it happen between people
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: who sort of negotiated the deal, which really made Ford mad, because,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: as you know, a guy who loves great answing doesn't
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: like kickbacks, you know what I'm saying.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: No, and one hundred and twenty five grand in kickbacks
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: in nineteen twenty seven is two point one seven million
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: dollars today, a lot of money. Yeah, one point seven
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: h nine million pounds and one point ninety seven one
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: million euros.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which he might have thought, that's very thorough.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: Well, you called me out for not having the euro
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: conversion before, so I would made sure I was prepared today.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he might have been a little rankled because he
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: might have thought he could have paid less for two
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: and a half million acres there.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I think it was the moral part
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: of it. Yeah, you hit it on the head. He
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: was a square dancer.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: So but that was just part for the course, apparently.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: I think it's changed dramatically since then.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but what you were saying about his like his
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: desire was more to make that thing. There's a quote
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: where he said was his desire was not to make money,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: but to develop that wonderful and fertile land.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: Yes, the very quote I was searching for while I
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: was making that point, but couldn't object. So thank you,
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: because that's yeah, that's what he wanted to do. But
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: as far as Ford Motor companies concerned, like they're going
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: down there to start up a rubber plantation and make
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: their own rubber, to make their own tires, part of
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: the vertical integration plan, and so there were there were
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: not not everybody was on board with this. Yeah, because
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: anybody who anything about the rubber market said, hey, that
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: Stevenson planned that the Brits enacted in nineteen twenty two.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: They shot themselves in the foot. They kept from exporting
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: rubber to try to artificially influence prices. But the Dutch
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: didn't go along with it, and they undercut the Brits,
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: and now the Dutch control most of the American market
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: and they're selling at perfectly reasonable prices. We don't actually
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: need to set up our own rubber plantations. And they
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: said for it, said no, We're going down to the Amazon,
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: and he made it happen. He did.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: August nineteen twenty eight. He started shipping stuff down to Brazil.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: The problem initially, and boy, there were a lot of problems,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: but let's call this problem number one. They chose a
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: site high up in elevation because they didn't want to
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: be involved in flooding, which sort of makes sense. But
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: it was so far inland that these steamerships pulling these barges,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: taking all these supplies to literally build a city, essentially,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: they couldn't get down these these shallow rivers. So it
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: took forever. It took like over like well not over
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: a year, but you know, nine to ten months for
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: the supplies to finally get there. So the timeline from
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: the beginning was just super slow.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: Yes, they finally did get there in early nineteen twenty nine,
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: and the steamer captain who was the captain of the
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: steamership that pulled the barge of supplies down there. Initially
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: was a Danish man named Einard Oxholm, and he is
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: a really great example of Ford and Ford Motor Company's
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: idea that if you are competent at one thing, you
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: can be competent at anything. I saw it described as
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: basically a corporate wide arrogant optimism that you could just
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: get in there and get things done. If you were
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: a smart person and you applied scientific principles, you could
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: do anything. So he appointed innerd Oxholm as the manager
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: of this plantation and settlement. This, Yeah, the steamship captain
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: is now run the entire show down there.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Now. Yeah, he had no experience at all and anything
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: like this. But like you said, Ford thought he's a
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: good guy. I like the cut of his jib. Have
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: you seen him? Have you seen him square dance?
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Right exactly.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Let's get this guy some cloggy shoes or what. I
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: don't even know what those are called. We got to
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: do one in square dancings.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they're called clogs. I think.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, they're gonna be so mad at us.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: Who the square dancers?
