The Titans That Built America (2021) s01e01 Episode Script

A New Generation Rises

1
‐ When I was a boy, my
father gave me some advice.
He said, "Son, a machine is
only as good as you build it."
"But if you really
love what you're doing,"
"then you can make
something spectacular."
‐ Well, isn't that something?
At the dawn of the 20th century,
a new generation
of titan emerges.
‐ This is my father, Henry Ford.
To Pierre du Pont!
‐ Boeing is the
future of aviation.
‐ Mr. Morgan, what's happening?
We're in the age of the machine.
‐ When people leave my
bank after they get a loan,
they feel like they've
got free money.
But in reality, they're
gonna pay me every month
for the rest of their
life, with interest.
They'll compete
to conquer new industries.
‐ Well, you've dominated
the car market,
so why are you building the
tallest building in the world?
‐ 77 floors.
It's absolutely exceptional.
‐ So we can look down on GM.
‐ I'm gonna build.
‐ Top floor will be 800 feet
up, same height as Chrysler's.
‐ Make it taller and I'm in.
As they amass huge fortunes‐
‐ Can you account for the fact
that house of Morgan has
paid no taxes for years?
They'll become
targets of the government.
‐ You are quite simply a war
profiteer, a merchant of death.
Until a new
threat changes everything.
‐ If there was a war,
no country in Europe
would stand a chance
against Germany,
and neither would America.
What's going on?
‐ There's been an
attack in Hawaii.
Now, the titans must put
their differences
aside and unite‐
‐ Ford makes cars, not planes.
‐ Nobody else can produce
the scale that we need
in the time we need it.
To defeat the greatest evil
the world has ever seen.
‐ You're asking me to start
producing munitions again.
‐ The president
is asking as well.
‐ The same president who
labeled me a merchant of death?
‐ All right, let's go.
‐ America is waiting.
‐ This is gonna put us
at the head of the table.
‐ Let's do this.
‐ I'll do it, but we're
doing this to win.
It's the end
of the First World War.
The brutal fighting
lasted four years
and claimed over
20 million lives.
It also created a new titan.
‐ Ladies and gentlemen,
gather round!
If I could have a moment
of your time, please,
a very brief moment,
for a man who really
needs no introduction.
If we could all raise our
glasses to Pierre du Pont!
‐ du Pont!
‐ du Pont!
Pierre du Pont,
the largest supplier of
explosives in World War I.
Pierre du Pont's childhood
is anything but normal.
In 1801, his family came
to America with nothing
but soon built up a
thriving business.
Gunpowder.
They made their first
fortune in the Civil War,
selling to the Union Army.
‐ No, no, the sulfuric acid.
That one.
Yes, yes.
His father is a
brilliant chemist and inventor.
Now, he's working to
refine a brand new product:
dynamite.
‐ Du Pont idolizes his father.
His father is his hero.
He was, at an early age,
almost like his
father's apprentice.
‐ Now, these elements are
important to pay attention to.
Hold that.
Three drops in here.
On top of the sulfuric acid.
And from there
From there, I'm going
to need my watch.
Du Pont is only 14
when his father dies
in an explosion.
And to make matters worse,
du Pont's uncles use
the opportunity
to steal the company.
‐ After the death of his father,
Pierre's uncles cut him
out of his birthright.
It's a betrayal of
the highest order,
and he will have his revenge.
So, Pierre goes to
MIT, earns a degree,
and becomes a chemist
just like his father.
And he waits patiently,
biding his time.
He watches from the sidelines
as his uncles run the
company into the ground.
He's then able to swoop in,
purchase the company for
pennies on the dollar,
and wrest control,
reestablishing his birthright.
This is an indication
of just how shrewd
and ruthless Pierre
du Pont had become.
Over the next two decades,
du Pont methodically buys out
or forces out his competition
until he has a monopoly
in the munitions industry
just as World War I breaks out.
‐ World War I was a war
like no one had seen before.
It mobilized the most
advanced societies in Europe
and it mobilized their
industrial capability.
It was the first war to
use mechanized machinery
on a wide scale.
Fueling the bullets and shells
is du Pont's gunpowder.
‐ Du Pont, during World War I,
it was a mutually
beneficial relationship
at the end of the day.
He saw a need,
there was certainly a
great deal of demand,
and he had the
opportunity to supply it.
‐ Cheers.
During the war,
du Pont's business
grows more than 1,000%.
But now, the empire he's
built is suddenly obsolete.
‐ Will you please excuse me?
I have to go.
Enjoy your‐
No, it's a pleasure.
‐ So, du Pont, at the
end of World War I,
is astride this colossus
that has succeeded
tremendously in the war,
and the war is over and the
need for his product is gone.
He can shut his company down
and say, "We don't need
any more munitions,"
or adapt and innovate.
Du Pont needs
to rethink his entire empire.
‐ In every crisis,
you wanna be able
to be agile and resilient
to keep you fighting,
to keep on realizing that you're
gonna have to make changes.
From change,
there's opportunity.
Du Pont
realizes he can capitalize
on a new mood in America
as the country emerges from
two crises: a global war
and a devastating pandemic.
It will take over
50 million lives.
‐ The influenza pandemic
was far more deadly
than anything we have
seen in our lifetimes.
But at the end, many
people would question,
"Why shouldn't we live life
now and enjoy it while we can?"
For the first time in years,
Americans can finally
think about the future.
We've purchased
about 25 barrels of stock.
Du Pont's
right‐hand man, John Raskob,
reports on the one
part of the company
that's actually growing:
a small division spun
off from explosives
that produces
paints and lacquers.
We're seeing an increase
in demand for pyrroline.
How much are we selling?
‐ 10 tons last year, but this
year it could be double, sir.
A synthetic compound,
pyrroline is tough
and looks like ivory,
perfect for car dashboards.
