Benson Ford Research Center

Resources (10)

• Accession 199

  37 boxes contain correspondence, orders, billings, requisitions, and invoices for the Amtorg Trading Corporation. Most of the items appear to be for the late 1920s and early 1930s. An inventory of contents is at the Ford Archive.

• Accession 49

  Box 1 contains a folder of Amtorg Trading Corporation correspondence with Ford, 1919–43. It also has a contract, 14 March 1919, between Ford Motor Company and Ivan Stacheeff & Company. Box 1A holds the important Report of the Ford Delegation to Russia and the USSR, April-August 1926, typescript, 266 pp., with contemporary snapshots and "informed commentary." A preliminary draft inventory of contents is available.

• Accession 531

  Similar to the preceding, this one box contains summary data, weekly reports, correspondence, and agreements, 1929–35, relating to the Amtorg Trading Corporation. There is a Ford Archives inventory (preliminary draft).

• Accession 550

  Photographs of the Russian/Ford trip of 1926.

• Accession 632

  Amtorg Trading Corporation, 2 boxes—finance, 1931–32 (billings, charges, ledger). Preliminary draft inventory.

• Accession 662

  A general report on a December 1955 trip to the USSR by 3 American industrial engineers (Ford, Westinghouse, and Bendix). Part of a limited exchange of engineering personnel.

• Accession 771

  Russia/Ford Tire Plant Equipment. G. Spicer's inventory of equipment sent to Russia by Ford in response to a U.S. government request to donate to the USSR the Ford Tire Plant and all equipment. The arrangements were part of lend-lease.

• Accession 818

  Letters, memoranda, and other papers, 1 box, pertaining to a Russian delegation to the U.S. to study Ford production records, 1929–30.

• Accession 848

  Perhaps the most unusual item: an original typescript in Russian (including snapshots and photostats of supporting documents) of the N. S. Sokolov investigation into the murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his family at Ekaterinburg in 1918. It is, however, possible that this may be a partial copy only.

• Oral History Program

  The Ford Archives has an extensive collection of oral history interviews, perhaps amounting to several hundred at present. They are available in typed transcripts. Among the interviews, with Ford relatives, employees, and associates, are at least 2 of relevance to Russia. The first is with Bredo Berghoff, one of the Ford Motor Company delegates to the USSR in 1926. The other is with Frank Bennett, a Ford engineer/ adviser to Russian industry in the early 1930s.