In the 1920s, Henry Ford had a problem. His cars needed rubber — for tyres, hoses, gaskets — and the world's rubber supply was controlled largely by British and Dutch plantations in Asia.

His solution was characteristically enormous. In 1928, the Ford Motor Company acquired a vast area of land along the Tapajós River in the Brazilian Amazon. Ford would grow his own rubber. And he would build a town to do it.

He called it Fordlândia.

A Midwest town in the rainforest

Ford didn't just plan a plantation. He planned a civilisation. Ships brought in materials to build a hospital, a power plant, a water tower, a sawmill, and rows of American-style houses. There was a golf course, a swimming pool and a dance hall.

And there were rules. Alcohol was banned. Workers were expected to eat American-style food — brown rice, whole-wheat bread, canned peaches, oatmeal — and to keep the hours of an American factory, working through the heat of midday. There were organised activities including poetry readings and square dancing.

The rainforest fights back

Things went wrong almost immediately.

Many of the managers knew little about tropical agriculture. Rubber trees, which grow scattered among other species in the wild, were planted close together in neat rows — perfect conditions for disease and pests to spread. South American leaf blight and insects ravaged the plantations.

Workers resented the rules, the food and the conditions. In 1930, a riot broke out in the cafeteria, and workers wrecked parts of the town.