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The Flivver King: A Story Of Ford-America

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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.

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.

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.

Upton Sinclair was a precursor in his novels 'Oil' and 'The Jungle'. He was also a very good analyst about the way politicians and banks acted during the 1929 Depression. In `The flivver king, a story of Ford-America', written in 1937, he writes :

"The first panic lasted several days; then it passed, and there was a lull, full on anxiety. President Hoover called a council of business leaders to discuss what was to be done, and these big medicine men assembled, and agreed that the country must have confidence, and they told the country to have it (...) The only thing he could think of (the US President, Herbert Hoover) was to have Congress vote huge sums to his friends and beneficiaries, the great banks and corporations ( ...) The theory was that this money would seep down to the consumers and promote trade. But what happened was that the money stayed right in the banks where he put It ; they couldn't lend it unless they could see a chance of profit, and how could a business man promise a profit when he couldn't find anybody who had money to spend? It was the end of an era".

Does it sound familiar? Upton Sinclair explains how governments and bankers addressed the economical crisis. His story is only too familiar and somehow disturbing : they proposed more or less the same remedies, and made more or less the same promises than today, eighty years later. Are they smarter now? Or we will have more of the same ineffective medicine?

Otherwise, the book is written in a clear and engaging way, easy to read, because it was a booklet aimed primary, to a special public, the Union workers.

My son urged me to read this book. I thought it would be dull, but was amazed to find that it is very readable. I was fascinated by the story of the early beginnings of the Ford Motor Company, and shocked to learn of Ford's anti-Semitic views and the brutality to which his company descended to fight the labor unions. It IS true that you will definitely realize anew why unions are needed when you read about some of the conditions that the employees had to endure, i.e. the 'speed-up,' the refusal of Ford to aid laid-off workers during the Depression, etc. Well worth reading!

Written in the same style as "The Jungle." It's historical fiction and relates the struggle of a typical American family (the Shutts) while working in the automobile industry, specifically for Henry Ford. The only difference is that there is a lot less dramatization. One really felt terrible for Jurgis in "The Jungle." Things just got worse and worse for him. The Shutts are a middle-class, white, Protestant family living in Michigan, and Sinclair shows just how much they depended on Ford and his automobile for their livelihood. One cannot sympathize with Abner Shutt nearly as much as one could sympathize with Jurgis. Even though Shutt loses his job a few times, he is stubborn and close-minded, convinced that America's youth and businesses are falling prey to the influence of Jews and Communists. Three of his four children develop into completely different people from their father. One is a bootlegger and another is a college-educated union organizer.

There is a wonderful sequence at the end of the book juxtaposing Ford at a dinner party and a pro-union speech given by the youngest Shutt. I found this the most exciting moment of the story. Even though Sinclair's Socialist ideas are evident in this story, they are not nearly as prominent as in "The Jungle." The ending is also a lot less optimistic.

At first, Sinclair portrays Ford as a really nice guy. He sailed for peace and invited 48 American governors to join him. After WWI that all changes. He starts printing anti-Semitist propaganda in his own paper and spying on his workers. I was never told this stuff about Ford in high school. I recommend this book if you liked the Jungle and if you like knowing the truth about the supposed great men of American history.