An editor at the New York Times, after touring the village in Ford’s company, mused, “It was a strange sensation to pass old wagons while walking with one who had rendered them obsolete. The Dearborn collection of spinning wheels, Dutch ovens, covered bridges and other relics of an early American past is the work of a man whose life mission has been to take us away from that past as quickly as might be.”44 Ford explained this seeming contradiction by appealing to a narrative of progress. From his perspective, early craftsmanship was important not in and of itself, but as a moral lesson about
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