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Rivera’s "Detroit Industry"

Posted by Chris Dykes

In times perhaps frighteningly similar to our own, a Mexican communist was commissioned by an industrialist to depict the condition of factory workers in the epitome of factory towns. The resulting murals show connections between management and workers, depict the natural world and what we take from it to make goods, and offer hope in the ability of the American workforce make something and move it on down the production line.

Detroit in 1932 was quite unlike Detroit in 1910. The 1930 census reported 1,720,000 people living in the city, whereas the 1910 census reported only 466,000. The intervening years saw an influx of European immigrants as well as African Americans moving away from the south. The Ford Motor Company’s Rouge industrial complex was where many of these new arrivals went to work. Built to put Henry Ford’s revolutionary concept of interchangeable parts and assembly line production into effect, Rouge was the largest industrial complex in the world.

Henry Ford’s concepts revolutionized production. Half a continent away, another revolution was brewing. Diego Rivera was one of several Mexican artists who were part of the Mexican Communist Party, taking workman’s wages to depict the plight of the working class, in public places for all to see.

Diego Rivera’s Detroit murals came about through very unworkman like channels. Although he considered himself a communist, he certainly knew wealthy people and was opportunistic when patrons decided to sponsor his work. Rivera met William Valentiner, the Director of the Detroit Art Institute, through a connection with a Wimbledon tennis player who had served as one of Rivera’s models. Valentiner suggested that Rivera work on a mural for the atrium of his museum. Rivera submitted drawings which were put on display in the museum, public sentiment toward him was favorable, and the Museum’s board voted to pay him $10,000 to paint murals on two walls.

One of the museum board members was Edsel Ford who was more interested in industrial design than in production efficiencies, as his father had been. It was Edsel Ford who increased Rivera’s fee for the project while also increasing its scope – all four walls of the museum’s atrium would be part of the mural, and the fee would be $20,000.

A contributing factor for the increases was Edsel’s need for positive public relations. Just a few months before Rivera started work, the Rouge plant was the scene of an awful confrontation between labor and workers. On March 7, 1931, several thousand laid-off workers marched on the Rouge plant to persuade management to provide them some sort of compensation while there was no work. Rouge guards fired hundreds of shots into the crowd. Five people died and 20 were wounded. The Detroit Times newspaper, reporting on the 60,000 person funeral march for those that had been killed, called the procession the largest demonstration of a communist nature since a march in Boston in 1927.

When Rivera arrived in Detroit to begin work, he made no mention of the Rouge march.

Edsel Ford and Diego Rivera had several conversations about what the murals should portray. One of their themes was the economic problems of industry, and how industrialists created business entities that took on lives of their own. Henry Ford is quoted as saying:

“It is utterly foolish for Capital or Labor to think of themselves as groups. They are partners…. A great business is really too big to be human. It grows so large as to supplant the personalities of man. In a big business the employer, like the employee, is lost in the mass….The business itself becomes a big thing.”

 Ford’s quotation strikes at one of the discussions going on today – what is more important to protect, the company that the individual works for or the individual that works for the company? Rivera compared this larger-than-human-life aspect of industry to Aztec cosmological beliefs, wherein a mythical god creates life, but demands sacrifice in exchange.

Rivera created the murals in nine months, taking only one day off because his method of applying color meant that panels needed to be completed in rapid succession to insure color matches. Working from sketches he made during visits with workers, and from images made by Ford staff photographer W.J. Stettler, Rivera created a stylized automobile factory on the north and south walls of the atrium, and depicted the earth, raw materials, and a history of technology and industry on the east and west walls.

It’s easy to fault Rivera’s personal life and question his commitment to communism – he was a womanizer, took large commissions for his work, and accepted a Ford sedan for use while in Detroit, although to his credit he refused an upscale Lincoln. But his allegiance to workers appears on the north and south automotive walls.

The north wall depicts the assembly of a Ford V8, which will fit into a 1932 Sedan. The faces of the workers are distinct and multi-racial. Their bodies are disproportionately large in relation to the machines they are working on, emphasizing the importance of the worker over the machine. There are many more workers present in the mural than there are in the photos Stettler took. During the Great Depression, many workers had been laid off, and Ford had to keep the company alive although there was little demand in the marketplace. Rivera paints a happier time.

The south wall depicts the frame and body assembly of the sedan. Workers are the most plentiful humans on this wall, but they are not alone. Several management figures are present, too. In the lower right, Edsel Ford and William Valentiner are portrayed in the same position that wealthy patrons would be placed in Renaissance murals. In a panel on the left side of the wall where workers are grinding on a body panel, a man with a hat and spectacles watches over production. This man is thought to be Mead L. Bricker, a manager notorious for speeding up the assembly line. In general, this is the less utopian of the two automotive walls. The faces are those of management, while the workers are faceless.

Another group of people are portrayed on the south wall. In the center panel, where workers finally drop the body onto the frame, and in the distance a red car pulls off the line, a group of dour, well-fed onlookers watch the workers. They are consumers, and while their desires are being met by the worker’s efforts and the manager’s directions, they seem almost a necessary evil. To anyone who has ever taken a factory tour – either at Morgan where you can watch a third-generation metalsmith bend a bonnet, or at Mercedes where precision machines push along E-classes – this is Rivera’s image of you. You’re just there at the end, and all of the work is done for your benefit.

Another almost human figure is depicted on the south wall. The giant stamping press in the right third of the mural resembles an Aztec Coatlicue – the mystical figure seen in Aztec archeological sites. Coatlicue is the creator of life, but it demands sacrifices to keep life orderly. Rivera effectively combines Aztec cosmology with Henry Ford’s view that a business becomes bigger than the humans that work in it. Rivera acknowledges that some sacrifice must be made by nameless workers. The predella panels in monochrome beneath the large murals often depict faceless workers going about their daily tasks, just to keep the machine running. One of the predella panels, in contrast, clearly portrays Henry Ford teaching an engine class to workers who pose as Rodin’s “The Thinker.” The engine that he is using as his example has legs, and the gearshift appears to be a tail -- his ever-present and faithful companion.

When the murals were opened to the public in 1933, much controversy arose over some religious panels in the east and west walls, as well as fears that the murals would spark a communist uprising from the workforce. But people tended to see what they wanted to see. Workers saw their buddies, oppressive managers, and massive machines. Managers saw production flow, a workforce to manage, and stubborn customers to satisfy.

Reading today’s news of layoffs, potential bankruptcies, and bailouts, Rivera’s murals seem prescient. The machine is too big to stop, and if it does, we see the faces of those who will be effected.

-- Chris Dykes