Henry Ford: Mass Production, Modernism and Design
by Ray Batchelor

Henry Ford is popularly perceived as the inventor of mass production; the man who, through the uncompromising application of logic to the production process, made millions of cheap identical motor cars, the man who brought motoring to the masses, the most famous car-maker in the history of the world. Recent research has tended to highlight the Schortcomings of mass production, its inflexibility in the face of diverse consumer demand. These ideas have yet to figure in the popular imagination. Ford's name and mass production are regularly - almost unconsciously - invoked as by-words for production on a large scale or uniformity of product; or as reminders of one of the century's big ideas', translated variously into economic, social, political and aesthetic terms. 'Mass produced' had currency as a term of abuse. The purpose of this book is to attempt to separate the realities and the myths of mass production and to assess the extent to which each affected design. Ray Batchelor argues that myths were more important than realities; that perceptions of mass production have had greater consequences for design than mass production itself.