Henry Ford: An Interpretation

by Rev. Samuel S. Marquis

Overview

First published in 1923, this biography is widely regarded by many automotive historians as the finest and most dispassionate character study of Henry Ford ever written. Written by the Reverend Samuel S. Marquis, an Episcopalian minister who was also the head of the sociology department at Ford Motor Company, this collection of essays serves to analyze the “psychological puzzle such as the unusual mind and personality of Henry Ford presents.”

A gripping read for history buffs and fans of historical biographies.

“Students of Henry Ford should be delighted by this republication of Samuel S. Marquis’s shrewd evaluation of the legendary industrialist. A close friend and associate of Ford for many years, Marquis developed many compelling insights into the automobile maker’s character and personality. One comes away from this book with a much greater sense of what made Ford tick.”—STEVEN WATTS, Professor of History at the University of Missouri-Columbia and author of The People’s Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century

“Marquis was the first Ford intimate to criticize the industrialist in print. Aware that he was treading on thin ice, Marquis recalled that Ford had told him that ‘the best friend one has is the man who tells him the truth.’ Hopefully, the clergyman remarked, ‘[he] will receive the critical portion of these pages in the same spirit.’ Ford emphatically did not...Marquis’s book would have been widely read had not the Ford organization been fairly successful in buying up copies and persuading book dealers not to sell it.”—DAVID L. LEWIS

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781787208384
Publisher:	Papamoa Press
Publication date:	01/12/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	103
File size:	515 KB

About the Author

Reverend Samuel Simpson Marquis (June 8, 1966 - June 21, 1948) was an Episcopalian minister who was also the head of Ford Motor Company’s Sociological Department from 1919-1921.

Born on a farm near Sharon, Ohio in 1866, he graduated from Alleghany College in Meadville, Pennsylvania in 1890. He entered the General Theological Seminary in New York and then transferred to the Cambridge Theological Seminary in Massachusetts where he graduated in 1893.

Ordained as an Episcopalian priest, he served in churches in Woburn and Bridgewater, Massachusetts. In 1899, he was called to St. Joseph’s Church in Detroit. In 1906, he became dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in Detroit, where he oversaw the construction of the new cathedral building (1908-1911).

At Henry Ford’s invitation, Marquis resigned his duties at St. Paul’s in October 1915 to head the Welfare Department of the Ford Motor Company, and accompanied Ford on the ill-fated “Peace Ship” to Europe in December 1915. Marquis remained at Ford Motor for five years. After his departure, he published Henry Ford: An Interpretation (1923), one of the first works written by a Ford intimate.

He returned to St. Joseph’s Church as rector in 1921, and in 1924 moved to Bloomfield Hills to assist in establishing a new parish, Christ Church Cranbrook, as Missionary-in-Charge. He became Rector of Christ Church in 1927 and served in that capacity until 1938. He was also instrumental in founding Cranbrook School for Boys and was a Trustee of the school from 1926-1939. On 23 May 1940, Marquis Hall was dedicated in his honor.

Rev. Marquis married Gertrude Lee Snyder in 1894 in Warren, Ohio. The couple had four children: Dorothy (1895), Barbara Lee (1897), Roger Israel (1901) and Gertrude Lee (1907). After Marquis retired, he and Gertrude resided in Birmingham, Michigan, where he died in 1948 at the age of 82. The funeral was held at Christ Church Cranbrook.