Assembling Religion: The Ford Motor Company and the Transformation of Religion in America

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Kati Curts

Assembling Religion

The Ford Motor Company and the Transformation of Religion in America

Kati Curts

$87.99

Hardback

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English

New York University Press
27 May 2025

History of religion; Christianity; Protestantism & Protestant Churches; Religious groups: social & cultural aspects

How Henry Ford institutionalized a social gospel

Henry Ford did not just mass produce cars. As a member of the Episcopal Church, reader of New Thought texts, believer in the “gospel of reincarnation,” mass marketer of antisemitic material, and employer who institutionalized a social gospel, Henry Ford’s contributions to American models of business were informed by and produced for an America he understood to be broadly Christian. Though Ford’s efforts at the head of the Ford Motor Company have commonly been understood as secular, Ford himself was explicit that his work in engineering and auto production was prophetic and meant to remake the world.

This religious history of Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company repositions them within critical studies of religion, examining how Ford transformed American religious practice in the twentieth century. Drawing directly on documents from Ford’s archive, it examines Ford’s mass production methods and bureaucratic reforms as examples of prosperity gospel traditions, illuminating the ways manufacturing and technology intersect with American religious practice. Bridging American religious and industrial history, Assembling Religion offers a new and surprising way to understand Ford’s impact on culture, commerce, and the technology of labor.

By: Kati Curts
Imprint: New York University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9781479831586
ISBN 10: 1479831581
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 27 May 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Kati Curts is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Sewanee: The University of the South.

Reviews for Assembling Religion: The Ford Motor Company and the Transformation of Religion in America

Tells a powerful story about an iconic brand and cultural agent that transformed life in and far beyond the United States. The religious feature of this story is eye-opening, and rigorously researched. . . . Will quickly earn an important place in the literature on American history, religion, technology, and business. -- David Morgan, author of The Thing about Religion: An Introduction to the Material Study of Religions