television for serious readers.

>> i want to welcome you to the hudson library historical society live event with thomas, there to discuss fascinating new book, electric city, lost history of ford and edison utopia. i'm catholic, one of the adult services here at the hudson library. we have quite a few exciting programs coming up in june and you can learn about and register for them at hudson library.org. also, i'm excited to say we will offering live morning meditation, yoga classes outside by our patio this summer. the classes will be on our website this week if you'd like to sign up. a reminder if you're joining us on zoom, you can put your questions into hyundai if you're joining us on facebook, put your questions in a chat and we will get to as many as we have time for. one more thing, our local independent bookstore is selling

copies of tonight book and there's a link in the chat if you would like to purchase one. tonight i'm delighted to welcome author thomas hager, publishers weekly called electric city, up book we are discussing this tonight from a little-known chapter in american history. he is an award-winning author of numerous books on the history of science and medicine including a jewish genius, a do tycoon and scientific discovery that fueled the rise of hitler and how plants, powders shaped the history of medicine. he's the courtesy associate professor of journalism and communication at the university of oregon so give a warm virtual welcome to thomas hager. >> thank you. thank you. good to be here.

as kathy noted, i write mostly about the history of science and medicine and this is really less about science although there is a fair development of electricity industry in the book, it more about people and hang on, i just want to make sure that we are on and. >> your good obligate flex mckesson i got an error message on my side. more about people, really i thought were fascinating people in american history and how it changed the history of the united states. the two main characters in the book are henry ford, are your

industrialist, fort motor company and made ford the number one selling car in the world in the 1920s and his body and late life friend, thomas edison. thomas edison of course, we all know him as the inventor of the electric infant doesn't light, the light bulb that we used -- well, we don't use light bulbs the way he does it anymore but he had a tremendous effect on the development of technology in america. it wasn't just the lightbulb. edison also did the photograph from the early versions of kami camera movie protector and changed american life in a thousand ways that are fundamental to who we are as people. he did that through his inventions. he was known as the wizard of the park.

the park and new jersey is where he had a laboratory where he made his inventions and by the time of the setting of the book promote the book is set in the years just after world war i in early 1920s, so five years on either side of 1920 at the heart of this book, during that time edison already ordered satan in america, he was one of the best loved americans that lived during that time. everybody knew the name of thomas edison. everybody knew what edison had done for the united states so it was quite an event edison teamed up henry ford tried to create this enormous project, that's

the subject of my book. it happened like this. edison and ford knew each other and ford was a younger man, one of the first jobs ford got when he was a young man was not in automobiles but in electricity. he worked on electrical dynamos as a young man. one of the first jobs henry ford got was working at thomas edison's electric company in detroit, michigan. he was a farm boy and he hated farm work. he did the grocery of farm work and he hated working outside in all brothers, the kind of stuff farmers have to do to make a living. and the thing henry ford didn't

like. henry ford was a natural aptitude for machinery and he loved angry with machines, early machines. he grew up in the 1880s and 90s and during that. , esteem engines were all the things. steam engines were huge, they were used to power factories and on the farm, they had steam engines on wheels they could roll farm to farm and fire up the help with the harvest, you could have it brought to your firm. these things were huge, like locomotive. they were called -- locomotives because they didn't need tracks

to run, they were big iron wheels but the engines themselves were the size of railroad locomotives were a little smaller. they would roll from the farm and settle down in the field and when they use the steam engine to power a series and pull it to various farm chores that needed to be done, please road locomotives were henry ford's dream machine. he was obsessed with road locomotives. he learned everything he could how they work and he was a genius on scene machines people to get a particular number farm about machinery and he stuck with machinery and left the farm work behind. he couldn't wait to get out of his parent farm and into a machine shop and he ended up

working for thomas edison and thomas edison what's at the height in the 80s and 90s and as a young nobody, he started working with edison and ford was counted of course and ford took notice and his superiors brought henry ford to it and edison company, a luncheon one day in which thomas edison was pressed and the two men met, edison established, rich and famous and ford is nobody and the two of them started a conversation, the young kid who is adept with machines and the other guy who understands inventions, they start talking and what they are talking about is an idea henry ford has for building a new kind

