[nimbius]

Ah the paragon of american assembly line manufacturing, Henry Ford. As a millennial its taken me a while to get the real dirt on the guy, as in america highschools extol only his virtue.

Did you know Ford had his own secret police after he doubled the salary of his workforce?

To qualify for his doubled salary, the worker had to be thrifty and continent. He had to keep his home neat and his children healthy, and, if he were below the age of twenty-two, to be married. he created a division within the Ford Motor Company to keep everyone in line. It was known as the Ford Sociological Department

Henry Ford’s paternalism even extended the point where you needed the company’s permission if you wanted to buy a car, which included a requirement to be married and have children.

https://jalopnik.com/when-henry-fords-benevolent-secret-poli...

[verylittlemeat]

Captains of industry who liked to play simcity in real life were not unusual for the time. One of the worst strikes in American history started over "company town" issues.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_Strike

This is really the ongoing story of organized labor vs their corporate overlords. If you want to see real interviews and video from what living in company town with secret police is like check out the documentary Harlan County, USA.

[TomMarius]

Yes. Czech entrepreneur Tomáš Baťa (there is pretty good chance you're wearing shoes with his name right now) founded a whole city (not a town, a pretty big city for its time).

[shard972]

How much of those policies Ford was implienting can be attributed to the culture of the time? I understand in today's culture such a pushing of family values is pretty much illegal but i wonder how many other companies at the time had similar kinds of policies.

[eecc]

Adriano Olivetti, although much later in time didn’t hoist his demands on the workforce. He did lay out a huge amount of benefits that nobody in it’s right mind would complain about though... yet most of this drive died with him, as the rest of the Italian industrials preferred confrontation and stashing of their material proceedings abroad in Switzerland... perhaps it had something to do with the witchunt against anything remotely Socialist