FULL OF BEANS STEM-story with Mr. Ewing

Audio Transcript Auto-generated

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  story. Mr You.

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  Today's guest, Dr Elektra J.

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  We're gonna read a story called Full Beans.

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  Henry Ford grows a car.

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  No, I love reading stories about innovative thinking.

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  Henry Ford was probably one of the world's greatest innovative

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  thinkers. When I first looked at this cover of this

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  book, I thought and report grows a car.

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  How tarnation can you grow car?

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  Well, I guess we're just gonna have to read and

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  find out now whenever I get a book, the first

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  thing I like to do Let's read the inside jacket

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  because it always gives us some information about what we're

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  about to read.

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  Full of beans had re board, grows a car.

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  Henry Ford made cars, but this story isn't about his

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  gars. It's about one car and a lot of soybeans

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  with a mind for invention.

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  Ford was always looking to improve lives for others After

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  the Great Depression struck.

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  Ford especially wanted to support ailing farmers since he was

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  a farm boy heart.

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  After two years of research, Ford and his team discovered

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  that soybean was the perfect answer to the farmer's problems.

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  Soybeans could be used to make paint last dig fabric

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  in food soon Ford was incorporating soybeans into every part

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  of his life.

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  He ate beans.

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  He wore beings.

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  We wanted Dr Boots.

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  So Ford created his most innovative car yet, one that

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  was full of beans full of beings Had re Ford

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  Grows a car by Baggy Thomas, illustrated by Edwin Father

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  Ham. Henry Ford made cars millions of cars.

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  But this story isn't about cars.

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  Well, maybe just one.

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  It's about one car and a lot of beans.

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  Every head of mine for machines.

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  It was driven to improve the world around him when

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  he was young, his mother said, do something useful and

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  encouraged him to make life for others a little smoother,

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  a little easier, a little happier sometimes He was successful.

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  He built a smoother ride in his affordable model t

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  sort of.

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  He sped up factories with moving assembly line and made

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  the workers happy with a $5 a day wage.

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  Sometimes he was not.

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  When you experimented would shrink proof wool.

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  All they got was a drawer full of tiny socks.

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  But one concern needled him his whole life.

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  Farming farming was hard work.

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  No one knew that better than Henry growing up on

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  a Michigan firm.

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  He dreaded the long hours behind a horse and plow.

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  From the time I left the front gate as a

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  boy, my only interest in a farm has been enlightened.

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  It's labors.

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  If I could do that, I shall have rendered a

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  real service to humanity.

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  As a teenager, he hammered together a crew tractor, but

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  it couldn't all hazy.

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  As ex successful car manufacturer Henry still experimented with building

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  tractors from leftover car parts.

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  One of these tractor the forts and sold for more

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  than 50 years.

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  But heavy hauling and long hours plowing was only part

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  of the problem farmers face.

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  In 1929 the entire country suffered in the Great Depression.

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  The stock market crashed.

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  Businesses failed.

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  People couldn't find jobs.

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  Some farmers lost their land.

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  Others left crops, riding it, rotting in the field.

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  Because I couldn't afford the harvest, Henry remember his mother's

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  words do something useful.

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  What? Farmers had a new market for their produce.

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  They could earn more money and their crops wouldn't go

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  to waste.

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  Henry absolutely hated waits.

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  Industry owes it to society.

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  To conserve materials in every possible way.

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  Henry recycled everything.

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  The Ford factory in Dearborn, Michigan, reused rags boxes and

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  even saw us everyday garbage.

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  Garbage trucks dumped seven tons of trash at the factory

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  where it was processed, turned into useful products.

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  Fuel for cars, materials to pave roads, fertilizer for plants

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  and charcoal briquettes for grilling hot dogs.

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  What if he used farmers crops the same way?

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  Anything that could be grown for industries Raw materials will

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  bring new revenue to agriculture.

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  But first, Henry had to figure out which vegetables were

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  suitable. On a patch of land that he called Greenfield

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  Village, Henry bought built a laboratory.

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  He hired a team of young men to study the

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  chemicals and every grain, fruit and vegetable.

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  One of these men was Robert Boyer.

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  While ratchets and widgets cranked and spawning Henry's brain, Robert

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  thought about chemicals and Adam's that could be pulled apart

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  and mixed together.

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  Soon, truckloads of vegetables rumbled in a heat outside the

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  lab lab.

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  Carrots, one week, corn stocks, the next turn ups, tomatoes

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  and wheat.

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  Robert Ground World boiled and swirled.

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  Henry rocked or did chin ups on a bean.

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  This was his way of thinking.

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  After two years, they discovered the perfect crop for the

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  factory, the soybean people in China had grown and eaten

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  soybean for centuries.

