8/12/2019 The Ford Motor Company Archives

1/6

The Ford Motor CompanyArchivesBy HENRYE.E D M U N D S

Ford Motor ompany

THE Ford Motor Company Archives, likeanumberof otherindustrial archives, owes its establishment primarily to ananniversary. In 1953, the Ford Motor Company will havecompleted a half centuryof automobile manufacture. Allanniver-saries, whether personalorinstitutional, seemtoprovide some com-pulsion for stock takingandself-examination. Insettingout to re-view its accomplishments of the past fifty years, the Companyquickly discovered that its institutional memory was in bitsandpieces, physically diffused through hundreds of files,in dozensoflocations. This discovery brought into sharp focustheneedfor anarchives department which would bring togetheratone central pointthe permanent recordsof thecompanyand its founder.M r. A. K. Mills, directorof the Fiftieth Anniversary Plans Officeofthecompany, asked D r. RobertH.Bahmerof theN ationalAr-chives to appraise this problem and toprovide a formula for itssolution. After an extended surveyof therecordsof Henry FordandtheFord M otor Company,Dr.Bahmer d rafted recommenda-tions for a company-wide program. The Bahmer report was ac-ceptedin late 1950and theprog ram launched inFebruary of this

year. Whatever goodyou mayfindin our program stems largelyfrom Dr. Bahmer's recommendations; as for shortcomings, bothrealand apparent, they rest squarely withus.The originof theFo rd M oto r Company Archiveshas in alargemeasure determinedits immediate objectivesandcharted itsshort-range program.The task was,and is, to bring into full operation,as quickly as possible, a first-class company archives. Workingagainstaclose deadlinehasmeant thatwe could waste little time

in recruitingastaff, equippingandfittingoutsuitable officeand de-pository space, and devising operationa l m ethods before movingtothereal jobof locating, accessioning,andprocessingthevariousrecords collections. For this reason, our quarters are utilitarian,1 Paper read at the annual meeting of the Society of American Archivists held atAnnapolis, Maryland, October 16, 1951.

99

8/12/2019 The Ford Motor Company Archives

2/6

ioo TH E AMERICAN ARCHIVISTour equipment plain, and our procedures simple. When it came tothe selection of astaff, however, we were very deliberate. And theevents of the past nine months cause us to feel that we were indeedfortunate in our selections.I do not mean to give the impression that speed in equipping thearchives has provided us with unsatisfactory facilities quite thecontrary. We have, I think, excellent space which meets all of theprofessional criteria for sound records care. The archives is locatedin the Ford Engineering Laboratory in Dearborn. There, in a vir-tually fire-proof building patrolled hourly each day, about 7,500feet of floor space, entirely isolated from operations in the rest ofthe building, has been assigned for ouruse.Of the total space, abouthalf is devoted to records storage and processing, a quarter to officespace, and the remainder to the activities of our Oral History Sec-tion.

The present records depository is an air-conditioned room accom-modating 3,000 feet of steel shelving, of which almost two-thirdsare now filled. After less than ten months of operation I knowthat you have anticipated the conclusion of this sentence we arealready nearing the limits of our storage capacity. Fortunately, thiswas foreseen months ago, and our move to permanent quarters isnear. Preliminary work has been in progress for some time, and byMay of 1952, the archives will have taken up permanent residencein Fair Lane, the Dearborn home of the late Henry Ford.

The decision to make Mr. Ford's residence a lasting home forthe Ford archives was most appropriate. The documents containingthe story of his life and the growth of the company he foundedcould find no better repository than the spacious stone house, locatedwithin one mile of his birthplace and almost as close to the sceneof his industrial triumphs. The physical facilities of the house inwhich he lived for thirty years are as auspicious as the historicalsetting is appropriate. It is large, well-constructed, and will lenditself to housing an archival operation with a minimum of radicalalteration. It will do all that surroundings could possibly accomplishtoward the program's success and usefulness.And now something of the nature of the holdings of the archives.At the present time, we have accessioned 64 collections, totaling4,000 feet. These collections have fallen agreeably into two maincategories: (1) the records of Henry Ford as an individual, found-er, and head of the company; and (2) the records of the companyas an industrial corporation.The first, and certainly the most exciting accession made by the

