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ETD BEST PRESENTATION 2015 CIEC CONFERENCE
Acknowledgment
This paper received the best ETD presentation award for the 2015 CIEC conference; it is reprinted with permission from the conference proceedings. ©2015 American Society for Engineering Education, Proceedings of the Conference for Industry and Education Collaboration, Palm Springs, Calif.
1. Introduction
Henry Ford. The name conjures up elements of the American dream: the quintessential self-made man, who pulled himself up by his bootstraps to found what has become an American institution. Henry Ford is Horatio Alger incarnate, a man of rural origins who became a millionaire and revolutionized manufacturing in the United States and, indeed, the world. In the textbooks of America's schoolchildren, Henry Ford is described as a hero.
Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company, however, have a darker side: FMC has engaged in some fairly spectacular ethical breaches. Most of us are probably familiar with the Pinto exploding gas tank fiasco in the 1970s, which featured people roasting to death when the Pinto's gas tank burst in rearend collisions; or, more recently, the Explorer rollover debacle that resulted in the largest tire recall in history and the dissolution of a century-long partnership with Firestone Tires. But prior to these well-publicized events, Ford and his company engaged in very questionable practices.
This paper examines the past life of Ford and his company, focusing on anti-Semitism and collusion with the Third Reich; Fordlandia, Ford's failed Brazilian rubber plantation; and FMC's paint sludge dump in Ringwood, New Jersey, that is poisoning the land and its inhabitants.
An examination of these three situations reveals a very different side of Ford and his company, one that shows contempt for workers, a deficiency of social responsibility, and a corporate reluctance to accept responsibility for actions that have resulted in great harm, both to humans and the environment. All of these yield vibrant classroom discussions of ethics, corporate social responsibility, and accountability.
2. Background
Ford was born in 1863 to Irish immigrants on a modestly prosperous farm in Wayne County, Michigan, the same year as the Emancipation Proclamation was unveiled. At an early age, he showed an aptitude for what we now call mechanical engineering technology; a family story relates that at the tender age of 13, his father...