‐ 20 tons.
For cars.
‐ Yes sir.
‐ We should be able to show you
more products using
a nitrous base.
They should be ready
on your next visit.
10 tons last year, but this
year it could be double.
20 tons.
For cars.
‐ One of the remarkable
things that happened
during this period
is du Pont notices
that he's all of a sudden
selling a lot of lacquer,
selling a lot of fabric.
You know who he's selling it to?
Car companies.
And so he says to himself,
"I should own a car company."
Du Pont has
spent his entire life
in the family
business of munitions.
Now, he's gonna put
all of that behind him
and go all‐in on cars.
There's only one problem.
The auto industry is already
dominated by another titan.
Henry Ford.
He's transformed the
lives of millions
with his affordable automobile.
‐ Henry Ford really
wanted to be seen
as a man of the people.
After all, he made his
fortune on the Model T,
which he marketed as
the "people's car."
The fact of the matter is
Henry Ford was a revolutionary.
Born on a farm in 1863,
Ford grew up at a time when cars
were nothing more than
motorized buggies,
expensive and impractical.
He thought he could do better.
‐ Ford always thought in
the sense of consumerism,
how one could sell a
vehicle at its cheapest.
You know, and sometimes
populists in politics
talked about a chicken
in every pot.
Henry Ford wanted a
car in every driveway.
So, Ford
rethought how cars were made.
‐ Ford had a gut feeling
that if he could drop the
price of a Model T low enough,
he could sell millions of them.
‐ So, how do you produce an
automobile, thousands a day?
You have to dream the
factory that can do it
with an integrated assembly line
that could spit one out one
after the other, exactly alike.
Nothing like this
had ever been done.
By 1918, half of all cars
in America are Model Ts
and Ford is one of the
richest people in the world.
‐ Thank you, Clive.
Now, just a few miles
from the farm where he grew up,
Ford's building
something revolutionary.
Morning, Harry.
How's your wife?
‐ Much better, thank you, sir.
Good to hear.
The biggest auto plant
in the world, River Rouge.
It has its own blast furnaces
to make his own steel,
the world's largest forge
to mold metal parts.
‐ It used to be that if
you were gonna build a car,
build an anything,
you would buy a piece
from the widget‐maker,
you might have to get
some fuel from over here,
the glass is gonna
come from here.
He decided, "I'm gonna
do it all myself."
"I'm gonna have wood brought in,"
"I'm gonna have
metal brought in."
"I'm gonna put it
on an assembly line."
"But I'm gonna own all of
it from beginning to end."
‐ Vertical integration
is important
'cause you control the pricing,
you control when it's delivered,
and you actually make more money
because nobody else
can get it your way
and you can maximize your time
and over‐deliver
on your promises.
Ford isn't just
reinventing his factories,
he's reimagining
the workplace too.
‐ Henry Ford paid
people $5 a day,
which was considered a
revolution at that time.
He gave equal rights
to African‐Americans.
He gave them equal wages.
‐ How we doing?
‐ He was a very
paternalistic figure.
‐ How's it doing?
‐ Here was a man who
not just employed
a tremendous number of people,
but he made sure all these
people had healthcare.
He built a hospital
just for his workers.
These things had
never been done.
‐ He had a philosophy
of life that he created
that was at times inspirational
and often troublesome.
‐ Henry Ford was a great
man, but not a good man,
and he was really a
devout antisemite.
So, we can never mistake
greatness in business
for being a great person.
When River Rouge fully opens,
it will be the largest
factory complex on Earth.
Who could possibly
take on Henry Ford now?
Only one man would dare.
‐ I think a lot of
titans of industry
wanna create new
mountains to climb,
'cause it's all about winning.
It's about, "I'm smarter
than the next guy."
"I can do it better,
and why not me?"
Du Pont risks his own fortune
to buy a car company,
a company he believes
will one day rival Ford.
Pierre du Pont has
just spent $50 million
to buy a large stake
in General Motors,
risking everything to try
to take on Henry Ford.
‐ It's important to remember
that really what drives du Pont
is a need to control,
a need to be in charge.
He sets his sights
initially on General Motors,
but one gets the impression
that he ultimately
wanted to dominate
the entire automobile industry.
In 1919, General Motors
is a badly‐run collection
of five car companies:
Chevrolet, Oldsmobile,
Oakland, Cadillac, and Buick.
‐ General Motors Corporation
was sort of a conglomerate
mess of various companies
that had been
sort of put together.
There were divisions
and operations
and plants and personalities
competing with each other.
It was not making any money.
GM was
founded by William Durant,
a degenerate gambler
addicted to the stock market.
‐ You said they were going up.
How much have I lost?
Buy 10,000.
I told you, I can
pay you next week.
Losing millions,
Durant is forced to sell shares
in GM to cover his losses.
‐ You're basically working
with some of the best craftsmen
that we have in the States.
‐ General Motors was struggling,
but it had real potential.
Pierre du Pont saw this
as a real opportunity
to take on Henry Ford.
‐ Du Pont gambles
on General Motors
in the hopes that he can take
what Durant has mismanaged
and turn it into a
model of efficiency,
similar to what DuPont
Corporation was.
All right, try it.
Out of GM's five companies,
the only one that's really
successful is Buick,
responsible for half the profit,
and it's because of one man.
No, no, turn it off!
It's not right.
Walter Chrysler.
‐ I think it's the timing.
Du Pont knows that Chrysler
is the key to taking
on Henry Ford.
‐ Walter Chrysler was
a mechanical genius.
At Buick, Chrysler reorganized
the entire layout of the factory
and the way work was organized.
Cleaned all
the lines last night.
‐ You sure; you
double‐checked 'em?
‐ I watched them do it.
‐ Chrysler never
lacked confidence,
and sometimes he came
across as a bit arrogant.
‐ And the coils
and the cylinders?
