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Fred Lee Black
- Wayne State University Press
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Fred Lee Black 1891-1972 "People like Fred Black would call him Edsel, but of course that's Black, you know. He was a man who was an individual type and one with a very genial nature." —A. J. Lepine* Ahighly intelligent extrovert, Fred Black could work well with anyone, but he could accomplish more working with Edsel Ford than working for Henry Ford. He was a showman, and with Edsel he raised Ford Motor Company's public image through subtle advertising to its most elegant plane. Fred Lee Black was born in Battle Creek, Michigan, on January 26, 1891, son of John Black and Mary Yonte Black. His father operated a general store and did some preaching. Fred was the oldest of eleven children. When he was three, the family moved to Kenton, Ohio, where he attended grade school and high school. He could not read well but had a remarkable memory. For a while, he dropped out of high school to work in a silk mill, but he returned to finish high school in 1911. Black entered Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he received a bachelor of arts degree in 1915. Immediately following college, in June 1915, he married Maude Thomas, a college acquaintance from Gunpowder Creek, Kentucky. The marriage took place in nearby Lexington . For a while, the couple lived in a student rooming house in Oxford. Black's first job after marriage was with the Whitaker Paper Company of Cincinnati. He traveled as a salesman for a year before being transferred to Detroit as a salesman and advertising manager. The only child of Fred and Maude Black was Joyce Elizabeth, born in Detroit on April 17, 1916. In Detroit, the Blacks lived at 807 Maybury until 1918, when they were listed as living at 246 Hogarth. While working for Whitaker, Black became well acquainted with Gaylord Pipp, who owned a printing plant on Grand River Avenue. Pipp's father was E. G. Pipp, editor of the Detroit News and a close friend of Henry Ford. Black helped Ford find a $5,000 printing press. *From the oral reminiscences of A. J. Lepine, secretary to Edsel Ford. 37 Henry's Lieutenants This was a circa 1890 press at the Franklin Press, publisher of American Boy. Ford could use this press for printing the Dearborn Independent . Black's first contact with Ford was during the November 1918 Peace Parade, when Ford asked Black, "Say, let's go out and see where we are going to put this press." Black met Ford at the tractor plant in Dearborn, and they measured off some space. Ford's next pronouncement was "We've got to have somebody to run the business end of the thing. How would you like to come out and work on it?" Black was anxious to accept the position, and he wired Whitaker in Cincinnati asking to be released. He became business manager of the Dearborn Independent, an old newspaper Ford had bought from Marcus Woodruff, who was finding in quite unprofitable as a local newspaper anyway. The Independent would be published under the auspices of the Dearborn Publishing Company owned by Henry Ford. The initial Independent staff included E. G. Pipp as editor in chief, with William J. Cameron (also from the News) and Marcus Woodruff as writers. The Independent was inaugurated January 1919, and until June 1919, Black devoted full time to the Dearborn Publishing Company , which also printed the FordNews with Black as an editor. On May 12, 1919, the Chicago Tribune sued Henry Ford for libel, and the trial was held in Mt. Clemens, Michigan. Black was asked to organize a news bureau to cover the trial and present "the straight story" to the press. This office was set up in Mt. Clemens, and the various press associations gladly accepted its releases. Pipp and Cameron were the principal writers. Ford's statement during the trial, "History is bunk," brought extreme ridicule from the Tribune people. Ford was so annoyed by the reaction to his statement that he vowed to prove it. A book titled The Escape and Suicide ofJohn Wilkes Booth, published in 1907 by Finis L. Bates, came to Ford's attention. Ford told Black to find Bates and investigate the validity of his book. The book stated that Booth had escaped and settled in Texas and had become a saloon keeper under the name of John St. Helen. Bates was found and invited to Dearborn to tell his story, whereupon...