The Ford Barn

In September of 1931, the New York Times asked Henry Ford what he thought life would be like in 2011. His answer was forgotten and mostly lost until recently when a South Carolina Law Firm stumbled upon the script. Henry’s answer was not specific so much as it was emotional and I thought you guys might get a kick out of it.

To make an eighty-year forecast may be an interesting exercise, first of the imagination and then of our sense of humility, but its principal interest will probably be for the people eighty years on, who will measure our estimates against the accomplished fact. No doubt the seeds of 1931 were planted and possibly germinating in 1851, but did anyone forecast the harvest? And likewise the seeds of 2011 are with us now, but who discerns them?

– Henry Ford in 1931