( Mental Floss ) -- We remember Henry Ford as the automotive magnate who perfected assembly line technology , but he also dabbled in ambitious social programs , including one in which he hired ex-convicts straight out of Sing Sing to staff his factories . Henry Ford , pictured in 1942 , unsuccessfully attempted to increase the rubber supply with a plantation in Brazil . Although many of these efforts were successful , Ford 's ill-fated foray into the Brazilian jungle was a notable and fascinating exception . The plan . If you 're going to make millions of cars , you 're going to need an awful lot of rubber . In 1927 , Ford came up with a novel plan : He 'd solve his rubber problem and test out his lofty theories about social planning . If everything went well , he could craft both a utopia full of healthy , productive workers and a direct pipeline of coveted rubber to Detroit . Ford approached the task with characteristic zeal . He talked the Brazilian government into granting him 10,000 square kilometers of land in the Amazon rain forest -- a plot that was nearly twice as big as the state of Delaware -- in exchange for a 9 percent cut of the plantation 's profits . In theory , this setup seemed like one of Ford 's ideas that would shake out pretty well , and in 1928 , Ford sent a barge full of supplies from Michigan down to his new plantation town , which was dubbed `` Fordlandia . '' Growing rubber in the jungle . Unfortunately for Ford 's stockholders , though , the captain of industry did n't always have a great eye for detail . ( One famous story about Ford was that he disliked accountants so fiercely that he never had his company audited . By the end of his tenure , the Ford Motor Company allegedly had no idea exactly how much it cost to build a car . ) Ford did n't check to see if the plantation was suitable for growing rubber . According to Greg Grandin , author of `` Fordlandia : The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford 's Forgotten Jungle City , '' Ford never consulted any sort of expert on rubber cultivation ; he just sent a bunch of supplies and managers into the jungle hoping to grow some rubber . Mental Floss : Henry Ford and others who survived bankruptcy . Ford was legendarily contemptuous of experts , but he could have saved some serious dough if he 'd just hired a consultant to tell him that the plantation was n't at all suitable for growing rubber . The land was n't very fertile , but that was n't the main problem . The real difficulty was that it 's practically impossible to farm rubber in a plantation setting in the Amazon rainforest . To grow the trees on a commercial scale , you 've got to pack them in fairly close together , and at that point they become incredibly susceptible to blight and insect attacks . Fordlandia 's trees were no exception , and caterpillars and blight quickly decimated the fields . Not exactly a worker 's paradise . Obviously , the rubber production part of the Fordlandia got off to a rocky start . How was the `` worker 's paradise '' part of things going , though ? Even more abysmally . The American managers and their families that Ford imported from Michigan were n't accustomed to the sweltering Brazilian heat and headed back north with an alarming frequency . The heavy machinery used on the plantation left deep ruts in the soft soil , which collected stagnant water and became breeding grounds for malaria-ridden mosquitoes . Ford had attempted to design Fordlandia like any American town , complete with schools , restaurants , a golf course , and shops . The catch here , though , was that the indigenous Brazilians who farmed the rubber were n't used to living in a stylized American community . Worse still , the plantation 's workers were expected to work a strict shift from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. , whereas normal harvesting practices in the region saw workers hit the fields before dawn , take a long break , and then head out again at twilight to save themselves the misery of working in the tropical midday heat . Food fights . Ford 's influence extended all the way down to the residents ' diets , and while the indigenous workers were n't crazy about having to eat American foods , they were livid about having to eat in a cafeteria setting rather than enjoying the homestyle meals to which they were accustomed . Eventually , the workers decided they 'd had enough of the affront of cafeteria dining and rioted during a meal . Mental Floss : Three historical food fights . As the American managers fled to the safety of boats , the workers destroyed their mess hall and continued to riot until Brazilian soldiers came in to suppress violence . Another sticking point for the workers was Ford 's insistence that his model community be entirely free of alcohol and tobacco . Although Prohibition was n't exactly an unqualified success at home , and although alcohol was still legal in Brazil , Ford stayed firm on his booze ban . Workers who needed a drink were forced just outside the city limits to buy a bottle of cachaca ; enterprising liquor salesman could simply paddle by on the river and unload their wares . Mental Floss : Why is the drinking age 21 ? End of the road . Eventually , even though Henry Ford steadfastly insisted that the community could thrive and help introduce American-style industrialization to the rest of the world , it became abundantly clear that the noble Fordlandia experiment was a flop . After the perfection of synthetic rubber in 1945 , Ford sold the plantation at a $ 20 million loss and left Brazil . Just how much of a fiasco was the Fordlandia experiment ? Although Ford spent 17 years trying to produce rubber on the plantation , no Ford car ever rolled off the assembly line with a single bit of Fordlandia 's rubber in it . For more mental_floss articles , visit mentalfloss.com . Entire contents of this article copyright , Mental Floss LLC . All rights reserved .
The auto magnate set up a plantation in the Amazon rain forest to produce rubber . He did n't research the land and found out to late it was n't suitable for growing rubber . Brazilian workers rioted against U.S.-style mess hall , ban on alcohol . Ford ultimately sold the plantation at a $ 20 million loss .