Henry Ford's Unhappy Jungle City

Henry Ford is famous for selling millions of cars, especially the affordable Model T produced by assembly line manufacturing. He paid his workers well and he helped create a middle class in America.

Henry Ford on the cover of Time magazine, January 14, 1935

 As a highly successful man of business, Henry Ford's name demands a great deal of respect, but Ford had some crazy ideas too, like creating a prefabricated, industrial town in the Amazon Rainforest, called Fordlândia.

After negotiating a special deal with the Brazilian government in 1928,  Henry Ford began to steam ahead with the creation of the world’s largest rubber plantation, set deep in the Amazon forest.

The motivation behind Henry Ford's Amazon industrial town, was an attempt to undercut Asian rubber growers, who had a monopoly on producing rubber and who drove the prices sky-high. So Ford spent a truckload of money (excuse the pun) and built houses, relocated workers and employed indigenous people to work at Fordlândia. But few of his plans worked out as he hoped.

Ford didn't consult a specialist about growing the rubber trees and most of the trees died from blight Then he spent a heap of money building swimming pools, tennis courts, and shops for his workers, but he soon faced malaria, riots and cultural clashes.

Ford was a control-freak. He expected his workers to work hard, long hours in the relentless jungle heat. And then, he tried to impose a kind of "cultural imperialism" on these workers during their time off. They had to eat at the canteen, which only served bland food, which the workers had to pay for.

Ruins of Fordlândia, circa 2005.

For entertainment, Ford provided English only singing performances and compulsory square dances, at which alcohol was banned. In trying to bend the jungle to his will and forcibly shape his workers free time and culture, Ford was not successful. His rubber plants died and his workers were unhappy and rioted.

The main warehouse at Fordlandia

After losing $20 million on his Amazon venture (over $200 million in today's dollars) Ford sold Fordlândia for $250,000. Today Fordlândia lays crumbling into ruins and deserted in the Amazon jungle.