100 pages • 3 hours read
The Flivver King: A Story of Ford-America
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Summary
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapters 1-3
Chapters 4-6
Chapters 7-9
Chapters 10-12
Chapters 13-15
Chapters 16-18
Chapters 19-21
Chapters 22-24
Chapters 25-27
Chapters 28-30
Chapters 31-33
Chapters 34-36
Chapters 37-39
Chapters 40-42
Chapters 43-45
Chapters 46-48
Chapters 49-51
Chapters 52-54
Chapters 55-57
Chapters 58-60
Chapters 61-63
Chapters 64-66
Chapters 67-69
Chapters 70-72
Chapters 73-75
Chapters 76-78
Chapters 79-81
Chapters 82-84
Chapters 85-92
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaChapters 25-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 25 Summary
Life continues along the same course: the Ford Company prospers, Abner receives his biweekly bonuses, and the family even manages to save a bit. Meanwhile, the war continues to rage in Europe, and the American economy prospers as a result.
Abner’s dream of buying a secondhand car resurfaces, especially since his and Milly’s new home is three miles away from work. Abner has never given up on his dream of taking the family to the country on the weekends. There is now a large market in used cars because those who can afford to do so buy updated Model Ts, and Abner buys a 1910 model with the help of a loan. Abner and Milly’s social status increases when they bring the new car home, and the project of building a garage for it takes some of Abner’s spare time and bonus money.
Chapter 26 Summary
Abner and Milly’s worries about money are unfounded: as long as the war rages, the Ford Motor Company’s profits increase. Ford himself understands that he is profiting from bloodshed; since he hates war, his conscience gnaws at him. He begins to spend more time denouncing the war in interviews and writing. Some businessmen find him unpatriotic, while others view him as a moral leader and a potential source of funding for pacifist and social causes.
As “social uplifters” and “cranks” (68) gain access to Ford to discuss the pacifist cause, some people begin to criticize Ford in the newspapers and accuse him of “keeping dangerous company, and being used by wicked and designing people” (69). Abner is loyal to the “great and good” Ford, who builds “useful and sensible things,” and views Ford’s detractors as “wreckers and plunderers who hated him and wanted to down him” (69).
Chapter 27 Summary
In 1915, a peace activist called Rosika Schwimmer, who has recently left the Austro-Hungarian Empire and now works with Jane Addams on a plan for “continuous mediation,” comes to visit Ford. Schwimmer convinces Ford to charter a ship to bring a delegation of American pacifists to visit the neutral countries of Europe and devise a “programme for ‘a conference of neutral nations for continuous mediation among the belligerent nations’” (70).
Under the ill-advised slogan “Get the boys out of the trenches by Christmas” (71), Ford hires a steamship and invites the governors of 48 states and the Secretary of State to sail with the pacifists. The Secretary and the governors decline, and instead Ford sends volunteers.
President Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, and the newspapers attack Ford as a fool and an unpatriotic agitator.
Chapters 25-27 Analysis
These chapters depict the link between war and capitalism: bloodshed is profitable. Sinclair portrays Ford in a sympathetic light, showing the conflict between the role Ford has been thrust into—that of a wealthy public figure who grows wealthier as a result of a brutal, bloody war—and Ford’s own personal pacifist convictions.
Ford’s thinking appears to be the following: he is a businessman deeply tied to his work, but he feels morally compromised by the fact that he is profiting from a war he does not support. Therefore, he will attempt to neutralize his participation in the wartime economy by using his fame and good image to denounce the war and promote peace. He attempts to find a compromise between the inexorable logic of capitalism and his own individual values, and politicians and newspapers respond with mockery, distrust, and moral castigation. Sinclair appears to be suggesting that Ford will not succeed; most Americans, especially those with money, power, and visibility, view his antiwar stance as unpatriotic. (As a matter of historical fact, Rosika Schwimmer was denied US citizenship because of her pacifism, so Ford was not alone in being considered unpatriotic for not supporting the war.)
Ford’s effort, and especially his alliance with a motley band of peace activists, appears naïve but sincere. At this stage in the story, Ford is no longer the morally pure, inventive everyman of the novel’s early chapters, nor is he yet a morally bankrupt, callous individual ruled by his billions of dollars. These chapters, along with those highlighting the development of the assembly line and the speed-up, portray Ford’s moral transition.
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