Everything got looked at.
The son of
a locomotive engineer,
Chrysler grew up
in Ellis, Kansas,
a tough railroad boom‐town.
The only way to survive
was to be part of a gang.
The Chrysler family
didn't have much money,
but young Walter figured out
a way to make what he wanted,
including his own tools.
‐ His father wanted
him to go to college,
but Walter wanted to
become a railroad mechanic.
I think Chrysler did
really want to understand,
in a hands‐on way,
how things worked.
‐ Try it now.
Du Pont summons
the five company heads
to plot his opening
move against Ford.
But really, there's only
one man he cares about.
‐ Where is he?
‐ He's supposed to be here.
I'll go and get him.
Is he in there?
He's supposed to
be at the meeting.
‐ Yes sir.
‐ Mr. du Pont is waiting.
Okay.
It's du Pont.
‐ Same ol' story, huh?
Sir, he's not gonna make it.
Shouldn't be an issue
as long as we make
sure we're prepared.
‐ He says he's busy.
‐ When the goals
of the organization
and the goals of the people
who work there are in sync,
that's when the magic happens.
That's when a company is
just firing on all cylinders.
And if they're not,
you're gonna be upset.
You're gonna be pissed off.
If du Pont
can't control Chrysler,
how can he hope to
topple Henry Ford,
who continues to grow
more powerful by the day,
now selling a million
Model Ts in just one year.
‐ When you're at that level
and you've had all
of that success
and you have all of this money,
there's a mindset that
you're almost invincible.
You're almost your
own nation‐state.
Henry Ford's success
is built on his singular
unyielding vision,
a vision that few at the company
would ever dare challenge.
‐ Is he in?
‐ Yes.
But he's busy.
‐ There he is.
Busy?
‐ I hear you haven't
been at work all week.
‐ Come on, you know I'm
working all the time.
Dad.
Get your coat.
‐ Why?
‐ I wanna take you somewhere.
Dad, please?
Great.
‐ Edsel Ford was the
only child of Henry Ford.
One of the things that
separated the two men,
Henry and Edsel, was
the fact that Henry
was a self‐made man.
He came from nothing
and created his fortune.
Edsel had everything
given to him.
‐ Well, what is it?
‐ This?
‐ Mm.
‐ It's a novel,
"Age of Innocence."
I think you'd like it.
‐ So, for Edsel, think of this:
On his 21st birthday,
he was a child who was
given $1 million in gold.
‐ "Age of Innocence."
‐ When you have children,
you hope and you pray
that they want to take on
and appreciate everything
that you've given them,
but most of the children won't
wanna take on the business
and they may want
their own identity.
They say the first
generation makes it,
the second enjoys it, and
the third destroys it.
‐ What is this place?
‐ Trust me.
You'll see.
Just about here.
‐ Well, what are we doing here?
‐ Just wait.
‐ For what?
‐ Wait.
Well What do you think?
We should get into this!
‐ We don't know
anything about it.
I do.
‐ No, you don't.
For Edsel, the
pressure of being a Ford
is immense.
He believes the only way to
earn his father's respect
is to build
something of his own.
‐ Like all kids his age,
Edsel was obsessed with
the Wright brothers.
He was obsessed with the idea
that humans could take
flight using machinery.
I think, from a very young age,
Edsel had this idea that
he could do for airplanes
what his father had
done for motorcars,
and that was his destiny.
Though it's been almost 20 years
since the Wright brothers
took flight at Kitty Hawk,
planes remain novelties.
‐ At that time, flying, for
the public, it was a curiosity.
They would go out to fields
when an airplane
came through town,
and what they were watching
was to see if the
airplane would crash.
And this really emphasizes the
state of flying at that time.
It wasn't safe.
Henry Ford has no interest
in aviation as a business.
‐ Nothing supplanted
the automobile for Ford.
The car in the driveway's
where Henry Ford's
eyeballs always were.
He agrees to give
Edsel money to build a plane,
but for one reason: to teach
him the benefits of hard work.
‐ Henry Ford was the
quintessential self‐made man
and he always saw his son
as a creature of privilege,
that he didn't have
grease on his hands,
that he was a white‐collar
man, not a blue‐collar one,
and this annoyed Henry
Ford about his son.
‐ Pass me a pencil.
But Edsel sees
aviation as an opportunity
to usher his father's
company forward.
‐ That could actually work.
‐ I think Edsel Ford saw
the promise of aviation
before most people did.
He thought this could
be a real business.
Now, after
months of development,
Edsel is ready to show
the results to his father.
If he succeeds, he'll
prove once and for all
he's worthy of the Ford name.
‐ I think we're on it.
‐ We're ready.
‐ Great.
So, in good conditions,
we're looking at a range
of, what, 400 miles?
‐ Yeah, something like that.
‐ Good.
Okay, let's give him a show.
‐ Ready.
‐ Thanks for coming.
‐ Well, we got a
good day for it.
‐ We just dropped
in a new engine.
It's got twice the horsepower,
but we haven't had a
chance to fire her up yet.
I'm sure once we
dig in there we can‐
‐ It's okay.
Just keep at it.
First models, they
always have a few kinks.
You would know, right?
‐ That I do.
What a disaster.
While Edsel Ford struggles
to impress his father,
Pierre du Pont has his own
issues at General Motors,
with one in particular:
Walter Chrysler.
‐ One of the qualities
of Pierre du Pont,
in addition to being
a leader himself,
was spotting talent in others.
He thought Walter
Chrysler was a genius.
But Walter Chrysler did
not fit in personally
to the mold of a General
Motors very well.
Du Pont wants
everything done his way
and he expects Chrysler
to fall in line.
Walter
Chrysler is so fascinating
in so many ways.
‐ I understand that.
‐ His foundation was
just doing the work.
‐ No, I understand.
