Did Henry Ford Really Say History is Bunk

One of the best-known quotations of the inventor and entrepreneur Henry Ford is History is bunk: Oddly enough, he never said exactly that, but he did say something along those lines many times during his life. Ford used the word bunk associated with history first in print, during a 1916 interview with reporter Charles N. Wheeler for the Chicago Tribune. Say, what do I care about Napoleon? What do we care about what they did 500 or 1,000 years ago? I dont know whether Napoleon did or did not try to get across and I dont care. It means nothing to me. History is more or less bunk. Its tradition. We dont want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinkers dam is the history we make today. Spinning the Versions According to the historian Jessica Swigger, the reason there are so many versions of the statement floating around the internet is pure and simple politics. Ford spent years trying to reframe and clarify (that is to say, put the best spin on) the comment to himself and the rest of the world. In his own Reminiscences, written in 1919 and edited by E.G. Liebold, Ford wrote: Were going to start something! Im going to start up a museum and give people a true picture of the development of the country. Thats the only history that is worth observing, that you can preserve in itself. Were going to build a museum thats going to show industrial history, and it wont be bunk! Libel Suit By all accounts, Ford was a difficult, uneducated, and litigious fellow. In 1919, he sued the Chicago Tribune for libel for writing an an editorial in which the Tribune had called him an anarchist and ignorant idealist. The court records show that the defense attempted to use the quote as evidence against him. Counsel for the Tribune Elliot G. Stevenson: But history was bunk, and art was no good? That was your attitude in 1916?Henry Ford: I did not say it was bunk. It was bunk to me, but I did not say...Stevenson: [interrupting quickly] It was bunk to you?Ford: It was not much to me.Stevenson: What do you mean by that?Ford: Well, I havent very much use for it. I didnt need it very bad.Stevenson: What do you mean? Do you think we can provide for the future and care wisely with reference to the future in matters like preparation for defense, or anything of that sort, without knowing the history of what has happened in the past?Ford: When we got into the war, the past didnt amount to much. History didnt usually last a week.Stevenson: What do you mean, History didnt last a week?Ford: In the present war, airships and things we used were out of date in a week.Stevenson: What does that have to do with history? Many of the sources today interpret the meaning of the quote to show that Ford was an iconoclast who disdained the importance of the past. The court documents cited above suggest that he thought the lessons of history were outweighed by the innovations of the present-day. But there is evidence that at least his own personal industrial history was decidedly important to him. According to Butterfield, in his later life, Ford saved 14 million personal and business documents in his personal archives and had constructed over 100 buildings to house his Henry Ford Museum-Greenfield Village—Edison Institute complex at Dearborn. Sources: Butterfield R. 1965. Henry Ford, the Wayside Inn, and the Problem of History Is Bunk. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 77:53-66.Swigger JI. 2014. History is Bunk: Assembling the Past at Henry Fords Greenfield Village. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.Upward GC. 1979. A Home for Our Heritage: The Building and Growth of Greenfield Village and Henry Ford Museum. Dearborn, Michigan: The Henry Ford Museum Press.Lockerby, P. 2011. Henry Ford—Quote: History is Bunk. Science 2.0 30 May.Wheeler, CN. 1916. Interview with Henry Ford. The Chicago Tribune, May 25, 1916, cited in Butterfield.