Making Dad Proud by J.B. Fox, cover

DETROIT · 1926–1943

Making Dad Proud

A Novel of Henry and Edsel Ford · J.B. Fox

January 1926. Henry Ford walks into a design room, looks at his son's new car, and takes an axe to it.

A sweeping historical novel of loyalty and sabotage, of beautiful machines built inside an ugly system, and of what it cost Edsel Ford to earn the approval he never stopped chasing.

Amazon PaperbackBarnes & Noble

Dates on the Drawing Board

1926The year of Ernest Kanzler's memorandum to Henry Ford, held today by The Henry Ford.
1928Edsel's family moves to Gaukler Point.
Mar 7, 1932The Ford Hunger March.
May 26, 1937The Overpass assault.
Sep 18, 1942President Roosevelt visits Ford's wartime work.
Willow RunFord's wartime bomber plant, where the novel's last act unfolds.

History and Invention

The public chronology follows Ford's automotive development, labor conflicts and wartime work. Private conversations, thoughts and particular workshop confrontations are imagined, and several characters are fictional. The famous axe story is itself disputed; the novel dramatizes it rather than claiming it as fact.

Sources the author drew on: The Henry Ford, Ford House, the Walter P. Reuther Library, PBS American Experience, and contemporary reporting.

Amazon PaperbackBarnes & Noble