of automobile engine. ford has been playing around with the idea of powering an automobile with gasoline and he's inventing an improved engine is kitchen, his garage putting together bits and pieces in his spare time trying to make this revolutionary gas engine and edison is fascinated. he listens to this young man and thinks he's got something going on and they become friends but years later, after ford built his engine and put his engine into an automobile that was the most reliable and least expensive automobile the world had ever seen, he called the model g, he invented that and

then make model, he said he make them fabulously cheap, the assembly line factory, it was more important, i think more important than the model t itself making the model cut down costs tremendously ford put his factory together with his automobile, everybody wanted one. it's a revolutionary in america because until the time of henry ford, automobiles were tremendously expensive. they were luxury toys and what henry ford did, he created an automobile to work on a farm, he could take it on dirt roads, it was easy to fix, everything was durable and reliable dirt cheap

so suddenly everybody wanted one between 1910 -- 20, during that decade, model t became the first best-selling, a phenomenal best-selling worldwide, a tremendous moneymaker for ford. he owned his own company and by the time 1920 came from it was on a scale unlike anyone else in the world. the richest man in the world and one of the most powerful but that is the setting for the story. edison, number ford interested in inventions and ecological new ways of power industry and the book tells the story how they tried to create the utopian city

in the middle of america that would incorporate all their best ideas turn the ideas into a new way of living for america so i want to take a moment and talk about what they want to change, not just about american technology but american society. my book is about an experiment to great powerful men trying to undertake a massive scale in northern alabama on the tennessee river in northern alabama and the river is a big part of american history all associated with the movement of americans west of the appalachian mountains and a huge

source of stories about the birth of america in the tennessee valley. by the time ford edison were in the area in the 20s, the tendency for area in north alabama was one of the poorest parts of the united states, tremendously -- i guess you know, it was almost as if part of the united states had been lost in the 1700s and had not advanced into the 20th century. part of the problem was the civil war which ravaged the area and never really report fully so it was impacted by the civil war. part of the reason was the people there tended to be small

farmers who worked tough farms, much of the army happened in the help, a hilly area in western tennessee the seventh part of tennessee and northern part of alabama, a lot of people, what people make fun of now, hillbillies lived there and it was a tough way to make a living forming a small farm in the hills, the soil wasn't very good and the roads were very good and no electricity and no healthcare. people lived in cabins that had big holes in the roof. he read the descriptions of the way people lived in that part of the country and it really is like looking back a couple hundred years. they watched the clothes in washing pots they lit a fire

under and they had very poor communication with the rest of the world so when henry ford and thomas edison decided to go down and change of about his life, it wasn't just a typical 1920s, it was like going back to 1780 or 1800 and announcing to the people in an area the tennessee river area is about the size of england, the people in the area, he would pull them out of the 1780s and into the 1920s, you're going to do it by building the world's biggest dam across the tennessee river using all the electricity produced to power industries without using

coal, use electrical energy entirely clean, renewable energy is what we would call it now but you would invent industries that work with electricity's set of burning coal. thousand important step forward because edison and ford built their vision around the idea of clean and renewable energy. they disliked coal, they thought it was dirty and polluting and dangerous, unhelpful. they wanted to get away from coal so they were going to build an entire city built around electricity this was edison idea. the world largest power plant, the world biggest dam, the lord largest source of electricity power industries up and down the tennessee river. what they plan was a new kind of city, they wanted to reshape

society around the idea of a new way. very quickly, what henry ford had in mind when he was thinking about this experiment in northern alabama was, he was thinking about what a mistake he made in detroit and ford factories, huge factories were making model to use in and around detroit, for several of detroit and detroit area. he was in the process of building the world biggest factory at the time he was thinking about this experiment in alabama. he built factories in these cities, he completely changed the nature of detroit. his factories employed so many people in such a small area but they created loans.