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: Man, Maybe we'll find out it's actually super interesting and cool.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, we'll do a podcast on it. But I'm
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: just saying we're gonna get emails. But the anger's email
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: you're gonna get from a square dancer is maybe how
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: dare you right? And that's where it's capped.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, in all caps.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: So Oxholme hired a bunch of locals. Obviously, they cleared
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: out the jungle, they started setting up their buildings. The
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: initial name of the community was Boa Vista, as you
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: can tell by the name of the title. It was
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: eventually renamed Ford Landia. This would be a great I
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: don't know why this hasn't been a movie yet.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: It's surprising.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: I'd say that a lot. But I think in this
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: case it would be pretty good to be.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: In, like the the spirit of Road to Wellville.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, totally.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: So they're down there working these locals literally to death
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: at times. Disease was killing a lot of them, a
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: lot of these and as we'll see, there are a
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: lot of these workers would revolt given the working conditions
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: for numerous reasons that will hit on. But there there
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: were a number of riots over the period of time
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: that they tried to get Fordlandia up and off the ground,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: and you know, things were going very slow. So Ford
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: was like, you know what, we're tearing down this forest.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: Why don't we at least sell this wood and we
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: can make a little scratch. But no one wanted it,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: so there was no market for the woods. So that
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: was another thing that kind of went down the tubes.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: What else, oh, everything else? Basically they they I don't
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: understand why, if you believe in applying scientific principles and
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: all that to get something done, they didn't hire an agronomist, Yeah, agronomist.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Agronomist maybe I don't know.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: I think I finally hit a pot. They didn't hire
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: anybody who had any experience with plants. They hired Ford
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Motor Company executives who had been working in Dearborn, Michigan,
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: to go down and make this thing happen. Like again,
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: arrogant optimism that they these guys could do this even
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: though they knew nothing about plants and rubber plants, and
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: that would just immediately start to come back and bite them.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they did things like, oh, I don't know, plant
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: trees at the wrong time, plant trees in the wrong places. Nothing.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: They did seemed to work as far as the botany
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: angle goes and the biology angle goes. The trees. Like
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: I said earlier, the rubber trees are naturally growth through
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: the Amazon. But he was like he wanted to set
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: up like the plantation style thing where he just had
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: these huge plots of rubber trees as a monoculture, which
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: they successfully did in Asia where they didn't have those
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: enemies like you were talking about, those pests, so it
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: flourished there. But in South America, as Lvia puts it,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: it was like an all you can eat buffet for
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: these pests. That was bad enough. Then at one point
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: they said, oh, here's what we'll do. Well, let's introduce
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: these ants, these salva ants, because they eat the caterpillars
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: that are killing our rubber trees. So they introduce all
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: these ants, and the ants are like, you know, it
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: tastes better than caterpillar rubber trees. So they literally introduced
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: a new pest on top of all that.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly, they just like wave it like the caterpillars they
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: walk past while they were both eating the rubber tree, and.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: They said, you know, it tastes better than rubber trees.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: Clogging shoes.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: You know, it tastes better than clogging shoes salva ants.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Wait, clogging is different in square antsing. Someone's going to
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: call us out on that.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: That's fine, doesn't matter. The point is that salva ants
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: are one of the few species of insects that are
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: are prepared and served as food because they're tasting, not
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: for their protein, kind of because they're taste.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: See, I get your joke now. Yeah, they thought you
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: were just being cheeky.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: No, no, it's true. I was, but it was also true.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Yet cheeky with a point, which is sort of your motto.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an album name right there, right, so it's.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: A squeeze album.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: I think they that's a great, great one. The oh yeah,
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: salva ants tasting. They taste like ginger, lemon, grass and
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: part of them, and you can serve them on raw
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: pineapple and they taste amazing. Apparently it really pops. I
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: don't know if any of the executives are workers in
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: Ford Landia knew this. I'm guessing the workers probably did.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: And I wonder how many ants were eaten right just
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: because they were so tasty. But either way, it didn't
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: work to get rid of the caterpillars. And that's just
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: one of just so many examples of them just trying
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: something that seems like it would work, but only ending
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: up demonstrating their complete and total ignorance of this.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, So things are going well. In September of
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: twenty nine, Ford sitting down a trouble shooter to get
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: a report, like, what's going on down there? Really? And
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: he came back and said, there's a quote complete lack
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: of organization. The Minister of Agriculture in Brazil thinks Henry
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Ford is crazy and a quote at present, it's like
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: dropping money into a sewer the end.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: So things are not going well, Chuck, Do you want
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: to take a break and come back and talk about
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: how things continued to not go well?
