100 pages • 3 hours read
Upton SinclairThe Flivver King: A Story of Ford-America
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1937A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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 52-54Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 52 Summary
If Ford means to create a new model, he will have to remodel or replace many of his 45,000 machines, which can “turn out one thing and nothing else” (135). He decides to stop work almost completely at Highland Park and start “a whole new industry at the River Rouge plant” (136).
Abner is among the 100,000 men who are laid off. His son Johnny helps him to find the very lowest-paid job, that of a sweeper. Abner observes and reads about the enormous amount of work being done.
Five months later, the New Model A debuts: “Next day a quarter of a million people stormed the doors of seventy-six dealers; traffic was blocked in the streets, and it was necessary to hire Madison Square Garden for a week, so that the public could satisfy its curiosity” (137). The new model, which comes in four different color schemes, is “so successful that Henry ha[s] to make a million cars in the first six months” (138).
Chapter 53 Summary
Abner is now working on the New Model A, screwing spindle-nuts, and feels “that his social status ha[s] been raised” (138). However, the work is in River Rouge, a long drive from home.
Meanwhile, the Shutt children are successful: Johnny has been promoted to a salaried position, is engaged, and is planning to buy a house “in a neighbourhood so elegant that his parents would be embarrassed to drive their old flivver into it” (138); and Daisy has found work in the office of a company that manufactures seat cushions for Ford and earns $23.50 a week.
Hank is succeeding in the bootlegging business but winds up in jail, facing manslaughter charges, after a shootout in which he “defend[ed] his employer’s property against a bunch of hijackers” (139). At the trial, however, Hank’s “powerful friends” (139) produce witnesses who support his alibi and Hank is found not guilty. Hank leaves town “until, in due course, the leader of the hijackers had been shot” (139), then returns and resumes business.
Tommy’s football success and good character please his parents, but his tendency to criticize Ford seems “in the nature of blasphemy to his worshipful family” (140).
Chapter 54 Summary
Coolidge’s presidency ends, and Herbert Hoover takes office, supported by “all the masters of industry” (140). Ford advocates consumerism as the path to success, stating that “nowadays a young man wouldn’t get rich by saving his money, but by spending it” and Hoover urges “two cars in every garage and two chickens in every pot” (141).
In 1929, another Wall Street panic strikes. Abner, whose distrust of “international bankers” has not dwindled, initially welcomes it: “Serves ‘em right. Them fellers ain’t never earned the money” (141). However, many of the people who had invested in Wall Street were ordinary people who lost a great deal of money.
Hoover assembles a group of prominent businessmen, including Ford, to discuss the situation. The council “agreed that the country must have confidence, and [...] told the country to have it” (142). To demonstrate his own confidence, Ford raises the minimum wage at his plants to $7 a day.
Many people respond to this announcement with “rousing cheers” (142). Some observers point out that the increase is too little, too late: “since Henry had established his five-dollar minimum, sixteen years back, the cost of living in the Detroit area had nearly doubled, so that the new seven-dollar wage was far less than the old one had been” (142). Moreover, Ford lays off 55,000 men.
Chapters 52-54 Analysis
Ford’s New Model A makes him even more successful and wealthier than before. However, the laid-off Highland Park workers suffer in the process, and although some of them (including Abner) do eventually get their jobs back, and even receive a raise, many others are left unemployed. The rise in minimum wage also appears to benefit Ford far more than his employees: the $2 increase does not increase workers’ purchasing power all that significantly, but the boost to Ford’s reputation strengthens his already-strong brand. Sinclair’s inclusion of these details suggests that he agrees with young Tom Shutt, who holds that Ford benefits far more from his employees than they do from him.
Hank’s acquittal of the manslaughter charges, together with the murder of the hijackers’ leader, suggests that he has achieved a certain status in the criminal world. The narrator’s remark that Hank shot the man while defending his employer’s property suggests that what Hank did, though inconsistent with a morality that values human life above other things, is actually virtuous if one places a higher value on property than human life. Although no character in The Flivver King would actually endorse the view that property is worth more than human life, the remark invites the reader to consider whether Ford, in his treatment of workers, actually does value property more highly.