he really cared about his workers, his concerned about his workers wages and living conditions but he couldn't help the fact when you build a huge factory, you concentrate people and small area, they tend to live in rentals, city centers, the result is slum living to a great extent and along with that is an increase in crime and these were things and report hated. he had this idea in mind that america should be much like a small town midwest america farm town he grew up in. a few brick buildings downtown, white church on the green by the pond, this was the idealized america he wanted for his

workers, he follows the best way for people to live. they wanted to create that in northern alabama on a vast scale so he wanted to have an industrial center, a city 75 miles long and .1 million workers wanted all of that, but he wanted it without any pollution or crime, he wanted his workers to live on small farms. forming a few acres in their spare time to bring in their own crops and working in electric power industries the rest of the time so they could have the best of both city life and country life at the same time. they'd all drive instead of a single huge factory, he wanted a string of small factories. electrical power factories up and down the river and around each factory would be small land

leases or sales for workers so they could have five or 10 acres of farm for 20 if they wanted and they could afford it because he offer financing for buying the land and he would offer advice on how to farm and rent them farm machinery to farm them. when they were done with their crops which would only take a few weeks, they could go to the steady job and make a regular wage and improve their land, educate their kids and so on. so he built this vision around a new kind of american life. act what he thomas edison created in northern alabama. this tells the story of how they tried to do that and why they failed. finally, the book tells what happens next. the story moves eventually toward the creation of one of

the greatest achievements of government in the united states, a project called tennessee valley, tpa which many of you may have heard of. this book explains how it started, it started out of this. eventually despite his popularity and name, despite money, eventually ford's plans red head head on into the u.s. government which also had a claim on the power generation at the tennessee valley. for five years, ford and gusts government fought each other over who would control the area, a private kingdom in northern alabama. reporter: get his wish and that his city over the u.s. government stopped him and do something else?

eventually the government found a way stop henry ford and they moved in and built their own version of this new way of living in public tpa. the tells the story how it grew out of these ideas as well. one must cite not before we get into you and i. a side note is along with everything else going on in the early 1920s, ford was trying to make a national case the government to give what he wanted so he could build his city. he wanted control over the area, all out of the biggest dam in fact didn't happen. what did happen was henry ford decided the easiest way for him to get what he wanted might be if he ran for president so it

tells the story of how close henry ford came to becoming president. this is a little known story as well but he would just do his candidate for several years in the mid- 1920s and a number of observers and i've got to admit, i was one of them thinks had as good a shot as anyone at the time of being the president of the united states. he would have run on a platform that incorporated the idea of this electric city he wanted to build for america. that's what he wanted to run on so there's reasons that didn't happen, i tell the story in the book but we came close to having a president in the 20s who would have been someone who

didn't have a day of government service behind him, came out of private industry, accustomed to running a one command job, accustomed to be the boss of everything in the company and he would have run the government the same way and he was phenomenally popular with people across the middle of america, workers and factory workers, people who looked upon him as a genius and would have loved the idea of him running the united states. that almost happened and the reason it didn't was the story of this utopian experiment so the book that resulted in the city and i hope everyone gets a chance to read it, i'm open for

questions. >> okay, let's get started with some questions. first is, how did you get interested in this american history x. >> well, it was sort of an accident. you mentioned a previous book, one of my earlier books was about the development -- well, this sounds exciting when i say it like this but it's the development of the fertilizer industry worldwide and its more interesting than it would sound for various reasons but i spent a few years learning about fertilizer and as a result the book came out and it was kind of a hit especially for farmers, a surprise hit so i got invited to

talk to a lot of places around the u.s. one place i went to was in northern alabama, i had never been in northern alabama in my life and i had this idea, if any of you viewers have read agee's work, there is a brick in the 1930s, a detailed life in appalachia in the poor part of the united states, that's what i thought northern alabama was like. my mindset was this is a really poor area still meant i got to permit alabama and i landed on a modern international airport in huntington -- huntsville, i'm sorry. northern alabama, i was taken to a city, a small and alabama, up

the tennessee river and it was a delightful place, people were wonderful. it was a four star international hotel on the health and i was blown away so this is a part of a country that came as a complete surprise to me and i got interested in the fact that it was actually very prosperous, up to date. there are more square mile in northern alabama than any other part of the rest, at least at that time. space research and international air culture research and all of this stuff going on. anyway, i was fascinated. i gave my talk and on the way out of town, i'm getting ready to go back to the airport to fly back home and a local fellow from my driver picked me up and