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: Okay, So things are not going very well for the
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: Ford Motor Company down in Brazil. But just like with
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: his workers in Michigan, Ard did fulfill his promises to
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: the workers in the Amazon in Brazil that he would
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: take care of them in exchange for them trying to
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: act like rural midwesterners pretend to like square dancing. So
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: they built hospitals. They built a really great cutting edge
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: hospital right there in the middle of the Amazon. They
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: erected a water tower, which was the highest structure of
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: the tallest structure of the Amazon for quite a while.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: They installed swimming pools and golf courses. There were generators
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: that produced electricity, their sawmills, like they created the city,
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: and they also added prefab houses for the workers to
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: live in. The thing is is like all this stuff
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: was delivered to them, was given to the workers in
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: exchange for their labor. But also they paid something like
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: thirty five cents a day, which is better than the
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: slave labor they were engaged in before. But the thing is,
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: I think the Ford Motor executives were just expected the
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Brazilians to say, oh, thank you for giving us running water,
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: even we'll do anything you want. And they found over time,
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: as we'll see time and time again, that no, the
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: people of the Amazon have a tremendous amount of pride
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: and they're not willing to just kind of roll over
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: for somebody like Henry Ford or his incompetent boobs from Dearborn.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it was also it's also we should point
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: out that it wasn't it was segregated still like the
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Via Americana, which was the neighborhood with the swimming pool
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: and the golf course and the tennis courts and all
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: that stuff that was for the US staff and their families.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: They did have running water. The Brazilian workers, I think
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: they could use the pool and stuff like that, but
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: they had their accommodations weren't as good. They had well water.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: They had to live in these and this was again
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: just thinking you can just transplant a Midwestern American city
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: and drop it in Brazil. Ill it doesn't work. Because
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: they had their homes traditionally built off the ground with
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: thatch roofs to keep it cool. Henry Ford built iron
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: roofed square duplexes that were steaming hot. Said here, eat
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: this food that we eat, Eat this whole wheat bread,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: and eat this canned fruit. And they were getting like
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: stomach aches and they were getting sick. Because you can't
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: just go in and radically change a culture's diet overnight either.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: The microbiome does not like that.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: No, So they had square dances though they really did.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: They did have square dances like Not only that, they
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: also had readings of Walt Whitmen and other American poets
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: that were pre industrial translated into Portuguese. They said no, no, no,
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: you can't drink, just like our workers in Dearborn they
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: said no, no, no, we're not going to listen to you.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: And so that one didn't stick. But apparently there was
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: square dancing, like you said. The problems, though, were not
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: so much like the houses being too hot or the
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: square dancing being just non never ending. It was things
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: like really instituting American ideas like an eight hour ten
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: or probably ten or twelve hour work day among the workers,
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: and that's not how they worked before. They would take
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: time off during the hottest part of the day. Traditionally
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: when it was the rainy season, they would work less.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: When it was a drier season, they would work more.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: This is not what Ford expected them to do. So
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: there were cultural clashes like right out of the gate,
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: and rather than even ask what the problem was with
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: the Brazilians, the people of the Amazon, the Ford Motor
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: executives just expected them to fall into line and to
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: acquiesce and just do what Ford was telling them to do.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then just little things like many of the
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Brazilians would sleep in hammocks every night, and all of
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: a sudden they were in bed, which isn't the same.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: You would think, oh, you get a bed instead of
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: a hammock. But if you're if you're not used to it,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: that's like throwing us in a hammock. Although some people
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: say brad and hammocks. I don't say good in a hammock,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: but they I think. There was an interview in nineteen
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: ninety four in the South Florida Sun Sentinel with a
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: doctor from that hospital, doctor Emerick.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: Oh boy, I'm so glad you tried.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna say zilagy. Okay, jeez, a word when a
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: name starts with s z here in trouble right out
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: of the gate, for sure. But there was a you know,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: a nineteen ninety four interview with him. He ran the
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: hospital for like three years, and he was like, listen,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: we would put them in these hospital beds. They're used
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: to hammocks. And we would come back and they had
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: like cut the mattresses open and dug holes in this
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: center so they could have that sort of hammocky curve
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: in their beds. They'd liked midwives to deliver their babies,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: and he even admitted we withheld food from these pregnant
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: women and until they agreed to go to a hospital
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: and have a nurse to it.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: Right. So in Ford's mind, like we're giving you guys
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: cutting edge hospital equipment and medical care, but you have
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: to accept it exactly the way that we're presenting it, right,
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: and not just the medical care, but everything, just the
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: very existence. As a worker in Ford Landy, you had
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: to accept it as it was being presented. There was
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: no adapting to local traditions, local climate, local anything. It
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: was so that anytime somebody is taking something from somewhere
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: else and is rigidly refusing to adapt it to this
