SOURCE: "Tin Lizzie," in America is West: An Anthology of Middle-western Life and Literature, edited by John T. Flanagan, The University of Minnesota Press, March 15, 1945, pp. 587-94.

Dos Passos was one of the most important American novelists of the twentieth century. His most highly regarded works—including Three Soldiers (1921), Manhattan Transfer (1925), and the three volumes of his U.S.A. trilogy: The 42nd Parallel (7950), 1919 (1932), and The Big Money (1936)—reflect a Modernist literary sensibility and a passion for liberal social and political ideals. After feeling personally betrayed by the actions of communists around the world in the 1930s, Dos Passos became increasingly reactionary in his politics, and his later writings are bitterly satirical of American liberalism. In the following essay, a "thumbnail" biographical sketch of Ford taken from the novel The Big Money, he presents a poetic and generally positive portrait of the industrialist.

"Mr. Ford the automobileer," the...