we were heading to the airport he was interested in fertilizer history so he took me out, had time to take a detour, went down the road to remains of an old fertilizer factory, that's what he wanted to show me. out in the middle of a field, what had to have been a gigantic factory that was interesting to me. the story behind this was more interesting was what happened next, the driver because we had a couple extra minutes soccer interested i was, he drove me a little ways away to another field in northern alabama and

there was yellow brass and of couldn't figure out what he was getting up we thought the field was actually a network street laid out. .... >> and the gigantic remains of

his huge factory. it made me wonder what happened here? what was the story? so naturally went to henry ford in a started and then led to the rest of the book. as writers do sometimes you pick up the thread and then you pull the thread it online the whole fabric. >> such an interesting story. >> i was surprised. >> another question what similarities do you see between young henry ford and elon musk or mark zuckerberg? >> that's a good question. we think today's titans of technology are anything that they are really not. ford and edison were the

titans of technology of their time. the parallels are obvious zuckerberg i will leave aside he was a technological innovator and zuckerberg i know less about that elon musk he has a restless imagination into electric cars in space travel and technology and he reminds me very much of henry ford and thomas edison. and one technological field they change lives for a lot of americans. and they could not stay with the success that they had and they moved on and did more. they tried to conquer new areas. elon musk is always testing the boundaries of what he can

do when we have not seen the last of his innovations. henry ford after his success with the model t and assembly-line plant, wanted to stretch himself out into this role and i think that is a factor that happens to people who are highly successful they begin to think their ideas in their thinking would probably be better for everybody so they tried to apply those successes and apply it to a larger group. that is true of henry ford he wanted to take those common sense ideas of what was good

for people and apply that to essentially himself. it didn't happen but it was interesting to see if it had come it would have been an interesting experiment because had he got in what he wanted, we would have been enormous part of the united states that was really under the control of one industrialist. similar to having a 75-mile long factory that employed a million people and completely dominated an area of the central united states. in the heartland that domination didn't happen that would've been interesting to see. i see definite parallels not that elon musk going to mars

but who knows. >> you talked about becoming president you think she would have been a good president? do you think he would have made this plan happened had he been elected? >> yes. if he was elected he would have made it happen. i have no doubt. the only thing standing in his way. the only reason it didn't happen without being president is that a small group of concerned senators in the senate of the u.s. congress got together to stop them. henry ford was a very smart guy. he did a very good job he was that camping buddy the presidents that were buddies

were harding and coolidge. harding was pro-business republican president. he and henry ford went camping together, they talked the same language, they were buddies. as long as harding was president everything would go ford's way. that was great. but then harding died suddenly while in office. he passed away what was probably a stroke or heart disease. and calvin coolidge is vice president became president at that time. he was much cooler on ford. that created a problem. coolidge talked a good line but he did not follow through to give ford his support. instead, a group of senators in the u.s. senate formed an opposition group they wanted

government control instead of private control for this enormous resource of what turned out to be a series of more than a dozen dams on the tennessee river. eventually ford's image of a single damn turned into more than a dozen it is an enormous project. the senators wanted that to be owned by the people of the united states not henry ford. so they formed an opposition group had by a guy named george morris he was an old senator from a nowhere state from nebraska. he is a heroic figure. he is a maverick never let anybody tell him what to think.

with the allies and the falsehoods where he saw them he did not care what political party or how powerful you were if you thought you were lying he would tell you and he led the opposition to ford so george stopped henry ford eventually. that story is in the book. however, if he had not been there, that one man, george and his friends come it's a very good chance ford would have gotten what he wanted even without being president. as the presidential elections heated up after harding's death, and ford considered running, part of his calculus was if he got into the white house, he could make his dream happen on the tennessee river and make the utopian city happening could build it because he could

circumvent the congress to the extent he needed to get the votes he needed. he came very close anyway and as president he would have the levers to pull to make it happen. i think he would have been president if he had run seriously. think the reason he didn't run was because he made a deal with coolidge, a backroom deal i present the evidence in the book ford and coolidge got together in the white house and has to deal and henry ford agreed not to run for president that meant coolidge could run and in exchange coolidge would push for ford's control of this project. that was the deal that was struck. it was a secret deal and controversial.

