View from K Street: The Edsel Presidency

Do you remember 1957? Probably not, but that’s when Ford introduced the Edsel. The product of a company that thought it had everything right and got everything wrong. The design, production, and marketing costs shook one of the world’s most famous and prosperous companies to its roots. For decades, the Edsel and Ford itself became synonymous with self-created disasters.

There’s something else about the Edsel that jolts the memory. It took place in an America still thriving in a post-war economy with no competitors anywhere and not much occasion for self-reflection. But it was a time before the Civil Rights Act and all those titles—VI, VII, IX—that created a civil society with protections from arbitrary government action, from discrimination at work or school. A time before the Voting Rights Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and the Environmental Protection Act. A time when governments and companies were quite free to segregate Blacks, constrain women, control the polls, and pollute the air and water.