forgotten
NO JEWS ALLOWED
August 12, 1919
Hartford, Connecticut
Henry Ford, the beloved carmaker, and Thomas Edison, the world-renowned inventor, hit the road together in one of Ford’s own cars.
The two friends are having the time of their lives, just two famous gentiles.
The two great men caused quite a stir when they popped into a local café for lunch. A crowd soon gathered.
Mr. Ford, the more gregarious of the two, displayed all his charm as he interacted with the townsfolk- after verifying that they were all protestants.
The locals were thrilled as he signed autographs for them, calling them “good, pure-blooded gentiles.”
His old fashioned, home-spun manner won over the town, after they assured him there were no Jews among them.
He praised the homemade apple pie, which, he said, was just like his gentile grandmother used to make.
All too soon, the pleasant afternoon drew to a close, as the duo piled into their roadster. But before they drove off, Mr. Ford had some inspiring parting thoughts:
“We’ve witnessed America at its finest here today. You’ve warmed our hearts with your decent, wholesome values- gentile values. You are the finest people I know. Not like those Jewish bankers.”
But seriously…
August 15, 2025
Henry Ford was more than an inventor. He was more thanan entrepreneur. He revolutionized American culture.
Unfortunately, he was also imbued with one of the ugly bigotries of the culture he lived in: antisemitism.
Ford put America on wheels.
In 1908 there were 194,400 cars on the road. Ford introduced the Model T, and it quickly became the country’s car of choice. By 1914, there were two million cars, and half of them were Model Ts.
It was the only model Ford made, and it came in only one color.
The famous saying at the time was, “You can have it in any color, as long as it was black.”
Why black? Black paint dried the quickest, and he was in a hurry to get the cars made. A model T came off the line every two and a half minutes.
He was also responsible for the steering wheel on the left. At the time, some cars had it on the left, some on the right. When he put it on the left, that became the standard.
By standardizing and simplifying the process of making cars, he was able to provide affordable automobiles to the average American, not just the rich. He made the country mobile.
That mobility wasn’t just for commuting. It also allowed them to take road trips.
On the Road
It was only natural the Ford himself would want to take advantage of this phenomenon he had created. But when he did it, it was big news. Because this famous man traveled with three famous friends: Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone, and John Burroughs.
Firestone sold the tires for all those Model Ts. Burroughs was a naturalist and popular writer. And Edison, inventor of the light bulb, the phonograph, and the motion picture camera, was, when they began travelling together, more well-known than Ford.
That would change. The road trips began in 1916. By 1919, Ford’s fame had eclipsed Edison’s. The great carmaker driving his own car on cross-country trips with his friends, had captured the country’s imagination.
It was great publicity. They presented themselves as a few regular free-spirited guys riding the roads and going camping. Actually they rode in luxury cars, with a kitchenette car and staff to serve them- sometimes up to 30 people.
They met with President Harding on one trip, and then President Coolidge on another. They also rubbed shoulders with fellow Americans.
They even started bringing their wives along, although Mrs. Edison didn’t like Mr. Ford.
And Edison, famous for only sleeping four hours a night while focused on his experiments, got to take lots of naps.
Opinionated
Ford and Edison, as powerful men, were quick to express their opinions on any topic, without worrying what anyone else thought.
Ford’s opinions tended to the cranky:
“Europe is too lazy to work.”
People “read to escape thinking.”
“Book sickness is a modern ailment.”
He also had some thoughts on the Jews.
Edison never seemed to be bothered when Ford berated the Jewish people. He may have held similar views, or he may have simply understood that that’s the way Henry was.
They controlled “the liquor business… the loan business … the motion picture industry … news distribution,” American farming, and Major League Baseball.
They also started the Civil War, and World War One.
But John Burroughs was shocked by his views.
One evening in 1919, on their trip to Lake Placid, New York, around a campfire, Burroughs was exposed to his friend’s bigotry.
Burroughs later explained,
“Mr. Ford attributes all evil to the Jews or Jewish capitalists. The Jews caused the War, the Jews caused the outbreak of thieving and robbery all over the country.
He would probably attribute an eclipse to the Jews.”
Ford had a particular animus toward Jewish bankers.
A particular target was Jay Gould, who became fabulously wealthy manipulating the stock market. Ford referred to him as “Shylock,” a derogatory term for a greedy Jewish moneylender from Shakespeare’s play, A Merchant of Venice. Burroughs immediately corrected Ford, telling him that Gould was a boyhood friend of his, and that he was Presbyterian, not Jewish.
Henry Ford could have confined his opinions to sitting around the campfire with discreet friends, and the public would never have known about his antisemitism. But he decided to put them in print.
Sensationalism
In 1919, Ford took over a struggling newspaper, calling it the Dearborn Independent. He wrote (or had someone ghost write for him) a column, titled “Mr. Ford’s Own Page.”
By 1920 it was losing money, so he took two steps.
He installed racks in showrooms, and pressured dealers to fold subscriptions into the price of a car. This was an annoyance to dealers, but they went along.
The other step was much more explosive.
Joseph J. O’Neill, his editor, sent him a memo, proposing a way to increase circulation. The memo ended with the words
“LET’S HAVE SOME SENSATIONALISM.”
Ford obliged. His anti-Jewish views teamed up with his desire for profit. On May 22, 1920, the newspaper began a series of articles, in Ford’s personal column, about Jews in the modern economy, titled “The International Jew: The World’s Problem.”
As the title suggests, it was filled with vicious antisemitism.
The articles were later published as a book.
At the Nuremberg trials after World War II, a former leader of the Hitler Youth called it “the decisive anti-Semitic book”, that inspired him to embrace Nazism.
(When Hitler wrote his own book, Mein Kampf, he credited Ford by name for his influence in speaking out against the Jews, calling him a great man. He also awarded him a medal: the Grand Service Cross of the Supreme Order of the Golden Eagle.)
His denunciations of Jewish bankers would cause him some embarrassment when, in 1920, there was a downturn in the economy and Ford needed money. Rather than beg money from the bankers he had insulted, he forced dealers to buy more cars than they wanted. The dealers then had to take out loans from their own banks to pay for them.
During the 91 weeks of antisemitic editorials, the subscription rate rose to 625,000. Ford credited his column with turning around the newspaper.
The happy irony is, it wasn’t the incendiary column that did it; it was the high-pressure technique of combining the newspaper subscription with the car sale.
It turns out, people didn’t want to read about his warped opinions.
They wanted to drive his great car.
Sources
The Vagabonds, The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edisons Ten-Year Road Trip, Jeff Guinn
American Journey, On the Road with Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and John Burroughs, Wes Davis