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: new environment, that thing is going to fail. I can't
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: think of a single project that has succeeded in that respect.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: Maybe when we start living in space, like on the
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: Moon or something like that, that would qualify. Maybe the
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: ISS qualifies in that sense. It's submarine that people live
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: on that would qualify too, Right, there's all sorts of
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: ones that actually qualify.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: But in this sale, land on planet Earth.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Okay, in this case it did not work because they
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: were too rigid and they would not adapt to local conditions.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a man crazed with an idea, and
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: that never leads to success. It seems like because they're usually,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: like you said, rigid and nonconforming, and that's just no
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: way to run an operation, right exactly. So, speaking of
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: not running an operation, Oxholm left in nineteen thirty. He
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: was the original ship captain and then manager of the
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: whole thing m He told the Detroit News it was
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: the hardest proposition I ever tackled in my life. A
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: couple of other guys cycled through pretty quickly in that position,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: and things started getting more and more heated, and these
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: sort of you know I talked about the riots that
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: broke out, they became more frequent and more serious.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah. One of the problems was these the executives didn't
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: even speak Portuguese. They would just sit there and like
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: boss around the Brazilian workers in English and expect them
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: to do what they were saying and expect them to
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: understand what they were saying. One of the things that
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: really that's there's a couple of chapters of Ford Landy,
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: and the thing that ended the first chapter was, strangely
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: a transition from table table service cafeteria seating right where
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: you would just sit at a table and somebody would
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: come over and bring you food to a cafeteria line
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: type of food service.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: Right and goes stand in the hot sun for your food.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: Exactly, and they did not like that. They ended up
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: getting very hot and getting very angry and very hungry.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: Angry you could even say hot and angry in the
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: Amazon is not a good combination. So tensions were already
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: high among the workers just from having to do this now.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: And apparently a man named Manuel Keaitano DeJesus, who was
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: a brick mason at Fordlandia, said something to Kaj Ostenfeldt,
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: who was a Ford supervisor at Fordlandia, about the new
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: cafeteria plan, and ostin feld just basically laughed in Dejesus's face. Right,
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: And not only did that upset to Hayesus, it upset
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: it upseted as coworkers who were around two, and in
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: very short order they started rioting.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they were like, guess what, we have machetes. They
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: wrecked the cafeteria, they wrecked the generators, they wrecked a
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: lot of the equipment, and the buildings, the residential buildings.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: And this is the best part, and I love that
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Livia dug this out. They sort of like an office
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: space with that copier. They put a real hurtin on
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: those time clocks. Yeah, that they were punching every day.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: And they ended up actually occupying Ford Landia for three
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: days because apparently the Ford executives had fast boats hidden
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: along the river for just such an emergency, and they fled.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: So the workers took over Fordlandia and occupied it, and
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: the Ford Motor Companies executives were friends with Juan tripp
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: Or Gpe, who was the president of pan AM, who said, sure,
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: we'll let you charter a few of our jets and
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: get some of the Brazilian military in there to suppress
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: this rebellion, and they did. After three days, the workers
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: gave up peacefully and left. They left because they were fired.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: Apparently Ford paid them up to December twenty second, which
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: was the beginning of the rioting day, and they were
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: fired on Christmas Day, I believe, And that was the
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: end of the first chapter. Ford Landy just kind of
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: fell into disuse momentarily, but in very short order Ford
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: sent another guy, and this guy was the best manager
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: Ford Landy ever saw. His name was Archibald Johnston. He
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: was a Scotsman.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, he came in. He said, we need roads,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: we need paved roads. We need to connect all this stuff.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: He built more houses, he built a movie theater, he
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: built that dance all because he had to have the
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: square dancing. Yeah, basically just kind of improvement en mass
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: to everything, the hospitals, the schools, the living conditions and everything.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: He said, hey, worker, set up a garden, but you
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: should also still adopt this diet and grow the things
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: that Henry Ford says you should eat and grow.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: Right. But the thing about Johnston, the workers called him
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: the white tiger because he was. He got there and
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: he was like, Okay, I can make this work. And
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: he did. He adapted to the local situation. He was
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: willing to understand where the Brazilians were coming from, where
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: the workers were coming from. He was less rigid as
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: far as we're old Midwestern expectations were concerned, right, And
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: he was a success as a result. And I think
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: he showed up in nineteen thirty one, I believe is
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: when he took over, and he was there for several
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: years and under his overseas ship overseership, Yeah, his oversight
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: as watch. Finally, finally Ford hires a plant person, not
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: even not even like a botanist. It was a plant
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: pathologist who is good with figuring out what things that
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: are plaguing plants, but they're not necessarily good at getting
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: plantations going. But they hired at least somebody who knew
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: what they were talking about with plants, named James Weir.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he hired someone who knew plant right, that was
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: as basic as a guy. Yeah, James Weir, like you said,
