The Henry Ford Blog

Every month, we feature a video from Film Source, The Henry Ford’s online collection of historic motion picture films shorts. The films were originally produced by Henry Ford’s motion picture department at Ford Motor Company, which began in 1914. These clips illustrate the impact of the automobile, industrial manufacturing and design, and many other aspects of American culture and everyday life, as well as glimpses of Henry Ford and his family and activities and scenes from Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum. Staff at the Benson Ford Research Center continue to digitize, catalog, and upload more of these clips to our online catalog and to YouTube in order to make them accessible to a wider audience.

Clara Bryant Ford is famously known as “The Believer” for her devotion to her husband, Henry Ford. In fact, it was Henry who gave her this nickname. Throughout their fifty-nine years of marriage, she was Henry’s supporter, confidante, and advisor. The name was bestowed during their early years together, when Clara ran their household on a shoestring budget and endured frequent moves, while Henry tinkered and toiled perfecting his vehicles and pouring their money into attempts to establish a profitable business.

Backing up just a bit, here are a few lines of romantic verse that Henry penned to Clara on the Valentine’s Day before their engagement in 1886:

May Floweretts of love around you bee twined.
And the Sunshine
of peace Shed its joys o’e your Minde
From one tht Dearly loves you

(As quoted in Ford Bryan’s Clara: Mrs. Henry Ford, p. 27. The original letter is preserved in Henry and Clara Ford’s personal papers housed at the Benson Ford Research Center.)

After Ford Motor Company became a success, they lived more comfortably, finally putting down roots in their estate, Fair Lane, that they had built along the Rouge River in Dearborn.

Clara always enjoyed gardening, especially flowers. At Fair Lane, she installed a five-acre rose garden. Here, she and Henry are strolling together on their grounds near the riverbank.

The two were also fond of old-fashioned dancing, having gone to many dances together during their courting days. Later on, they held frequent ballroom dances around Dearborn. Here, Henry and Clara can be seen kicking up their heels in the barn at Henry Ford’s birthplace.

Two excellent sources for learning more about Clara Ford and Henry and Clara’s life together are the book Clara: Mrs. Henry Ford by Ford R. Bryan (Dearborn: Ford Books, 2001) and sections of the book The People’s Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century by Steven Watts (New York: Vintage Books, 2006)