And he wanted it to be his way.
‐ Yeah, okay, Mr. du Pont.
‐ He was very clear that he
didn't like to be managed.
‐ No, you have to listen to me.
You have to listen to me and
listen clearly, all right?
Chrysler
detests all the paperwork
du Pont requires and
refuses to attend meetings.
‐ Why do you have
to be so difficult?
‐ Is this about du Pont?
‐ Mr. du Pont is
here to help us.
‐ Is that so?
‐ We need his money.
Can you just do what he wants?
All right,
I'll fill out the forms
and I'll go to
his damn meetings.
‐ Thank you, Walter.
‐ So, there's this great passage
in Chrysler's autobiography
where he talks about
walking into a room,
and there is his boss, Durant.
And here's Pierre du Pont.
‐ I'm trying to run
a business here.
Do you understand me, Bill?
‐ And he realizes in that
moment that what he's witnessing
is Napoleon at the
beginning of conquest.
And perhaps it's time to go.
‐ Chrysler finally figured out
that he could never
work productively
with Pierre du Pont
and Billy Durant.
Walter Chrysler was highly
paid at General Motors,
not just in terms of salary,
but he was given
stock, a lot of stock.
‐ Durant, hold up.
Bill.
‐ Walter, can't this
wait until the morning?
‐ No.
It can't.
I'm quitting.
It's not you, it's du Pont.
‐ Look, why don't you just take
some time, think about this.
‐ No, no, I've thought
about it plenty.
Listen, I'm sorry to
have to say this to you,
but you're gonna have
to buy all my shares.
‐ And why would I do that?
‐ Because if you don't, I'm
gonna sell all my shares
on the stock market and
bankrupt the company.
‐ Durant was afraid if Chrysler
dumped all of his
stock on the market,
if it was known that Chrysler
was the person selling it,
he's an insider,
people would say,
"Uh‐oh, something is
wrong at General Motors."
"We better get
rid of our stock."
Afraid the
company's stock will plummet,
Durant purchases
Chrysler's shares
and Chrysler walks away
with a $10‐million buyout,
the equivalent of
$200 million today.
‐ Du Pont must have seen
Chrysler's defection
from General Motors as more
than just a business move.
It's a personal affront.
With Chrysler's exit from GM,
DuPont is forced to find a
new strategy to take on Ford.
He's devised a plan that's
going to require money,
lots of money.
Hundreds of millions even he
can't bankroll that much.
‐ He asked me to bring
you to see him right away.
This way, sir.
Good day for it, pull.
Hahaha, well nothing like it.
‐ Nice shooting, sir.
JP Morgan Junior
is one of the richest men
in the world and one
of the most powerful.
‐ Pull!
‐ Good shot sir.
‐ Takes practice, my father
taught me when I was a child.
Morgan's father
was the notorious ruthless
banker. Pierpont Morgan Sr.
After his father's financing
ushered in the electric age
and helped create the world's
first billion dollar company,
UK.S. Steel, Junior inherited
a fortune like no other.
‐ His father Pierpont
was a legend.
The founder of JP
Morgan, big personality,
a big person obviously knew
everyone around the world.
‐ Morgan lived with the
incredible responsibility
of living up to his
father's legacy.
This kind of all encompassing
shadow that JP Morgan Senior
cast on JP Morgan Junior.
Morgan has money, ‐ Pull!
Power and enemies.
He once survived an
assassination attempt
by wrestling the gunman
to the ground.
‐ He was in some ways the
most powerful capitalist
in the United States so if
you wanted to bring down
capitalism, you
would go after him.
And I think he was trying
to live up to not only
the reputation of his father,
but trying to show that he
could out do his father.
So General
Motors, you want to expand.
‐ With your will help, yes.
‐ I've had my team look at
it, it's not going to be easy.
Why don't you wait a year,
get the company in shape?
‐ I can't wait, Ford
is destroying us.
‐ I see.
To Morgan, DuPont
and GM are minor players.
If he was to get into cars,
he would do it with Ford,
but he's already tried.
‐ 1916, JP Morgan tries to
convince Henry Ford to go public
and Ford balks at this idea.
JP Morgan's interest
in this is obvious.
He wants a piece of Ford,
he wants the rich profits
that can come as a result
of the public offering.
Henry Ford notoriously
hated bankers.
He felt they didn't
build anything.
And so at this point, JP
Morgan Jr. appears to just be
like a rich kid playing
with his father's money.
Henry Ford told JP Morgan,
you are not your father.
It's an insulted that
Morgan will never forget.
‐ And for a guy like Morgan
where money is no object,
to be scorned by Henry Ford
simply becomes a motivation
to get revenge on Henry Ford
and he will have his
revenge through the DuPont.
‐ How much do you need?
DuPont gets his financing.
Hundreds of millions
in loans and investments
and he uses it to enact
a brand new strategy.
Under Pierre DuPont's leadership
General Motors was
expanding quickly,
taking on new lines of credit
in order to expand
production facilities,
also to buy other divisions
and bring all of these into
the General Motors fold.
DuPont realizes
that the car market is changing
and he is reinventing
GM to capitalize on it.
‐ In the 1920s, people
had money in their pockets
and there was sort of
a deficit of consumer
items that they hadn't been
able to buy during the war.
So they go on a spending spree.
‐ By the 1920s, the
Model T was old.
It wasn't exciting, it was
reliable, it was cheap,
but people wanted more than
just a utilitarian vehicle.
Taking advantage
of GM's many companies,
DuPont offers customers
something Ford has
never given them.
Choice.
‐ General Motors was brilliant
in their branding.
Started with a Chevrolet
which was the entry level car
and that was for a
certain price point
then you grow up and
you have a family
and you get your Oldsmobile.
Now you're starting to
get that first promotion
at work, what do you get?
You get a Buick.