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: and you know, and this was because you know, they
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: had the city going and they were building this town.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: But there was also the rubber operation that we kind of,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: you know, forget about at times in this crazy story.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: But they were like, maybe we should actually start, you know,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: getting the rubber growing. So he Weir came in and
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: he tried some new methods, didn't work out too well,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: and he said, you know, what we need to do, really,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: this is garbage area now because of everything that we've
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: done to it. What we really need is to start
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: over in an area close by. So in nineteen thirty four,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Henry Ford managed to work out a land swap of
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: a parcel about eighty miles downstream where they built a
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: new plantation called Belterra, and this actually produced some rubber.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: They brought in some of those successful trees from Asia,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: and they grew. I believe they capped out at about
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: twenty five hundred employees compared to ford Landia's four or
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: five hundred, so things were going better, but they still
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: I think at their max. In nineteen forty two, they
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: produced seven hundred and fifty tons of latex, which sounds
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: like a lot, but apparently that was just like a
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: drop in the bucket of what Ford needed for their tires.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: So even though it was more successful, it still didn't
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: satisfy what they wanted or what they needed from the beginning.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: And to kind of add insult to injury to all
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: the people who donated blood, sweat, and tears and sometimes
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: their lives to getting Ford's rubber per used. Ford gave
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: up on the idea of making it his own tires
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: the same year they started getting rubber from the rubber
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: trees down in Brazil.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: So Ford he his I don't have the impression that
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: he ever made it down there. I think, oh yeah,
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: I don't believe he ever did, but he he kind
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: of ended up getting a little distracted from his company.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: He set up a museum of like a rural like
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: an ode to rural, pre industrial American life that you
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: can still go to today. It's called Greenfield, it's in Dearborn.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: He just got he was he got less interested in
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: the company, and so his son became president. I think
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: all the way back in nineteen ninety nineteen edzel Ford.
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: But to Henry Ford, his son was just a figurehead.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: Apparently at one executive board beating, ezel Ford said that
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: he was in favor of adding hydraulic breaks to the cars,
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: and Henry Ford jumped to his feet and said, will
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: you shut up in the state and the cars the
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: board meeting. Yeah, and he's the president of Ford, so
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: he had to put up with a lot. But he
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: was like, we need to sell this. As early as
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: nineteen thirty five he was looking for buyers. The problem
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: is everybody knew the kind of problems for was having
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: done in Brazil, and.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no one wanted No one wanted it. Yeah, I
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: don't blame him. Nineteen forty three is when Edsel died.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: There was a bit of a power struggle, but eventually
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: Henry Ford the second, who was Henry's grandson, came on
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: board in nineteen forty five as president and kind of
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: started cleaning house in the company, and any operation in
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: the company that wasn't doing well went away. And this
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: and Ford landy it was kind of the tops on
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: the list, basically, and they managed to sell it back
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: to the Brazilian government right after all those years.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: At a loss, with all the land and all the improvements,
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: Brazilian government should sure, why not, We'll take.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: It back exactly.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: The Brazilians turned into a cattle ranch. Is a bit
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: ironic because Henry Ford was famous for hating cows. I
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: don't know if we touched upon that at the very
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: outset when we were talking about how weird he is,
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: but he hated cows. He didn't like horses either, but
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: he really hated cows. And that makes edzel Ford's death
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: even more ironic too, because edzel Ford got ulcers and
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: his father insisted that he drinks some unpasteurized milk from
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: one of Henry Ford's farms, and the bugs in the
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: milk killed edzel in nineteen forty three. Wow. Yeah, his
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: own father bossing him around, making him drink unpasteurized milk
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: from a cow that he didn't even like, killed his son.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: That's how Edzell went.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: But he hated cows before that, right.
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: Yes, he grew up on a farm, so as much
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: as he idealized royal life, he couldn't stand farm animals.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: You know what, I love square dancing exactly know what
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: I hate? Cows?
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they ate the hay that he used to square
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: dance on, and so he didn't like them.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at a picture of Henry Ford now and
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of who would play him today, Sam.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: Rockwell, Sam Rockwall will play everybody.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, that that wouldn't be too bad. You'd have to
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: age him up a little bit, but that's not a
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: bad idea.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: Actually, you know a movie I keep going back to that.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: I just I can watch it almost anytime. I get
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: the notion I am the pretty thing that lives in
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: the house. That Osgoode Perkins movie.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: I didn't see that.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: I have definitely told you about it multiple times. Do
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: you need to put it towards the top of your list?
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: Well, you told me about The Devil's his other movie.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: What was it about the girls in the.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: The Black Coat's Daughter?
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Black Coats Daughter.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: I still haven't seen that either.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, I saw it and I didn't like it.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: And even Mad at me because of that, like a
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: year you.