8/12/2019 The Ford Motor Company Archives

3/6

TH E FORD MO TOR COMPANY ARCHIVES 101archives was the papers from Henry Ford's residence, Fair Lane.Here, from desks and bureaus, closets and attics, library shelvesand basement storerooms, came over 700 feet of correspondence,periodicals, maps, photographs, blueprints, contracts, and memora-bilia. They were the accumulation of an incredibly active life thatencompassed over 80 years of a vital period in American history.The Fair Lane Collection, as we call it, has now gone throughits preliminary processing. Chronologically, it antedates HenryFord's birth in 1863 and ends at the death of Mrs. Henry Fordon September 29, 1950. Subject-wise, it contains heretofore inac-cessible material on every one of the myriad interests of Henry andClara Ford, and includes correspondence from a vast number ofpeople prominent and otherwise. Add to this the fact that HenryFord was as indifferent to system in the maintenance of his privatepapers as he was insistent upon it in the manufacture of automobiles,and you can readily see the scope of the arrangement problem withwhich we were faced. Final arrangement of the collection will beby subject. A tentative classification scheme has already gonethrough several revisions.

Traditionally the office of Henry Ford handled both his wide-spread personal interests and his Ford Motor Company business.The records from his office cover the period from 1900 through1947.At one point o r ano ther, they touch on just about every aspectof life in America during those years . This collection measures some-thing over 1,500 feet.The official company records having historical or permanent val-ue are being drawn from every department of the company. Asindustrial archives, these records at first glance may not appear tobe unique. They do, however, have a value far beyond the mererecapitulation of the daily events in the life of a corporation. HenryFord captured public attention wherever there was a road wideenough to allow the passage of a Model T. And with that Model The revolutionized an industry which has altered America. This isthe stuff of his tory the vital records of an industry, the docu-mentation of a part of America's industrial greatness. Over a thou-sand feet of production, legal, audit, public relations, sales adver-tising, engineering, and executive records have been accessioned inthis category. Another thousand feet is marked for early transferto the archives.In addition to a purely depository operation, we have undertakenseveral projects designed to make the documentary holdings moreuseful. The most important of these are (1 ) a publications pro-

8/12/2019 The Ford Motor Company Archives

4/6

ioa THE AMERICAN ARCHIVISTgram; (2) a comprehensive index to Ford materials; (3) develop-ment of a library; and (4) an oral history program.

As part of our publications program, we are currently engagedin (1) the preparation of a bibliography of the writings on andabout Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company; and (2) thefirst of a series of guides to those records of the company that aresufficiently remote from current operation to permit their use byqualified scholars.The writings on and about Mr. Ford and the company are, toput it mildly, voluminous. But for Eli Whitney, the name of HenryFord probably appears more often in American industrial literaturethan that of any other man. By systematically locating and apprais-ing these published materials, we feel that we are providing bothcompany official and serious scholar with a valuable research tool.For the first issuance in the guide series we have focused on theFord aircraft records as something of a pilot project because of thecompleteness of the records and the fact that they were easily seg-regated. We have attempted not only to describe the character andscope of the various collections, but also have sought to providesomething in the way of an administrative and operational historyof the activity with a view to orienting Ford records in relation todevelopments in the entire aircraft industry. Few people are awarethat the Ford Motor Company manufactured an airplane as earlyas 1908 just five years after the W righ t flight at Kitty H aw k.Fewer still know the story of Ford's pioneering the radio beacon the first airmail contract the first regularly scheduled airline op-eration the first truly successful passenger plane.

Projected guides to other collections will cover such varied sub-jects as lumbering and mining, radio development, Ford's railroadoperations, rubber development in Brazil, lake shipping, villageindustries, Muscle Shoals, Henry Ford Hospital, Edison Instituteand Greenfield Village, and even the ill-fated Peace Ship.In order to bring under some sort of control the tremendous massof information, both printed and documentary, now in the custodyof the archives, we have undertaken the development of somethingwhich, for want of a better name, we call an Index to Source Materials.The purpose of this device is to provide a guide to materialsfor research on the Ford Motor Company, Henry and Edsel Ford,and the Ford family. It is also designed to serve as a ready ref-erence facility for certain classes of information on Ford historyand operations. We intend the Index to embrace all informationbearing on the origin and activities of the Ford Motor Company

8/12/2019 The Ford Motor Company Archives

5/6

THE FORD MOTOR COMPANY ARCHIVES 103and its subsidiaries, the Ford family, and whatever general informa-tion is significant to the Ford story in its many ramifications. Whilethis has been a most ambitious undertaking, we feel that the useful-ness of the final product will more than compensate for the workthat must go into it.

