The Melting Potty – Second of a Series
Question: So where did this phraseology “Melting Pot” come from?
Answer: Henry Ford and a British-Jewish Playwright named Israel Zangwill.
The term “Melting Pot” was first coined by a British-Jewish Playwright named Israel Zangwill in his 1908 play entitled “The Melting Pot”. He intended the term to be a metaphor for assimilation of immigrants in the United States into a homogeneous, monolithic American society – a cohesive “People” that created their own elements of tribal unity through civic awareness, patriotism, a common language, history sense of belonging.
In his play, Israel Zangwill called the United States “God’s Crucible” wherein the races of Europe were melting and reforming. He only specified European races. Ralph Waldo Emerson made anecdotal references to immigrants in the United States “fusing together” in a “smelting pot” as early as 1845. Certain German immigrants used their vernacular word “Schmeltztiegel” (melting vessel) as early as the 1890s in their ethnic newspapers.
But it was Henry Ford that put the phrase “Melting Pot” in the national public discourse. He made Model T cars at his enormous River Rouge Plant in Michigan – and employed legions of immigrants, skilled and unskilled, who were “right off the boat” from the old country. I know this for a fact – my grandfather was one of them.
Henry Ford employed so many immigrants at his gigantic River Rouge Plant in Michigan that he decided to take an active role in teaching them the English language and shepherding them into mainstream American life. With this goal in mind, in 1914 he established the “Ford English School” and the “Ford Immigrant School” at River Rouge to teach workers how to speak English, basic civics and American history and those “American Values” that Ford considered most important: thrift, timeliness and sobriety.
Henry Ford announced in his own newspaper that he aimed to create a uniform, English-speaking workforce that shared values he believed were quintessentially “American” and wholesome. He expanded the Ford English School programs into a broader “Ford Americanization Program” from 1910 through the 1920s. The proper lifestyle and wholesomeness of his immigrant workforce was enforced by a “Ford Sociological Department” that issued regular reports about workers who were backsliding into conduct and infractions that were considered incompatible with employment at Ford Motor Company. Alcoholism, domestic violence, workplace tardiness, irreligious or “Unchristian” behaviors were severely punished – and dismissal from jobs was common.
The Apex of Henry Ford’s comprehensive Naturalization Program at River Rouge was a Pageant that he coordinated with the US Federal Naturalization Office in Washington, DC. It was a gala event wherein immigrant workers completed their American Citizenship Naturalization process – and symbolically and ritualistically transmogrified into an American, shedding their previous ethnicity like a snake shed its skin. Their previous European citizenry was publicly abandoned, and their new American persona was celebrated. And if these immigrants wanted to keep their jobs, Henry Ford expected them to jump in with both feet.
Once the workers completed their civic studies and passed their tests with the on-site Federal Immigration and Naturalization Inspectors, the Pageant commenced. All the newly minted American citizens – in the presence of their families, bosses, co-workers and government officials – appeared on stage dressed in the traditional garb of their birthplace ethnicity and waiving their birthplace flag. They then climbed the stairs on the side of an enormous black “Melting Pot” and slowly descended inside of it. Within a few minutes they would emerge at a door at the bottom of the pot – to music blasting “God Bless America – wearing traditional American Sunday-service clothing and a straw hat. They’d be waiving a small American Stars and Stripes flag and holding their Naturalization Certificate high for all to see.
This Pageant took place thousands of times at River Rouge and Henry Ford attended every one of them. He financed the events as a point of pride and patriotism. Thousands of workers in Michigan received their Naturalization papers during the Henry Ford Naturalization Pageant. Hundreds of thousands of Americans today can trace their citizenship tree back to Henry Ford’s River Rouge Plant and the famous Pageant that was the most important day of their ancestor’s life.
Many people today comment that Henry Ford’s “visionary” Naturalization Program was all about suppressing ethnic identity and customs that were not sufficiently “American” for Ford’s industrial needs or taste. But the workers regularly stood in lines – sometimes a half mile long – in Michigan snow and rain for a chance to apply for work and the very Naturalization program that he provided. Henry Ford’s wages at River Rouge were legendary to workers at the time; to get hired to build Model T cars was a dream come true and a financial ticket to security for you and your family. Ford also offered company housing and medical facilities – an unprecedented benefit in 1910. Of course, Henry Ford’s “Rules” had to be followed – but countless immigrant lives were immeasurably improved by working for him.
By the 1920s, Henry Ford’s “Melting Pot” Pageant was no longer needed. Immigration in the United States had stabilized and the economy was booming. The Stock Market crash in 1929 changed all that.
Bottom Line: “Melting Pot” is an early 20th Century concept that had absolutely nothing to do with America’s Founding Fathers in 1776 or some Latin words on our great Seal: E pluribus unum.
There is no distinctive “American” Tribe. People have twisted Latin phraseologies like “E pluribus unum” for centuries to make Americans think that the Thirteen Colonies was some grandiose sociological experiment to test what happens when you mix different ethnicities together. That it was some arcane science project dreamt up by Freemasons and memorialized in our Constitution.
Our Constitution never addressed multiple ethnicities or races in any context. It was a political document creating a framework for Thirteen separate colonial entities to merge together and function as a unified polity – like France or England.
Copyright, 2025 Jon Croft
www.bogironslav.com
Email: vlchek1@gmail.com
