The Flivver King: A Story Of Ford-America [Paperback]

Upton Sinclair (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1984

The Flivver King stands among the finest of modern American historical novels. It is history as it ought to be written - from the bottom up and the top down, with monumental sensitivity to the compromise and conflict between the two extremes. Its two stories - those of Henry Ford and Ford-worker Abner Shutt, unfold side by side, indeed dialectically. They are, in the end, one story: the saga of class and culture in 'Ford-America'. Workers and bosses, flappers and Klansmen, war and depression, Prohibition outlaws and high-society parties, unions and anti-union gun thugs - few aspects of American life in the first four decades of the last century are missing from this small masterpiece. The Flivver King sustains the same sure grasp of working class life which characterized Sinclair's earlier classic, The Jungle, but much less sentimentally and with a steadier focus on how alienated work breeds not only degradation but also resistance and revolt. Originally written in 1937 to aid the United Automobile Workers' organizing drive, The Flivver King answers the question "Why do we need a union?" with quiet eloquence. Kerr have reissued it as a great American novel and an important historical document, but most of all because that question has never gone away and is now more vital than ever. With an introduction from Steve Meyer.

Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: Charles H Kerr (January 1, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0882860542
• ISBN-13: 978-0882860541
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #369,118 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Other Story about Ford..., August 8, 2001

By 

mchenryed - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Flivver King: A Story Of Ford-America (Paperback)

Sinclair writes an extremely interesting historical novel about the start of the Ford Automobile Company. The story is told from the perspective of Abner Shutt, one of Ford's first employees. Abner lives in the times where Henry Ford began his auto design humbly in the early 1900's till the mid 30's when Ford was known as the richest man in the world.

The story's focus, however, is on the treatment of the workers. When Ford started his factory, he cared a great deal about his employees, but as time went on he became obsessed with speeding up the manufacturing process and increasing his profits. By streamlining the process and making people work harder, his profits grew while his workers received the same pay. When the workers tried to form unions Ford's "hidden spies" crushed any attempt of congregation, even resorting to violence.

This book was like reading a detailed piece of history. Ford's anti-Semitic feelings are revealed through his little-known Dearborn Chronicle Magazine and how the Klan was active in the Detroit area. Also, Ford company initiatives are accounted for as well (such as moral families received a substantial bonus - if they allowed themselves to be investigated.) The historical scope of the novel is fascinating and I found it compelling, rich, and hard to put down. It is similar to the Sinclair's Jungle (an account on the conditions of the meat packing plants). The book was instrumental in the formation of the United Auto Worker's Union.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sinclair's Horribly Underrated Gem, December 20, 2000

By 

"netchild" (Lubbock, TX. United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Flivver King: A Story Of Ford-America (Paperback)

Sinclair, known mainly for The Jungle, has created a masterpiece of proletarit literature. As in The Jungle Sinclair uses the guise of a storyteller to warn the working population that where there is a false idol created by gold there is a hell on earth as a result. Sinclair's overriding message is simple: where there is the extremely rich, there is the extremely poor. Unlike Karl Marx or others like Marx, Sinclair doesn't force the message down the readers throats, he slips a little of the message into our drink and before we know it we are inebriated with his viewpoint. The book is about 120 pages but in those short few pages you meet and come to care about characters like Abner Shutt, Tom Shutt, and even the antagonist Henry Ford, the Flivver King himself. Sinclairs greatest gift as a storyteller is his ability to make us empathize, not just sympathize, with the characters. By the end of the story we don't just know what it might have been like to be those people, we know exactly what it was like because for a few moments Sinclair made us become those people. Not only does this book give us tangible characters, it also gives us a tangible atmosphere of early 20th Century America. This book was instrumental in the founding of the union movement that swept America for a very good reason. Read it and find out why it is as important now as it was then. Read it and find a cure for apathy.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Upton Sinclair's The Flivver King, April 28, 2000

By 

Jimmy Nichols (Lubbock, Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Flivver King: A Story Of Ford-America (Hardcover)

Upton Sinclair has given the reader a general overview of what life was like in Michigan when Henry Ford revolutionized the world with his invention of the automobile. Sinclair does this through following Abner Shutt from child to old age and his involvement with Henry Ford. Shutt is totally sold on the ideals and ethics of Henry Ford, but does this last? The Shutt family is consumed in the Ford machine, and every daily action revolves around Ford, the man and the machine. This book is very well written, and lets the reader view history as though he or she were living at the time with the Shutt family.