Robert Boyer was a favorite of Henry Ford from a young age and was brought into the Henry Ford Trade School for training. After graduating the trade school, he was put in charge of Ford’s chemical plant in Greenfield Village experimenting with industrial uses for vegetables, most notably soybeans. Boyer left Ford in 1943 and worked for a variety of companies, eventually gaining many patents in soybean use and working on a contract basis through the 1970s. Boyer’s oral history details his work and experiments with soybeans and other vegetables. He attended Henry Ford Trade School and when he graduated, was hired by Henry Ford in 1928 to head his new Chemical Plant. Boyer talks about having no formal training in chemistry but learning on the job, also his relationship with Henry Ford, and the variety of projects Ford would come up with. During his 15 years at Ford Motor Company, he expanded the soybean program greatly and incorporated soy-based plastics into a number of vehicle components. In 1940, he worked with Lowell Overly and Henry Ford to design a plastic car made from various plant-based fibers. Boyer left Ford in 1943 when the soybean experiments were winding down and joined Drackett Company where he worked on expanding their soybean fiber and protein plants and established a high impact plastics plant. He discusses gaining a patent for edible soy fiber and working on a contract basis for a number of firms including, Swift, Unilever, General Mills, Nabisco, and Purina. He retired in 1971 but continued to do some consulting work after that.

Collection contains 8 cassettes, 3 WAV files, 4 MP3 files, 1 diskette, 2 loose transcripts, 1 bound transcript, and 1 PDF transcript. Uploaded July 19, 2021 and December 4, 2024.