On the first of August, the Ford Motor Company declared a one-million-dollar profit, and paid those workers who qualified for its profit-sharing plan the highest wage in the industrial world. John splurged—bought his wife a baby carriage. It was so grand it had real bicycle tires on its wheels, even sported an attached parasol. The whole neighborhood came to admire it. Missus Nussbaum pinched the tires, very impressed, Missus Horowitz marveled at the roomy interior, Missus Sullivan commented on the elegance of the fringed parasol; all the wives agreed that Jane’s husband was both thoughtful and generous. Good-hearted Henrietta wasn’t a bit jealous—only mentioned she hoped Johann would think they could afford one just like it.
The first morning Jane wheeled the baby over to Hannah’s house, Michael in his sailor suit trotting proudly by its side, her gloved hands resting on the ivory handle guiding the tall carriage, Jane felt like one of the grand ladies she had seen parading their offspring along the flower bordered paths on Belle Isle. From then on, her days took on a freedom she had not known since becoming a mother. She went visiting, explored sections of Highland Park she had never been to, even took over Missus Nussbaum’s Watcher duties when her Elsa came down with chicken pox.
When Michael learned to balance himself, straddling the carriage without crushing his baby brother, she was able to go all the way to the plant, showed him the wondrous world where his father really lived. In the warmth of summer, they could stay out for hours; whenever the baby needed to be fed, she nursed him beneath her shawl, hidden in a doorway while Michael munched a sandwich and the apple she had brought for him. Then it was back to showing him the exciting sights beyond the tall link fence that separated the kingdom of Ford from Manchester Street; the great puffs of billowing smoke that rose from the busy railroad yard, the fascinating noises that came from trains that the little boy couldn’t actually see, far over by Woodward Avenue, more smoke rising high into the sky from a row of thin chimneys so tall they looked like giants on stilts.
Jane pointed out the great power house, the foundry, where they boiled the special steel that made the little Model T—and over there, that long, long building with all the windows—that was the Crystal Palace, where many men and their very important machines did their work better because they had so much daylight to see by. She pointed out the chutes, the walkways, the overhead cranes.
Excited Michael would ask questions and she, as excited as he, answered, tried to explain as best she could. They could have stayed all day and never had enough. One afternoon, arriving late at their special spot, they were caught as thousands of workers were leaving their shift and thousands more were arriving to begin theirs. Bells clanging insistently, endless streetcars arriving disgorging men, others departing with more, factory whistles blaring, thousands streaming out as thousands streamed in. Plastered against the fence, the baby carriage between them, Jane and Michael were too scared to move. But the second things calmed down a bit, they hurried home, got safely inside the house just as John’s bicycle came into view.
One Sunday, arriving at the Geigers’ just as Stan drove up, Michael pointed to his automobile and, in his childish lisp, piped, “Th-that’s a Model T. I know where Papa makes it—Mamma showed it me!” and the cat was out of the proverbial bag.
Most of that evening revolved around John’s little boy, his obvious pride in his father’s work, the Ford men delighting in asking him questions, receiving his enthusiastic and amazingly knowledgeable answers. Beaming, Johann turned to John. “That boy of yours is going to be a master mechanic someday!”
“Damn right he’ll be. You can see it’s in his blood,” Carl agreed.
“Never in all my days have I seen a youngster so interested—not even the Boss’s boy!” Fritz preened, the proud godfather. Zoltan helped himself to another biscuit.
“Stan, as Serafina will be expecting you back early anyway, on your way, why don’t you drive the boy home after supper.”
And so, thanks to his uncle Zoltan, sitting by the side of his uncle Stan, Michael was driven home in flivver style. John lifted his son down from the car, was about to carry him into the house, when a sleepy little voice asked, “Uncle Stan? Is your motorcar a Touring?” Taken aback, Stan answered that it was. The little boy nodded, as if satisfied with himself. “Uncle Ebbely—he has a Sedan and Mamma and me, we have a carriage,” and, putting his head on his father’s shoulder, Michael fell fast asleep.
Now that John knew, Jane was afraid their exciting expeditions to the busy plant might be forbidden, but all he did was caution her never to go there when shifts were changing, explaining that could be chaotic and possibly frightening—which Jane already knew only too well. He made love to her that night, with a tenderness she hadn’t felt for a very long time. Later, lying beside him as he slept, she wondered why this time had been so different.
The baby carriage became Jane’s prized possession. She kept it polished, waxed and oiled, after every adventure she washed its splendid tires till they looked unused. Having freed her, she named it her Lizzie and, for a while, was content.
In New Jersey, German saboteurs blew up a munitions arsenal that the newspapers claimed was a staggering twenty-million-dollar loss and Stan felt vindicated. “What did I tell you? That much stockpiled ammunition? For what? Only one reason—we’re getting ready to enter the war!”
Fritz disagreed. “That’s not for us. We’ve been sending war materials over to England ever since the war started. That’s why all those German spies are over here.”
“Well, if you ask me we should be using it ourselves! How much longer are we going to just sit back and watch?”
“As long as President Wilson has his way.”
“You mean, as long as we make a profit and the steel barons get even richer,” snapped Stan.
Woodrow Wilson’s reelection campaign running under the slogan “He kept us out of the war” was beginning to find opposition.
The Henry Ford trade school for teenage boys who, in the founder’s words, “Never had a chance,” had been “thrown on the world without a trade,” opened to the approval of his men.
Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic and was stoned.
Yellowstone National Park admitted its first automobile—a Model T, driven by its owner, a woman—and after excluding them since the windfall of 1914, the Ford Motor Company decided to extend its Five-Dollar-Day policy to finally include its women employees.
Tin hats proving too vulnerable to flying shrapnel, the first helmets made of steel were introduced by the Germans, and quickly became a part of modern warfare on all sides. In America, the Ford Motor Company was given a contract to produce them for the British armed forces.