The Flivver King: A Story of Ford-America

If Ford means to create a new model, he will have to remodel or replace many of his 45,000 machines, which can “turn out one thing and nothing else” (135). He decides to stop work almost completely at Highland Park and start “a whole new industry at the River Rouge plant” (136).

Abner is among the 100,000 men who are laid off. His son Johnny helps him to find the very lowest-paid job, that of a sweeper. Abner observes and reads about the enormous amount of work being done.

Five months later, the New Model A debuts: “Next day a quarter of a million people stormed the doors of seventy-six dealers; traffic was blocked in the streets, and it was necessary to hire Madison Square Garden for a week, so that the public could satisfy its curiosity” (137). The new model, which comes in four different color schemes, is “so successful that Henry ha[s] to make a million cars in the first six months” (138).

Abner is now working on the New Model A, screwing spindle-nuts, and feels “that his social status ha[s] been raised” (138). However, the work is in River Rouge, a long drive from home.

Meanwhile, the Shutt children are successful: Johnny has been promoted to a salaried position, is engaged, and is planning to buy a house “in a neighbourhood so elegant that his parents would be embarrassed to drive their old flivver into it” (138); and Daisy has found work in the office of a company that manufactures seat cushions for Ford and earns $23.