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Monday 7 February 2011

Industrial Archeology: Watch the Fords Go By!


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FORD AUTOMOBILES BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS 05/01/1936 p. 55

Ford ad: Good Housekeeping, 1 May 1936 (via Gallery of Graphic Design)

FORD AUTOMOBILES GOOD HOUSEKEEPING 03/01/1940 p. 64

Ford ad: Life, 1 March 1940 (via Gallery of Graphic Design)

FORD AUTOMOBILES LIFE 08/17/1953 p. 14

Ford ad: Life, 17 August 1953 (via Gallery of Graphic Design)

FORD AUTOMOBILES LIFE 07/12/1954 p. 5

Ford ad: Life, 12 July 1954 (via Gallery of Graphic Design)

FORD AUTOMOBILES LIFE 04/08/1957 p. 146

Ford ad: Life, 8 April 1957 (via Gallery of Graphic Design)

FORD AUTOMOBILES LIFE 06/24/1957 p. 72

Ford ad: Life, 24 June 1957 (via Gallery of Graphic Design)

FORD AUTOMOBILES LIFE 11/24/1958

Ford ad: Life, 24 November 1958 (via Gallery of Graphic Design)

FORD AUTOMOBILES SATURDAY EVENING POST 05/02/1959

Ford ad: Saturday Evening Post, 2 May 1959 (via Gallery of Graphic Design)

FORD AUTOMOBILES SPORTS ILLUSTRATED 05/11/1959

Ford ad: Sports Illustrated, 11 May 1959 (via Gallery of Graphic Design)

10 comments:

TC said...

TC said...

And not only that -- those are evidently some thoroughly modern birds that have stolen the attention of the women in the top image away from that handsome Ford V-8.

"I've never seen birds fly in a V-formation with a figure-8 inside it, before, have you?"

"No, how amusing!"

TC said...

And not only that -- you'd have to concede that any motor device capable of averaging 108 mph for 50,000 miles during 20 gruelling days and nights on the Bonneville salt flats would be a bargain at any price... and especially so if the one thing in life you most enjoy doing is averaging 108 mph for 50,000 miles during 20 gruelling days and nights on the Bonneville salt flats...

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

We're so much more 'advanced' these days -- no time to read so many words, a picture and one or two words will do just fine. And look at all those white people -- we know everyone is a consumer. And who needs ads on paper anyway, when we've got the Super Bowl to show off our latest products?


2.7

line of pink cloud above still shadowed
plane of ridge, red-tailed hawk calling
in foreground, wave sounding in channel

grey shadow on lighter grey,
picture from top left

to which being in nature is
subject, still, which

sunlight reflected in windblown channel,
white cloud in pale blue sky on horizon

TC said...

That's a beauty, Stephen, and reminds me once again how much we're missing over here in the motorzone -- at the mercy of those rigid structures and ambiguous conveyances


to which being in nature is
subject, still

Anonymous said...

These are all fascinating. I've thought a lot about Detroit during my adult life because the two companies where I worked longest both had offices there (one in Livonia and the other in Wayne) and I had (and still have) many friends in the area, who used to describe to me the city's extended failing trajectory. More recently, the US government bailout of GM and Chrysler (including the US Supreme Court ruling breaking the bondholder agreements), Detroit's amazingly, ineptly corrupt city government, and the astonishing visual decay of structure and infrastructure, have kept the subject brightly and horribly before all of us. I also went to high school with the Ford scion, Henry Ford II's son Edsel (as you can imagine, high school cruelty coupled the name Edsel with a lot of teenage cruelty). We were all kids then and it was funny learing Edsel's point of view about the family business, their sense of Detroit civic responsibility, etc. He was a nice person back then (I have difficulty believing that he isn't still) and knew a lot about cars.

aditya said...

and especially so if the one thing in life you most enjoy doing is averaging 108 mph for 50,000 miles during 20 gruelling days and nights on the Bonneville salt flats...

We can be convinced of any darn thing.

Wear your underwear over your other clothes for looking durable hip durably hip throughout the day.
24 x 7. Feel the right amount of zing in you. Be in sync. Be new.

*X Ray vision is not guaranteed.

aditya said...

Also this morning as part of the weekly coincidence regime, the Ford machine did spend some ten minutes in front of me in the traffic jam.

A blocked basin next to me -- reminds me of Fjords. Fjords. Anyone! (?)

TC said...

Re. Detroit memories, and that "extended failing trajectory", Curtis -- you know I went to college nearby and thus had friends and even girlfriends (yet) whose areas of residence in Detroit and environs became familiar (including the weird noir-ish night yards of the Rouge plant, with the old tracks and coal puddles in which to park one's enormous Detroit-made vessel).

It was only a few years later, in the later Sixties, that I went back again to Detroit and learned that, in the sudden desolation, houses could be bought for five thousand dollars, or perhaps it was five hundred (surely not five, but that too is possible).

And re. "the astonishing visual decay of structure and infrastructure" -- you've probably been able to guess all along where this was heading, Curtis -- that is, to loss and ruins.

Anonymous said...

Yes, I did guess that's where we were heading and obviously looking at both of those posts renders one speechless. Remarks about the mastery of the photographers seem irrelevant. Years ago, during one of my trips from NY to our Livonia videocassette factory, the colleague I was driving with on Seven Mile Road made me pull over because he said I wasn't "driving like a man". What he meant was I was observing the posted speed limit, which he felt was suicidal on the wide suburban Detroit thoroughfares. His remarks didn't spoil my mood, however. I had picked up a rental car with essentially zero mileage and felt sort of charmed. Then my colleague told me this was commonplace at Detroit's airport. That sort of spoiled my mood.

TC said...

Curtis,

Than not driving like a man there are worse offenses.

Something about the present state of urban disintegration in certain areas of the US -- Oakland is an example, but it's, from here, just too close/hot to touch -- makes one think of images of the gradual disintegration of the Soviet ex-satellite states in Eastern Europe in the late 1970s, on into the early 1980s. A slow demoralizing decay not only in structure and infrastructure but in life-spirit.

(This is perhaps not entirely localized.)