And the ultimate
aspiration that they set up
was a Cadillac.
I mean, even today, we use
the term, the Cadillac of,
and that's when you made it.
DuPont's
strategy is a perfect match
for this era of
rising prosperity
and rising expectations.
It's really the birth of
the modern consumer culture.
People started wanting
choice, automobiles
and clothes and things
started getting mass‐produced
and all these companies
started fulfilling fantasies
and needs, the roaring twenties,
we'd call it, the jazz age.
By the end of
1921, GM is a major competitor
in the auto world.
DuPont is ready to
take down the Ford.
But what DuPont doesn't know
is there's a target
on his back too.
Walter Chrysler
has his own company now
and he's about the
join the fight.
Car racing has
become the most popular sport
in America.
And the public becomes
fascinated with speed.
Three years after walking
out on Pierre DuPont
and General Motors,
Chrysler is now running
his own car company
and is searching
for the next big thing.
Coming up in
the lead, the Henry Hudson
is closing the gap.
What a race, top speed
over 70 miles and hour.
‐ Hey guys.
Walter Chrysler
knows what America wants.
Chrysler intends to build
the first mass‐produced
automobile that drives
like a race car.
‐ I think that Chrysler thought
in his mind that
there was a demand.
There was nothing on
the market to appeal
to middle‐class buyers who
wanted something better
than a Ford and wanted speed.
‐ We gotta get this
to 70 miles per hour.
The problem is how to get
that extra little bit.
‐ Then we'll need a bigger
engine, that means a bigger car.
‐ No, I want the
same size engine,
I just want it to go faster.
‐ The idea that Walter
Chrysler would walk away
from GM to on his own
against the might of Ford
and General Motors, it was
both shocking and daring
and also very Walter Chrysler.
‐ Hand me the 3/8ths.
Chrysler
invests millions into his car
betting everything on
a new type of engine.
One he hopes will give
him the speed he desires.
‐ Last thing I want to do
is burn out that clutch.
Come on.
Get that right.
Up till now, powerful
engines were big and heavy.
‐ I got that diameter
on that correct so, it's 44.
Chrysler is trying
something totally different.
He's designed a smaller engine.
‐ Okay, let's do this.
That squeezes more
power out of each cylinder.
‐ Full throttle.
The first
high compression motor.
Made for one thing,
speed.
‐ Cars like the Model
Ford could only do 35.
Even cars like the Buick might
get up to 50 miles an hour.
This car could do
70 miles an hour.
And probably the Chrysler
could actually do a little more
than 70 miles per hour.
And it blew the socks off
most of the competition.
Chrysler has gambled everything
on his new car but
what he doesn't know
is whether people will buy it.
‐ Ladies and gentlemen,
if I could have your
attention please.
‐ You know, to be a
great entrepreneur,
you have to be a
bit of a gambler.
You have to be a
bit of a risk taker.
You have to be a
professional optimist.
‐ The Chrysler 70.
‐ You have to believe in
yourself and you have to believe
in the idea that you're
going to change the world.
The car is soon known worldwide
as the Chrysler 70 is hailed
as the most technologically
advanced car of its time.
Even its name points to
its groundbreaking speed.
70 miles an hour.
‐ Chrysler's first car
did capture the spirit
of the roaring twenties
in that it was flamboyant,
it was aggressive,
people who owned it
could say, look at me.
When you were driving a Model T,
you've never said, look at me.
‐ Every great entrepreneur
can tell you multiple stories
about any number of people
who called them crazy
and told them that their
product would never work.
But the crazier the idea,
the greater the upside.
‐ Initially DuPont doesn't
see Chrysler as a threat.
He's rankled by the fact that
Chrysler's left the company
but he doesn't think
that Chrysler is going
to be able to compete.
When the Chrysler 70 comes
out, it becomes clear
that Chrysler is in the
game and in the game to win.
Three months
after Chrysler turned
the automotive world upside
down, another young innovator
is looking to do the
same in aviation.
Edsel Ford wants the Ford
company to build planes
and after a failed
demonstration,
he's more determined than ever
to show his dad he can succeed.
‐ Henry Ford was a
difficult father.
He was a stern taskmaster, he
didn't suffer fools lightly.
And he put a lot of stress
on Edsel to be an achiever.
Edsel keeps pushing his team.
‐ This is too big,
you gotta make this
You know what?
That could actually work.
And in April of
1924, the hard work pays off.
I think this is it.
‐ Well, it's a
solid piece of work.
‐ There's a but.
‐ Where's the market?
While he's
pleased with his son's effort,
in the end, Henry
Ford is left feeling
he spent a fortune for nothing.
There's no way to
make money with planes
but that's about to change.
The answer will come
from an unlikely place,
the post office.
Since the days of
the Pony Express,
the government has looked
for ways to speed up
mail delivery, first with
stagecoaches and then trains.
Now they look to the
skies with airplanes.
‐ There was an immediacy
of life in the 1920s
that hadn't existed before.
You could speak via telephone
to your friend who
lives two states over.
If you wanted to hear
something that was happening
in another part of the country,
now you could
listen on the radio.
You can get used to this,
expectations change with time,
‐ The whole notion of air mail,
it's about speed
of communication.
I mean everything gets better
when you can communicate faster.
And I think air was
perfectly suited to do it.
The post office sees airmail
as its future and they
decide to outsource the job.
‐ In 1925, the
Airmail Act comes out
and this is the government
deciding, the post office
deciding to hand over
flying airmail routes
to private individuals.
‐ If we get these
contracts to go out.
Mark my words the airmail
business will flourish.
As word of
the Airmail Act gets out
one man recognizes this
could be a gold rush.
‐ We should get into this.
‐ Where's the money?
Mark my words, the airmail
business will flourish.
Ford knows he
needs to act fast to scoop
up the air mail contracts
before anyone else.
