Life in the Shadows of the Crystal Palace, 1910-1927
Subtitle: Ford Workers in the Model t Era
Publisher: Bowling Green University Popular Press
Published: December 1996
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 210
ISBN-13: 9780879727376
Subjects: Labour economics; Road vehicle manufacturing industry; United States; Highland Park; Business/Economics; Automobile Industries (Economic Aspects); Labor Force; Industries - General; Business & Economics; Automotive; Ford Motor Company; Ford Model T automobile; Careers - Job Almanacs; Automotive - General; Ford family; Ford, Henry; Automobile industry workers; History; Michigan; Automobile industry and trade; Employees
Description: This book shows how Ford's first large automotive plant - the Crystal Palace - transformed the sleepy village of Highland Park, Michigan, into an industrial boomtown that later became an urban ghetto, and the first American city whose life and well-being depended entirely upon the employment and production policies of the automotive industry.

It shows how in the process of attempting to create a workforce in the likeness of Henry Ford himself, the Ford Motor Company used "scientific management" as the basis for redefining the relations between labor and management, and as the basis for attempting to manage the quality of life of those who worked in the factory, and of those who lived in its shadows.

This innovative work makes an important contribution to the study of the quality of life of the pioneers of modern industrial production. Given the recent developments in the automotive industry, Life in the Shadows provides a timely examination of this important episode in the history of American workers, along with significant details and interpretation of the earliest mass production facility and the local community that resulted from it.

The author discusses such issues as what the community was like before the coming of the Crystal Palace, the evolution of the production processes, the development of a new "manager class," and the work of Ford's Sociological Department.