From the foreward: Henry Ford’s “tally of
important accomplishments is so lengthy that most historians left off some of
the fun things-like the Ford shows.
I can only imagine they were entertaining, because it was my
misfortune to miss them all because of tender age. I did see a couple at the
county fair when I was about 13, but those were into the era of his
grand-son-the introduction of 1949 models.
So, for those who missed them with me, and for those who
would like to see them again, I have done my best to reconstruct those epochal
Ford shows staged by the old "flivver king." It has taken me ten
years to gather the story from bits and pieces, and there were a lot of
mysteries.
Some were solved in one fell swoop when I opened Fred
Black's personal office file-stored these past decades in a recess of the Ford
Archives in Dearborn, Michigan. Until that day I had never seen anything but a
brief mention of the 1936 Atlantic City Steel Pier Ford Exhibit. I didn't even
know one was held in 1935. The 1937 Miami Ford Exposition was strictly a rumor,
and the New York World's Fair Ford exhibits of 1939 and 1940 were a confusion
of written contradictions. The files not only divulged great reams of
correspondence relating to Mr. Black's days as Ford show boss, but were a gold
mine of photographs considered long lost.
As for the bulk of the illustrations in this book-give that
credit to the man on the stump with the prankish expression also. He had his
photographic department cover every event-for with all the myths, mysteries,
tall tales, and legends handed down about him, somehow he knew that I wouldn't
be able to tell this incredible story without the pictures to prove it.”
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