Ford spends millions to
roll out a fleet of planes
and clears 240 acres near
his River Rouge plant
to build a whole new kind
of transportation hub.
‐ The Fords were the first to
lay the first concrete runway
and they're creating
the modern airport.
It's all to show the government
that Ford Aviation
is ready to fly.
‐ You can't be an entrepreneur
and build a business
without taking risk.
Taking risk is absolutely
a critical part
of building a business,
especially one that's
been untested beore.
Henry's bet pays off.
Ford aviation wins a
major airmail contract.
‐ Henry Ford was one of the
few people who saw potential
in airmail.
When airmail first began,
the post office is paying
three dollars a pound and there
were 800,000 pounds of mail
being shipped in
the United States.
By 1929, that number had
increased to 8 million pounds.
So you can see
there's a tremendous
potential there for profit.
Soon Edsel's
planes are flying mail across
the country and Ford Aviation
is raking in the profits.
But what Edsel and
Henry don't know
is that another would be
titan is gunning for them.
A small airplane
manufacturer out West, headed
by a man who's determined to
claim aviation for himself.
William Boeing.
‐ How's it looking?
A small airplane
company is aiming to challenge
Ford Aviation and win control
of the airmail business.
It was founded by a
man who got his start
in the timber industry.
‐ We need this absolutely
perfect. Okay?
William Boeing.
‐ The big bang moment for
Bill Boeing was in 1910.
He saw his first airplane
and he fell in love.
He was a man who was
fascinated with technology.
He loved cars, he loved boats
and when he saw the
airplane, he had to fly.
‐ William Boeing
and Edsel Ford both
saw great potential in aviation.
But the difference between
them was that William Boeing
was a pilot so he
had a natural feel
for aviation in a way
that Edsel Ford did not.
‐ Canvas might be too heavy.
‐ We could try silk.
‐ Yeah.
‐ When he started his company
he realized he needed
an aerodynamicist.
This was a new field of science
and only one place was
producing aerodynamicist
and that was MIT.
MIT said, Mr. Boeing, we
have a young Chinese national
whose name is Wong Tsu.
Boeing said send
him, I want him.
‐ I think we're going to
shift of these numbers.
‐ Yeah, let's try a 38 here.
Boeing
experimented with new materials
to build lighter and
stronger airplanes.
‐ William Boeing was not only
a pilot, he was an innovator.
He was an inventor.
His goal was always to build
the best possible
airplane in the world.
But despite
all of Boeing's big ideas,
his company is about to go
bankrupt because at this time,
the only way to make money
is with an airmail contract
and Ford has them all locked up.
In the 1920s,
Boeing as a small manufacturer
selling an airplane
here or there.
Ford is a Goliath
in American industry
getting into the
aviation business.
‐ No, I told you we needed
those parts this Friday.
‐ Boeing is struggling.
‐ Just get them over here as
fast as you can, thank you.
To survive,
Boeing's company must somehow
land and airmail contract.
He decides his only
chance is to build
the best plane in the world.
He just needs to figure
out how to do it.
With Boeing,
one of his great attributes
is he's a man of vision.
We're gonna need
some more water for it.
How much you need?
‐ Four gallons if you could.
‐ One of the secrets he has
to making this a success
is a new innovative engine.
He genuinely sees something
that is going to
change the world.
‐ Gentlemen, I'm very
glad I could be here
and I'm very excited to tell
you about Boeing's new plane.
The Model 48 is the first plane
specially designed
to carry airmail.
It has a welded steel frame
and closed compartments
for the mail and a very
special type of engine,
it's air‐cooled.
‐ Up until now, the
engines that are flying
on mail planes are water‐cooled
so just like in your car,
it has a radiator
with all of the water.
‐ You made those changes to
the engine like I told you?
‐ Yes.
‐ That's 200 pounds
on these airplanes.
So without that 200
pounds taking it away,
that's 200 pounds of
mail, that's profit.
‐ Well, this air‐cooled
engine is more reliable.
It allows the plane to go faster
and it doesn't need water.
Why carry water, when
you can carry more mail?
‐ Do you have your
fleet ready to go now?
‐ Of course.
‐ Boeing wins this contract
in January and by July.
He's supposed to be flying
the mail, 26 model 40s.
These airplanes
haven't been built yet.
‐ What do you know
about a radial engine?
‐ Knowing Bill Boeing
and his character,
failure was not an option.
‐ Change this section.
‐ It's one of the
hardest things to do,
increase rates of production.
I need this to be
perfect, okay? Perfect.
‐ And so for Bill Boeing
to go from zero to 26
in six months, ‐
Yeah, it's Boeing.
It's almost hard
for us even today
to even comprehend.
Boeing steals a page
from Ford's assembly line idea.
‐ He quickly assembled a team
of literally everyone he knew
and built all 26
model 40A's at once.
‐ He had the metal workers
building the fuselage,
the woodworkers, putting
the wings together
and the seamstresses
putting on the fabric.
So it's a team effort.
‐ We've all pulled all nighters.
This was an all‐nighter
that lasted six months.
‐ That simple fact that he
could mass produce that quickly,
really propelled the
industry forward.
Boeing's fleet is ready.
‐ Thank you for
being here today.
He manages to build
all 26 planes just in time.
‐ My wife shall do the honors.
It's a huge victory.
Boeing's routes are worth
nearly $5 million a year
which is over 75 million today
and now Ford has some
real competition.
By 1926, automobile
ownership in America
is at an all time high.
20 million cars are on the road
but DuPont's GM with its
multiple brands has been eating
away at Ford's lead.
GM now sells a quarter of
the cars in the country.
Henry Ford decides
it's time to hit back.
‐ Ford really only has one arrow
in the quiver to stave
off his competitors
and that is to lower his prices.
Whenever a competitor gets
close, Ford lowers the price.
