Boeing, Chrysler, Ford, JP Morgan and P. du Pont, builders of empires

MYCANAL – ON DEMAND – DOCUMENTARY SERIES

The United States never stops celebrating its “manifest destiny”, through its mythical heroes. The day before yesterday, it was Davy Crockett, Buffalo Bill, the cowboys… At the beginning of the XX^and century, they are five. Like the fingers of the hand. An iron fist with which they forged the world’s leading economic power. William Boeing (1881-1956), Walter Chrysler (1875-1940), Henry Ford (1863-1947), John Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), Pierre du Pont (1870-1954). Their names are known to all. Their life less.

Experts, actors, a chiaroscuro scenario worthy of Hollywood… The three-part documentary by Patrick Reams and Phillip Montgomery literally stages the irresistible rise to power of these “titans” – but also their failings and their reverse.

It all started after the Great War. The first episode opens with Pierre du Pont. The company of the same name that he runs, founded in 1802 by his grandfather from a gunpowder factory, is at the height of its power in 1918. The time has come to go beyond the art of war . The car, the plane, finance form the essential triptych, at the beginning of XX^and century. More “glamorous” than chemistry, of which he made DuPont the champion.

To beat Henry Ford and Walter Chrysler, others tycoons emerging, Pierre du Pont will take the direction of General Motors, from 1915 to 1920. In the era of skyscrapers – spectacular manifestation of the hubris of these “titans” -, he will be one of the founders of the Empire State Building , in 1931, determined to steal the altitude record from the magnificent Chrysler Building.

The challenge of the crisis

It was on the eve of the Second World War that the first cracks appeared. The second episode tells of another duel, with a certain Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945).

In 1929, the empire builders find themselves up against the wall – that of Wall Street. The crash of October 24 rushed them more than ever into full light, but with a light they would have done without… Until then, everyone saw themselves higher, further, stronger. Here are now the victors of the Great War facing another challenge, that of the Great Depression. The Democratic president is not their friends or cronies – even if he too will seize the economy, with his New Deal as an instrument of “manifest destiny”.

The Second World War, dealt with in the third episode, will reshuffle the cards. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, “the same president who once vilified the titans must ask them to join forces”. We have in mind the sentence of De Gaulle, June 18, 1940: “France is not alone! (…) She can, like England, make unlimited use of the immense industry of the United States. (…) The fate of the world is here. »