How Ford Transformed Religion in America

What does a motor company and its founder have to do with religion in America?
A lot, it turns out. Henry Ford did not just mass produce cars. As a member of
the Episcopal Church, reader of New Thought texts, believer in the “gospel of
reincarnation,” mass marketer of antisemitic material, and employer who
institutionalized a social gospel, Henry Ford’s contributions to American
models of business were informed by and produced for an America he understood
to be broadly Christian. Though Ford’s efforts at the head of the Ford Motor
Company have commonly been understood as secular, the Motor King was explicit
that his work in engineering and auto production was prophetic and meant to
remake the world. This talk offers a religious history of Henry Ford and the
Ford Motor Company, repositioning them within critical studies of religion and
examining how Ford transformed American religion in the twentieth century.

Organized by: U-M Frankel Center for Judaic Studies

View event on Jlive: https://jlive.app/events/13937