And ultimately he sticks
with this strategy
because it proves
quite successful.
Ford slashes
prices of his Model
to under $300, the equivalent
of about $6,000 today.
‐ Good to see you.
‐ Try the steak, I don't
know what they season
it with but it's
cooked to perfection.
‐ No, I'm not hungry for it.
‐ No?
‐ It's Ford.
‐ No one believes they
can beat Ford on price
but that's the only way to win.
‐ We've tried every way possible
but he's just got economies
of scale we can't have.
‐ No, no, you need to
give away the cars.
No one can compete with free.
‐ I must be missing your point.
‐ You need to do what I do.
See when people leave my bank
after I give them a loan,
they feel like they've
got free money,
like they've somehow
beaten the system.
But in reality, they're
going to pay me every month
for the rest of their
life with interest.
‐ For you, a free car,
it's just the bait.
The loan is the hook.
For years,
DuPont's General Motors
has been trying to beat Ford.
Now they make a
game‐changing decision.
If Americans want the
car of their dreams,
General Motors will lend
them the money to buy it.
‐ General Motors through
the creation of GMAC,
the General Motors Acceptance
Corporation offered financing.
‐ You could buy a Ford and you
could pay for that car today.
Or you can buy General Motors
and you could pay for it
over two years or three years
or four years with credit.
Wow.
With backing from Morgan,
GM goes all in on car loans
and it's a huge success.
‐ General Motors is creating
the modern corporation.
People could show up with
whatever they had and buy a car
and pay it off in installments.
‐ It was so right for the
roaring twenties, where
everything was ahead of us.
The new America was more
about what was in front of you.
The age of easy money is born.
‐ Easy money means basically
that you can go to a bank and
say, I want a lot of money
and instead of them saying,
are you out of your mind?
You don't deserve any
credit, they say sure.
‐ The 1920s, it was the
really the first time
that Joe on street was
getting loans, literally loans
to buy all sorts of stuff.
Radios,
refrigerators and even new homes
are suddenly within reach.
‐ You know, you
could go buy a house
with no money down, no
documentation, no income.
A bank will give you
a loan, so easy money.
It's not just about
interest rates.
It's about very lax terms.
‐ By extending credit,
General Motors finds a way
to make the automobile
attainable without necessarily
making it affordable.
It allows people not
only to purchase one car
but perhaps even two.
That was a brilliant stroke
on the part of DuPont.
By 1927, just
six years since DuPont
and Morgan joined
forces, they've achieved
what many considered impossible.
They've dethroned the king of
cars, Henry Ford.
General Motors is the number
one automaker in America.
By 1927, Ford faces challenges,
not just on the
ground, but in the air.
‐ So when can you
send them over?
To capture more contracts,
William Boeing continues
to grow his fleet
of superior mail planes.
‐ 24.9, that looks good.
‐ The success of the model
40A, indicates that emergence
of Boeing as the company
that we know it today.
Soon, Boeing
achieves the unthinkable,
a near monopoly on airmail.
It's a massive win over Ford.
Edsel Ford knows if he
doesn't do something fast,
his entire aviation
business will go under.
‐ Edsel Ford was thinking about,
what are the possibilities
for aviation as a business?
How can the airplane make
American life better?
Edsel believes that the future
of aviation is not
transporting mail,
it's transporting people.
‐ Today, we take it for
granted that we can get
from New York City
to Los Angeles
in a matter of hours by plane.
And in the 1920s,
it took five days by train,
to make that same trip.
So, aviation really
had the potential to
revolutionize passenger
travel in the United States.
‐ Hey, here's what I'm
thinking for the new model.
First side of the plane
Over the next several months,
Edsel and his team
designed the first
modern passenger plane,
the Trimotor.
‐ Nothing like the Ford
Trimotor had been seen before.
It was an all metal airplane
carrying 12 passengers,
it had three air‐cooled
engines, it had one wing,
and the pilots flew inside
a cabin, not outside.
This was futuristic
when it came into being
in the mid 1920s.
‐ I think the Trimotor was
Edsel's dream come true,
that proved that flight
could occur safely.
And that by using three engines
on an airplane, it
solved a lot of problems,
because if one of
the engines failed,
the pilot could use the
other two to land safely.
But building a
passenger plane won't be enough.
Edsel needs to get
people to fly in it.
‐ So even as air mail is
becoming increasingly common
throughout the 1920s, there
was still a huge reluctance
in the American public to fly,
because people were
afraid of flying,
they believed it wasn't safe.
Edsel's dream is doomed,
unless the public overcomes
its fear of flying.
And it turns out, just
500 miles to the East,
one daring pilot is about to
change people's minds, forever.
‐ In the mid 1920s, there
was a great competition,
to be the first to make the
first trans‐atlantic flight
from New York to Paris.
This young, unknown,
penniless practically,
former airmail pilot
from Minnesota
was about the most
unlikely person
to fly across the Atlantic,
that you can think of.
Six pilots
have already died trying,
and most think this new
pilot will be the seventh.
His name is Charles Lindbergh.
33 hours later, he
achieves the unthinkable.
Touching down in Paris, where
he's mobbed by thousands.
‐ His flight, just captured
the imagination of the world.
Not just Americans, not
just the French, everybody.
He was much more than
a movie star today
or a sports figure today.
At the age of 25,
Charles Lindbergh becomes the
most famous man in the world.
Lindy starts a
tour across the nation.
He's acclaimed, adored
in city after city.
And wherever he turns
he hears his name.
The fame,
the glory, all are his.
The world has found
the perfect hero.
And at this moment,
the future looms
ahead of him, bright and shiny.
Edsel Ford may have just found
the solution to his problem.
‐ I thought you
said he was coming.
‐ He is.
Look.
