Abstract The People’s Tycoon In 1919, Henry Ford found himself on the witness stand being cross-examined by a lawyer for the Chicago Tribune. Ford had fi led a libel lawsuit against the Tribune for describing him as “an ignorant idealist...an anarchistic enemy of the nation.” The lawyer who cross-examined Ford certainly made him demonstrate the truth in the charge that he was ignorant. He dated the American Revolution to 1812, said chili con carne was an army and identifi ed Benedict Arnold as a writer. The jury ultimately found the newspaper liable for accusing Ford of anarchism, and awarded him six cents in damages. Notwithstanding Ford’s demonstration of ignorance, perhaps even because of it, his popularity grew. Ford achieved the status of a folk hero, and more. A survey of American workers conducted in 1940 found that they considered Henry Ford even more helpful to labor than union leader Walter Reuther or New Deal President Franklin Roosevelt. Both Vladimir Lenin and Adolf Hitler expressed their admiration for Ford. Ford epitomized the values that dominated the American century. He recognized that without mass consumption, mass production could not exist. He laid the foundation for a culture of standardized leisure that saw consumption as the path to contentment. He was a populist, an anti-intellectual, against smoking and drinking, against war, against adultery (but, apparently, only in principle) and in favor of hard but effi cient work – no harder than it had to be.