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  But in the United States, the soybean was coffee toe

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  Henry. It was a wonder crop.

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  Soybeans were easy to grow, enriched the soil, and we're

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  bursting with oil and protein.

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  Henry. Imagine farmers all across the country growing soybean for

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  food and fur industry.

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  But exactly what could they make from the oil and

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  proteins of the little lagoon?

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  To work that out, Henry needed lots and lots of

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  soybeans. In the spring of 1932 a fleet of four

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  tractors planted 300 different kinds of soybeans across 8000 acres.

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  Some of the city of Dearborn sat in a sea

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  of soybeans.

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  In the fall, Robert Grown World boiled and stirred.

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  Henry continued to think mixing soybean oil with coloring and

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  other ingredients created a paint that was glossy, less expensive

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  and dried toe a harder finish than all other coatings

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  did. From a hospital bed where he was recovering from

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  surgery, Henry announced that every Ford car would wear soy

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  being paid.

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  That came to as a surprise that Robert, who had

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  to hurry to perfect the paint for production next Henry's

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  team mixed soy protein with a chemical resin to make

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  a hard plastic.

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  Soon Carl's role.

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  Cars rolled off the assembly line, gleaming with soybean plastic

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  horn buttons, gearshift knobs, light switches and distributor caps.

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  The more cars Henry built, the more soybeans he needed.

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  He kept a network of 700 Michigan farmers busy growing

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  more than 22,000 acres of soybeans.

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  Some people thought Henry was full of beans and he

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  waas. He ate beans.

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  One of his favorite snacks was the Model T, a

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  soybean cracked ER cut from the dough.

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  Using a riel model T of Cap, Henry sold soybean

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  flour to factory workers and serve soy ice cream in

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  the lunch room.

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  He wore beans.

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  Robert spun soy protein into thread woven into a fabric.

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  It was nearly a strongest wall.

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  Henry's tailor stitched him a soy bean soup, and the

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  men from the lab gave him a soybean silk tie,

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  and Henry wanted to drive By's.

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  Every Ford car already contained a bushel of soybeans from

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  the gearshift knob to the paint.

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  But Henry wanted the cars even healthier and being here,

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  he imagined an automobile as revolutionary as the model, too.

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  The whole car made out of soybean plastic so lightweight

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  it could use less gas than any other car on

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  the road.

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  Making small plastic parts was easy.

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  Molding giant plastic panels was not.

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  When the first panel popped out of the mole, Henry

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  grabbed an axe, came the blunt and and swung wak

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  wak. He punched a hole clear through to test the

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  strength of the next panel.

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  Henry jumped up and down on it.

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  It was not.

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  If that was still, he said, it would have caved

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  in. Henry attached a plastic trunk, led to his own

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  car with a crowd of people watching.

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  He opened the trump and pulled out his acts.

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  He swung as hard as his wire frame would allow.

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  This time, the acts bounced off the plastic and over

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  his shoulder.

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  It was time to assemble the car.

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  Henry's team fixed the plastic panels onto the tubular steel

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  frame, two fenders in the front, two in the rear

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  of front grill, the engine hood, the doors and a

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  roof, 14 plastic panels and all.

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  No one had seen anything like it.

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  The men of the Ford plant called it a monstrosity,

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  just an old man's hobby.

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  Henry knew it was much more.

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  It wasn't a car.

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  It was the perfect symbol for how farms could fuel

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  factories. Yeah, on August 13th 1941 everybody grab gathered for

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  the Dearborn Day festivities, dressed in a soybean soup, Henry

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  Road to the fairgrounds and his sleek new automobile the

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  color of lack speed, some folks joke.

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  The car was ran on salad dressing rather than gas.

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  Others saw Henry's wrote revolutionary vision.

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  Please hurry, one reporter wrote.

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  Mr four.

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  Hurry, hurry.

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  But four months later, known was talking about Henry Ford's

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  amazing Soybean plastic car.

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  On December 7th, the Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor in

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  America was at war the Henry Ford, the Ford Motor

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  Company, stop making cars and began building bomber planes.

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  The soy being plastic car rolled into storage.

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  Nobody knows for sure, but its steel frame may have

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  been recycled for war efforts.

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  The plastic parts disappeared.

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  It would be one of Henry's last innovations.

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  He died on April 7, 1947.

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  Henry will always be remembered for making cars millions of

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  cars, but on Lee, one proved that Henry was not

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  full of beans today, so a being farmers continue to

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  fuel factories, growing furniture and flooring, dog biscuits and bread,

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  candy Kranz and cars.

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  That's the end of our story.

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  I hope you enjoyed this story about Henry Ford and

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  his innovative thinking.

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  I'm Dr Elektra.

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  You have a great day.