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Nazi Henry Ford Henry Ford, a prominent figure in the automobile industry, was not without his prejudices. His anti-Semitic views reflected the fears and assumptions of many Americans during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Anti-Semitism in America evolved in both expression and virulence with the influx of millions of Jews who emigrated from Europe during Ford's youth in the latter half of the 19th century. The peak of this hateful movement occurred during the mid-1920s, a time of rampant discrimination when the Ku Klux Klan claimed a membership of four million, Prohibition put a clamp on alcohol consumption, and immigration policies favored immigrants from northern and western Europe over other regions of the world. It's impossible to gauge what would have happened if Henry Ford hadn't existed. Would the anti-Semitic brigade have been even more belligerent? We'll never know. The US government knew all too well the extent of anti-Semitism and how much it constrained their options, embodied by Ford himself. It was a pervasive attitude that shackled them, a cruel and confining reality.