Henry Ford purchased the future site of the Rouge in 1915, with plans to build a bird sanctuary.[3] Plans shifted to manufacturing following a federal request to the Ford Motor Company to produce warships. 'Building B', the first building on the property, was built to fulfill the request.[3]
The Rouge complex measures 1.5 miles (2.4km) wide by 1 mile (1.6km) long, including 93 buildings with nearly 16million square feet (1.5km2) of factory floor space. With its own docks in the dredgedRouge River, 100 miles (160km) of interior railroad track, its own electricity plant, and integrated steel mill, the titanic Rouge was able to turn raw materials into running vehicles within this single complex, a prime example of vertical-integration production.[3][4]
Some of the Rouge's buildings were designed by architect Albert Kahn, such as its glass plant in 1925, which replaced Ford's glass production site in Highland Park, Pittsburgh. It measures 760 feet long and 240 feet wide, and its walls features large glass panels.[5] Khan also designed the tire plant.[6] Completed January 30, 1938, it measures 802 feet in length and 240 feet in width and features a butterfly roof and, similarly to the glass plant, has large glass panels in its walls.[5]
The Ford Company provides free tours of the facility via bus.[8] They ran from 1924 to 1980, at their peak hosting approximately a million visitors per year. They resumed in 2004, in cooperation with The Henry Ford Museum, with multimedia presentations, as well as a viewing of the assembly floor. In 2017, the Rouge had 148,000 visitors.[9]
In September 2020, Ford announced the construction of the FordRouge Electric Vehicle Center, costing $700,000,000 to build, for production of the Ford F-150 Lightning, an electric vehicle.[10] On May 18, 2021, then-president Joe Biden toured the plant and drove an F-150 Lightning before it entered the market. He endorsed electric vehicles during a speech at the plant.[11]
In 1999, architect William McDonough entered into an agreement with Ford Motor Company to redesign its 85-year-old, 1,212-acre (490ha) Rouge River facility.[12] The roof of the 1.1-million-square-foot (100,000m2) Dearborn truck assembly plant was covered with more than 10 acres (4.0ha) of sedum, a low-growing groundcover. The sedum retains and cleanses rainwater and moderates the internal temperature of the building, saving energy.[12]
The roof is part of an $18 million rainwater treatment system designed to collect and clean rainwater annually, sparing Ford from a $50 million mechanical treatment facility.[13]
Production history
The plant's first products were Eagle-class patrol crafts for the United States Navy, which were never deployed during World War I. The production of the warships led to the widening of the River Rouge, also allowing lake freighters to fit in it. Ford produced tractors at the plant from 1921 to 1927, and following a five-month closue, began producing the Model A at the plant.[14] The plant also produced most of the parts of the Model T, with construction of the vehicles themselves happening in Highland Park.[3]
During World War II, the Rouge complex produced jeeps, aircraft engines, aircraft components and parts, tires, tubes, and armor plates.[15]
The Rouge in 1973
The Rouge manufactured most of the components of Ford vehicles, starting with the Model T. Many of the vehicles were compiled into "knock-down kits", then sent by railroad to various branch assembly locations across the United States in major metropolitan cities to be locally assembled, using local supplies as necessary.[4]
In 2019, to celebrate the centennial of the Rouge Plant's opening, Ford produced the Mustang Shelby GT500 at the 2020 Ford Motor Show. At 700 horsepower, it is the most powerful street-legal vehicle.[17] As of its centennial, it is the oldest automobile plant still in operation.[7]
At its peak, the Rouge employed as many as 100,000 employees.[8]
In March 1932, following mass layoffs, 4–5,000 former employees of the Rouge starved themselves and marched in protest, an event later called the Ford Hunger March.[19]
On May 26, 1937, members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) planned to hand out leaflets, which resulted in an attack by Ford; it is known as the Battle of the Overpass.[20] The UAW was officially recognized by the Rouge on June 20, 1941, with a contract.[21] By 1947, the Rouge plant's union was led by Communist Party USA official James E. Jackson.[22] A caucus of the union to protect African American workers, who made up approximately 25% of employees, in 1949. The caucus' demands were denied due to being red-baited.[23] By 1960, 65% of the plant's employees were African American, with 3.5% considered skilled laborers.[24]
The Rouge complex inspired Renault's 1920 Île Seguin factory,[27]GAZ's 1930s factory in the Soviet Union, Volkswagen's 1938 Wolfsburg factory in Germany, FIAT's 1939 (Mirafiori factory) in Italy as well as the later Hyundai factory complex in Ulsan, South Korea, which was developed beginning in the late 1960s.[28] With some of its buildings designed by architect Albert Kahn, River Rouge was designated as a National Historic Landmark District in 1978 for its architecture and historical importance to the industry and economy of the United States.[29]
In the early stages of the Soviet Union's industrialization, Ford participated in the development of an automobile production complex in Nizhny Novgorod, which drew influence from the River Rouge complex[30]:39
↑ "Ford River Rouge Complex". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Archived from the original on October 6, 2012. Retrieved June 27, 2008.
↑ Link, Stefan J. (2020). Forging global Fordism: Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the contest over the industrial order. Princeton, New Jersey. ISBN978-0-691-20798-8. OCLC1159626809.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
↑ Hirata, Koji (2024). Making Mao's Steelworks: Industrial Manchuria and the Transnational Origins of Chinese Socialism. Cambridge Studies in the History of the People's Republic of China series. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-1-009-38227-4.
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