there is evidence that it happened. but george morris got a hold of the scandal and found out about the secret meeting and blasted it all over the media. once it became a public scandal, coolidge backed off. henry ford by then already said he would run for president. so ford took himself out of running for president prematurely and he never got the project but he also never got to be president. if he was president my idea he would be up president unlike any we had ever had. he would have been an autocrat. he would've been unable to deal effectively with groups like congress or the press.

he just want his own way it would have been a very interesting four years. but it didn't happen. in fairness ford didn't really want to be president. he knew he was lucky to have the job he had as the world's richest one-man band this enormous profitable company and could do what he wanted and tell anybody what he wanted he did not have to make nice and kiss babies and he knew that. he was not built to be a politician. he knew it. especially his wife. she was dead set against ford being president and she was a powerful figure in his life. when she told him she didn't want him to be present - - president that had an effect. >> interesting about the press that he was a publicity genius it sounds like that contradicts what you just said. >> i said he could not work with the press if he was

president. but as a private citizen and industrialist, he maintained a very large public relations office in ford motor company. and it grew over the years and was very powerful. he was a genius at publicity. so in addition to everything else, he had the most positive media coverage you could imagine everybody was interested in what henry ford was doing but yet this folksy guy who had a fifth grade education, his nickname at the time was uncle henry like a member of your family. he spoke plainly and did not try to obfuscate he was an enemy of wall street and bankers which most workers in america were at the time as well. and americans loved him.

that was doing great part to the fact he had this media relations army working for him that grew over time to include essentially what people said was a private police force to investigate enemies as well. but the point is he had to work with the press at that level. he did not know how to work with the press as a public servant he'd never been a public servant and that is a different role but in any case it's the difference between politics and business henry ford was site and is highly successful in one field. but to be fair to the journalist at the time to newspaper reporters they

always gave henry ford outbreak. they reported public interest features what he wore to an event. they focused on that. because they knew they could sell papers on uncle henry and that was important to the media. had he become president there would be the automatic opposition with the attacks on ford. and another story told in the book is weak point in addition to the man of the people persona with a vicious anti-semite.

he did a terrific damage i think by using his public relations arm to attack jewish citizens around the world and in the united states in particular. he blames, it was a form of anti- semitism that has to be read to be believe that was a week point that he had as well. so not every group in america was behind him. the middle swath of america, the midwest and south were very much behind ford's plan. the east coast and west coast were not and they were more dubious about his claims. he was a popular figure but as a politician he think it would have been very difficult for him. >> another question did the alabama plan city have any relationship in brazil can you

compare and contrast quick. >> fort landy a came out a few years ago another huge forward project it was an attempt to make a rubber empire in south america in brazil. that's a great book. thank you for bringing that up. that happened a little later. after ford was blocked from doing his utopian city after his plan with edison fell through and the government stepped in, he looked for other ways to use that same energy and one of the projects that he did had the city on the tennessee river happened i don't think fordlandia would have happened in the same way. that was the scale that ford liked to play at.

he did projects he did not do little things. the irony i think that the end result of all this planning is probably best exemplified by a park that he built in michigan near his factory. what he decided to do and put a lot of energy into late in his life, he tried to create the america he wanted as a theme park. so if you ever go to dearborn i recommend you visit the ford museum. a beautiful facility and it has every car that ford ever on - - ever made i'm pretty sure and a number of machines.

it's the story of a tremendous american success story. there is a wonderful archive there i spent a week at the archive researching the book and then afford component which is essentially a theme park. in idea he got late in life to create the america that he thought was a true america. he would by the birthplaces of famous americans including his own in the house eager up and would move it from the farm in michigan to this park and he said it down and created a little farm around it. he bought thomas edison's workshop and moved it to dearborn and sat in the park and he bought neil hawthorne's

birthplace. and the wright brothers shop where they sold bicycles. he would collect buildings the way people collect china plates he would bring them to dearborn and put them in this park with a place that you can see american architecture laid out and there is essential part of it and is like henry ford stream of americana. it has a white church house with a steeple. and a pond. and to beautiful houses with an old colonial in. it is remarkable to me he went

