Abstract
In the 1920s, Henry Ford opened the Henry Ford Trade School, adjacent to his world-famous Dearborn factory, to over one thousand hand-picked international students from more than thirty countries, including China, India, and Mexico. These elite young men were tasked with returning to their home countries after completion of the course to build Ford franchises and dealerships from the ground up. Using an intersectional lens, this article adds to gender, business, and immigration histories by arguing that Ford sought to export his own notions of American manhood as much as he sought to develop an automotive monopoly in the global market. The international students who came to Detroit understood that they were part of the “Ford Plan” to turn them into “Ford Men.” Their actions and behaviors in Detroit and then abroad affected the global dissemination of Fordism and Ford's Americanization plans too, often by unmasking the weaknesses in Ford's ideology. This interplay between international students and Ford executives offers a rare glimpse into the struggles for control over immigration policy, personal identity, modern masculinities, and workplace values during the creation of an iconic American business empire.