‐ Three months after Lucky
Lindy shocked the world
by completing this first
solo transatlantic flight,
he comes flying in on
the Spirit of St. Louis,
to meet with Henry and Edsel.
‐ Charles, it's good to see you.
This is my father, Henry.
‐ Mr. Lindbergh.
‐ This was extraordinary
moment in American history.
Two of the most famous, most
successful men in the world,
Henry Ford and Lindbergh.
Both had rather
complicated political views
that they shared.
But at the time, they
were both modern heroes
and embodied this idea that
mankind could harness power.
‐ How many seats are you
planning on putting in a row?
‐ It's a good question.
So, originally we had four.
Together,
the Fords and Lindbergh
form a partnership
that will transform
the aviation industry.
Using Ford's planes,
and Lindbergh's name,
a new airline is formed.
Offering coast to coast travel,
LA to New York,
in just 48 hours.
Edsel knows that
Lindbergh is the key
to convincing the public to fly.
‐ They used Lindbergh as
a celebrity endorsement
and it was brilliant
marketing by Ford,
the American public
trusted Charles Lindbergh,
it really helped them believe
that flying on Ford
Trimotors across country
was something safe and something
that they wanted to do.
Lindbergh's
influence on the airline
is so complete, that it
becomes known as Lindy's Line.
Years later, it will
get another name, TWA.
By 1928, nearly 200,000
passengers will fly on planes.
Edsel's dream of an aviation
business has finally come true.
And the future seems
brighter than ever.
Walter Chrysler is planning
for his future as well.
‐ If it's going to cost that,
we got to tell him it's
too expensive, right?
Since launching the Chrysler 70,
sales have skyrocketed.
‐ Tell him I said, that's right.
And he needs
to increase production.
So he buys a rival car company,
Dodge.
‐ The Dodge Brothers Company
had an enormous factory complex
in Detroit.
Foundries, machine
shops, forges,
and Chrysler bought all of it.
Overnight, Chrysler's
manufacturing capacity
grows five fold.
‐ Put it there.
And catapults
his company into the top tier
of the auto industry.
‐ The automotive industries
publication wrote,
"we now can talk about the
big three car companies,
General Motors,
Ford, and Chrysler."
‐ Cheers, all right!
‐ And that was the first
time that expression had ever
been used.
Chrysler is number three,
but he wants to be number one.
To outdo Ford and du
Pont, Chrysler once again,
sets out to build
something spectacular.
But this time, it's not a car.
It's an 800 foot
monument to himself.
The Chrysler Building.
‐ See here, I redesigned the
revolving doors in the lobby,
So they're under a huge archway.
And with it,
Walter Chrysler intends
to put his mark on the
New York City skyline.
‐ Now we're going to have
to figure something out
about the roof.
A skyscraper boom is underway,
as the economy soars.
The demand for new office
buildings is on the rise.
Thanks to innovations in
steel frame construction,
new high rises are
reshaping America's cities,
especially in New York.
‐ The skyscraper is an
interesting phenomenon.
If we think about it this way,
Robber Barons built these
beautiful mansions
to show off their
wealth and opulence,
these skyscrapers were
pyramids in the sky
to the captains of industry.
Titans of a new age, of
industrial strength and might.
‐ All right, let's take a look.
Chrysler
aims to make his building
the tallest in the world.
‐ This is the roughest
stainless steel.
It's German.
‐ Did the world need
the tallest building?
No, that's ego.
But ego is a great
thing in business.
Ego, you show me a
titan of industry,
and I'll show you
somebody with a big ego.
‐ Sorry to disturb you.
But I think you should see this.
Du Pont learns
about Chrysler's plans,
and to add insult to injury,
Chrysler has just been named,
Time Magazine's man of the year.
‐ So why you building the
tallest building in the world?
‐ So I can look down on GM.
What do you have against GM?
‐ Oh, I wouldn't
say I have anything
in particular against them.
They just don't do it
as good as I do, right?
So I can look down on GM.
Look down on GM.
‐ Sorry, Sir.
‐ It absolutely gets
personal between these two,
always measuring themselves
against one another.
When you're talking about people
at the top top, top, top, top,
their competitiveness
is rooted in ego.
‐ As for office
space, we're looking
at over two million square feet.
We'll be able to
hold more tenants
than any other building in the
world, and all at a premium.
Especially when you account
for the sweeping views
of the city.
‐ How high?
‐ The top floor
will be 800 feet up,
same height as Chrysler's.
‐ Make it taller, and I'm in.
Just a few blocks
from Chrysler's building,
Pierre du Pont is planning
a skyscraper of his own.
One that he hopes, will
put Chrysler's to shame.
‐ There is a competition,
there's a rivalry happening,
as to who's going to build
the biggest skyscraper,
and Du Pont wanted
to be part of that.
And in that prosperity
of the 1920s,
that meant buying the Old
Waldorf Astoria Hotel,
tearing it down,
and creating what was to become
the largest, tallest skyscraper,
not only in New York,
but in the world.
And that of course, was
the Empire State Building.
Next time on the
Titans That Built America,
egos and rivalries,
soar to new heights.
‐ So we will be
four feet taller,
Chrysler can stick an umbrella
on top and say he's taller.
‐ Ladies and gentlemen,
the future of aviation.
But America soon faces
the greatest financial
crisis in history.
‐ Overall assets
down by 400 million.
‐ Mr Morgan, what's happening?
Has the stock market
stopped falling?
‐ It's time to cut our losses.
I'm shutting Ford Aviation down.
And a bold new president,
Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
is determined to tame the
Titan's power
or crush them.
‐ You're nothing short
of a war profiteer,
a merchant of death.
But, as the country
struggles to build its way
out of the depression,
a threat from abroad changes
the rules of the game.
‐ No country in Europe would
stand a chance against Germany,
and neither will America.
With war looming,
they'll have to work with FDR
and each other to
save the world.
Next Episode