During the course of its operations, the Ford archives has grad-ually acquired a substantial number of publications. For ease ofhandling, these have been incorporated into a library. Sources of theprinted holdings are varied. Many books, periodicals, and ephemeraare often found in the records when accessioned. Some have beenacquired for their bearing on the Ford family through inscriptionsand page annotations. Others have been bought to fulfill the pro-fessional needs of the staff and users of the archives. As a result, theFord Archives Library at present numbers about 9,000 volumes,and forms a very important collection covering subject areas thatparallel those of the documents in the archives.

Finally, the Ford Motor Company Archives, in pursuing a com-pletely functional theme, has incorporated into its operation an oralhistory project. By so doing, we have gone somewhat beyond thetraditional archival concept of care and oversight of records, andare in fact engaged in manufacturing archives.

Oral history, or perhaps more accurately, tape-recorded history,is aimed at increasing the quantity and quality of historical sourcesby preserving information found only in human memory. Both man-agement and scholar have, times without number, been frustratedby scarcity of documentation and have been forced to draw conclu-sions or make decisions based on fragmentary information. TheOral History Section has been instituted as an organizational unit ofthe Ford archives to eliminate this tragic blank spot.Specifically applied to Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Com-pany, the operation of the Oral History Section is designated topreserve permanently the memoirs of those who participated in thedevelopment of the company. Many of these men, while realizingthe historical importance of the events in which they played a part,lack the time, energy, or the necessary direction to transfer theirexperiences from memory to a permanent record. The oral historyoperation has met these needs with a program that provides a quick,easy method of recording memoirs. Interviewers trained at the Co-lumbia University Oral History Project, using tape recorders, seekout those individuals whose achievements have contributed to thegrowth of the company, and in a series of guided interviews, recordtheir recollections of people, places, and events significant in com-

8/12/2019 The Ford Motor Company Archives

6/6

104 T H E AM ERICAN ARC HIVISTpany history. The typewrit ten transcript of these interviews, cor-rected and edited by the interviewee will , we think, provide a richsource of information for anyone interested in the dramatic storyof the industrial development of America in the twentieth century.Our first recording, appropriately enough, was with a childhoodfriend of Henry Ford, who described the boyhood days shared withhim at the Scotch Settlement School. From this almost symbolicbeginning, the recording program has progressed unti l now we havecompleted recorded interviews with 131 persons. Two hundredfourteen interviews with these individuals has given us some 270hours of tape recordings, of which 230 have been transcribed intosomething over 7,000 pages of manuscript. As nearly as we can nowjudge, four to five hundred individuals will be interviewed beforethe undertaking can be considered complete.

In this initial report to the profession, I have confined myself toone aspect of a large r question. T h e reco rds problems of the F or dMotor Company, while enormous, are equalled by the opportunityfor solution. Under the guidance of an extremely knowledgeableand sympathetic management, we hope to provide an archival es-tablishment that will be a credit to the company and to the philoso-phy and techniques of American archivists.I should not want to give the impression that we have quicklymet and neatly solved all problems in ten months of carrying outthe program I have just discussed. By ignoring such key questionsas records scheduling and records center operations, I have not in-tended to imply that they are unimportant or unrelated to what wehave been doing at the archives to date. Quite the contrary; theyare as much a part of the whole scheme of what we have come to

call a complete records program as anything I have described. Andit is satisfying to report that the company does indeed envisage justsuch a complete records program. Much preparatory work has a l -ready been done by many people in several depar tme nts to w ard th atend. The several interested departments are largely agreed in prin-ciple on ways and means. Moreover, they are agreed that the vari-ous components of the problem are related, calling for a unified andintegrated program if each is to be satisfactorily handled. Sometime will naturally be required before the full operation, as it willfinally take shape, is under way. But the challenge is there, and thework is in process.