from wanting to build a 75-mile working city to this charming but unusual themepark. anyway if you are up in that part go visit. >> we are not too far from michigan here. one more question from the patrons. do you have any knowledge or information of the adversarial relationship henry ford had with rockefeller? please share the story and the outcomes. >> i do not. i did not study rockefeller at all for this book i did get rockefeller and ford other projects he was very much involved in the science of america so from that standpoint in the old one - - the only overlap i came across

between ford and rockefeller it's another little-known story but one i have not fully research so i'm not ready to talk about with a broad outline he made his money off of cars. john d rockefeller made his money off the oil to run the cars. around the time of world war i it look like the world was running out of oil natural oil reserves were going to be much smaller and there was great worry that the world would run dry of oil and if there was no more oil than rockefeller wouldn't make money and ford wouldn't make money. at the same time, just after

world war i the germans who were defeated in the war were looking for ways and they came up with a plan to make synthetic oil and perfect a very difficult method technologically to take call from the german coal mines and turn into automobile fuel into gasoline essentially or air period on - - airplane fuel. so they make gasoline for cars out of coal. and that project for synthetic oil was very interesting both to rockefeller and to ford.

but they have been destroyed or lost or are not available to the public around this project but essentially it would have been in collaboration between two of the biggest industries in the united states and then to develop that synthetic oil in germany so ig far been in standard oil there is some evidence that they did, collaborate in between the two wars to develop the new industry. there were shares of stock exchanged intellectual property past back-and-forth but the problem was as it turned out later that hitler came to power in the early

thirties and ig far been was not surprised and became a nazi. and the work that ford and rockefeller in standard oil were doing became very problematic at that point and that continued into the not see era. - - not see era i don't know if anybody would dig out the record they think they have been destroyed or kept away from the public. but that did occur i did not look at rockefeller and ford. >> for those who may not know much, how much of ford's dreams were developed by the government and what was

edison's involvement quick. >> good question. edison dropped out of the process. edison believe i - - he helped ford as a favor to the threat once the going got rough and to stiffen the opposition, some of edison's thinking came under attack he pretty much dropped out before the government finally took over control of the project. so what did they do with his ideas and that's cover that link in the book and it raises an interesting question about the relationship between public and private projects in the united states. this was a large-scale project that involved a lot of people that had power in northern

alabama and the tennessee area. and it naturally raised concerns about public control and public resources. the most important is the question of public control of rivers. it is commerce and flood control and irrigation only thing we need rivers for came into play because the government didn't want to give ford control of the whole river but if he had control of the dnc would have control over how it was developed and for the public good or private good. the question still resonates today. who is best in charge? is it more effective or is

government more concerned getting the value out of public resources to be in charge of large projects like this. it came out in favor of the government. the government take over the project forward eventually after his deal with coolidge, for dropped out. and the government took over. george morris designed the government project in the deaths the depression it was already an area that was economically troubled and the depression was crushing to

people in the south of the united states. which is why they were attracted to ford's idea. he promised economic revival. when the government took over they came in and finish the dams and finish them in a different way they were not just concerned with electric power. that was part of it but flood control and irrigation. and public access to parks and to the lakes that built up behind the dams. and what they wanted to do as an important part of the new deal for america to create jobs during the depression but do it in ways that benefited all americans is much as possible. a dams got built, the lakes are establish there is more

coastline in northern alabama than the rest of the united states. a string of lakes that goes on and on and is beautiful. in this project was finished and the electric power began to flow. and industries began to come in it was all ford stream except industries he not would have chosen but they required allied of electric power. they started to come in and as i said earlier when you go there now, it is a wonderful area. it is a lovely area. it has caught up with the rest of the united states. and there are real questions and ford might not have been a better choice and they go over the dynamics with that and it is complex but the book goes

into would we really have been worse off? it seems this is an enormous success story but i made the argument and it is fair to make it would almost be as good as henry ford and to be more efficient there is no easy answer it has to be taken on a case-by-case basis. tga was life changing and ford would have done that also. so we and up with a very difficult question. that's a good question. >> i think it's time to wrap it up. this is the book you want to look for. the book we have been talking about tonight.

thank you thomas for being here with us