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: Well, what the good thing about me is I forget
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: very quickly, so I'm not mad at you anymore. No,
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: this is this is much much different than The Black
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: Coat's Daughter, much different.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: I don't have to check that out.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's a it's a cozy, cozy, haunted.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: House story, the same rock Well in it.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: No, I was just thinking about that movie.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: Gary Oleman could blame too. He does that aged up thing,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: chameleon thing pretty well.
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: What about Harrison Ford? They have to age him down?
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: Love Harrison Ford. Don't like the aging I thought they
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: did a good job from the trailers. Did you see
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: Oppenheimer yet? No?
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: I haven't yet.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: Gary Olman pops up in that.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I heard a lot of people. Do Have you
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: seen Barbie going tonight?
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: It's great, Capital G.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: You're not tell me anything else about it, but I
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: heard it already hit a billion dollars.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: Well, it's Capital G great and it's about Barbie.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: Okay, don't tell me anything else though, please?
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: You know who plays Barbie? Shh, yes, you know what
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: I mean? You know, right?
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Of course? Why are you telling me more stuff
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: about Barbie?
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: Though?
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: When I've very clearly asked you not to.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: I just wondered if like saying things like it's about
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: Barbie was too much.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, it is. That's what I'm saying. I like to
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: go in totally fresh, Well, Sanza.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: It's called Barbie, but it's about Henry Fort.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: Awesome and you who plays Henry Port, who's Sam Rockwell,
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: Margo Roby. Oh, very nice.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: It's quite a transformation.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was all very unexpected.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: All right, well let's wind this up. So rubber, synthetic
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: rubber comes along. Everything changes. The rubber tree is not
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: as useful as it.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: Was before because from hero to zero, that's.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: Right, pretty quickly, and ford Landia, though parts of ford
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: Landia are still there, it is now what's known as
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: sort of well, I won't see abandoned city because there
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: were a few hundred people that live there for a
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: few decades. But in twenty sixteen there was a writer
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: for The Guardian who went down there to report and
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: they're now like several thousand people who have now moved
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: into Fordlandia and live there. Working with gypsum, right.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's really high quality gypsum deposits discovered shortly after
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: Ford left and so these people like support the miners
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: or mine themselves. So yeah, if you like, to the
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: people of America who know this story, it's like, oh,
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: Ford Landy and bell Terra are these abandoned failed you know,
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: cities that Ford tried. If you ask people in Brazil,
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: it's like, no, bel Terra and Ford Landy are cities
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: in Paris State in Brazil. Like they're they They've been
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: inhabited this entire time and they still are. So they're
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: they were abandoned by Ford, but not Brazil.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But and you can look up pictures today for
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: Orlandia there are still warehouses. That water tower I think
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: is still standing, right.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: Yes, I think it might still be operating.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: Oh wow. Yeah, but it is definitely interesting to see
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: sort of the remnants of this place that it's This
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: has got to be a movie one day. I'm telling you,
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: you just put Margot Roby in it.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: In your golden Okay, you got anything else?
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: I don't think I have anything else, sir, I don't either.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: Chuck Well, Chuck mentioned Margot Robie again. He unlocked listener mail.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: That's right, but instead of listener mail, we would love
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: to talk very briefly about our kids book that is
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: now available for purchase. Yes, yeah, let's do that.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: So what we did with McMillan Publishing is is we
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: took our book for adults, not like it was triple
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: lex or anyhow, and we kidified it.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: We took out some of the stuff, some of the
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: chapters that shouldn't be there. We added some stuff, we
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: rewrote some things to make it a little more kid friendly.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: And what we ended up was was what I think
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: is a great kids.
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: Book, a dynamo book for young readers.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: That's right, and it's available now, get one for your kids.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: It looks great. Everyone at McMillan was so wonderful to
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: work with, for sure, and it makes a great Christmas
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: gift or birthday Kiff the stocking stuffer, and it's called
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: stuff Kids Should Know by you and I and our
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: buddy Nil's Parker who helped us write this thing.
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: Yes, So where can you get a chuck?
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: You can get it everywhere, you know. Our advice is
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: always to seek out a local bookseller and support your
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: local bookstores and get one there. They're all over the
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: place at regular bookstores, kids bookstores. But throw a rock
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: and you're gonna hit one of these books, probably, yeah, but.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: If you hit it with the rock, you have to
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: buy it store polish. Well, that was a very good idea, Chuck,
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: So everybody, I hope if you go out and get
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: our book, you enjoy it thoroughly and you can let
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: us know what you think about it via email. You
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: can send those emails to Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.