Fordlandia
13 images Created 19 Nov 2008
By the late 1920s, the automobile tycoon Henry Ford decided to break the back of rubbery monopoly. His hundreds of thousands of new cars needed millions of tires, which were very expensive to produce when buying raw materials from the rubber lords established in the Amazon jungle . To that end, he established Fordlândia, a tiny piece of America which was transplanted into the Amazon rain forest for a single purpose: to create the largest rubber plantation on the planet. Though enormously ambitious, the project was ultimately a fantastic failure.
Ford purchased a 25,000 square kilometer tract of land along the Amazon river. Scores of Ford employees were relocated to the site, and over the first few months an American-as-apple-pie community sprung up from what was once a jungle wilderness.
But Henry Ford had been sold a lame portion of land, and Fordlândia was an unadulterated failure.
Ford purchased a 25,000 square kilometer tract of land along the Amazon river. Scores of Ford employees were relocated to the site, and over the first few months an American-as-apple-pie community sprung up from what was once a jungle wilderness.
But Henry Ford had been sold a lame portion of land, and Fordlândia was an unadulterated failure.
