Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 - April 7, 1947) was the founder of the Ford Motor Company. He was one of the first to apply assembly line manufacturing to the production of affordable automobiles. He not only revolutionized industrial production in the United States and Europe, but also had such influence over the 20th century economy and society that his combination of mass production, high wages and low prices to consumers is called "Fordism." He became one of the two or three most famous and richest men in the world; he left nearly all of his wealth to the Ford Foundation, but arranged for his family to permanently control the company.

Ford was born on a prosperous farm in Springwells Township (now in the city of Dearborn, Michigan) owned by his parents, William Ford (1826-1905) and Mary Litogot (c1839-1876), immigrants from County Cork, Ireland. The Ford family has its origins in western England - the family was evicted from their land in Somerset and 'planted' in Ireland. His siblings include: Margaret Ford (1867-1868); Jane Ford (c1868-1945); William Ford (1871-1917) and Robert Ford (1873-1934).

During the summer of 1873, Henry saw his first self-propelled road machine, a stationary steam engine that could be used for threshing or to power a saw mill. The operator, Fred Reden, had mounted it on wheels connected with a drive chain. Henry was fascinated with the machine and Reden over the next year taught Henry how to fire and operate the engine. Ford later said, it was this experience "that showed me that I was by instinct an engineer."

Henry took this passion about mechanics into his home. His father had given him a pocket watch in his early teens. By fifteen, he had a reputation as a watch repairman, having dismantled and reassembled timepieces of friends and neighbors dozens of times.

His mother died in 1876. It was a blow that devastated poor Henry. His father expected Henry to eventually take over the family farm, but Henry despised farm work. And with his mother dead, little remained to keep him on the farm. He later said, "I never had any particular love for the farm. It was the mother on the farm I loved."

In 1879, he left home for the nearby city of Detroit to work as an apprentice machinist, first with James F. Flower & Bros., and later with the Detroit Dry Dock Co. In 1882, he returned to Dearborn to work on the family farm and became adept at operating the Westinghouse portable steam engine. This led to his being hired by Westinghouse company to service their steam engines.

Upon his marriage to Clara Bryant in 1888, Ford supported himself by farming and running a sawmill. They had a single child: Edsel Bryant Ford (1893-1943).

In 1891, Ford became an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company, and after his promotion to Chief Engineer in 1893, he had enough time and money to devote attention to his personal experiments on gasoline engines. These experiments culminated in 1896 with the completion of his own self-propelled vehicle named the Quadricycle, which he test-drove on June 4 of that year. After various test-drives, Henry Ford brainstormed ways to improve the Quadricycle.

Detroit Automobile Company and The Henry Ford Company

After this initial success, Ford came to Edison Illuminating in 1899 with other investors, and then they formed the Detroit Automobile Company. The Detroit Automobile Company went bankrupt soon afterward because Ford continued to improve the design, instead of selling cars. Ford raced his car against those of other manufacturers to show the superiority of his designs. With his interest in race cars, he formed a second company, the Henry Ford Company. During this period, he personally drove one of his cars to victory in a race against Alexander Winton, a well-known driver and the fat favorite on October 10, 1901. In 1902, Ford continued to work on his race car to the dismay of the investors. They wanted a high-end production model and brought in Henry M. Leland to do it. Ford resigned over this usurpation of his authority. He said later that "I resigned, determined never again to put myself under orders." The company was reorganized as Cadillac.

Ford Motor Company

Henry Ford, with eleven other investors and $28,000 in capital, incorporated the Ford Motor Company in 1903. In a newly-designed car, Ford drove an exhibition in which the car covered the distance of a mile on the ice of Lake St. Clair in 39.4 seconds, which was a new land speed record. Convinced by this success, the famous race driver Barney Oldfield, who named this new Ford model "999" in honor of a racing locomotive of the day, took the car around the country and thereby made the Ford brand known throughout the United States. Henry Ford was also one of the early backers of the Indianapolis 500. Henry Ford shocked his fellow capitalists by more than doubling the daily wage of most of his workers in 1914, eleven years after he established his first automobile factory. He knew what he was doing. The buying power of his workers was increased, and their raised consumption stimulated buying elsewhere. Ford called it 'wage motive.' The company's use of vertical integration and other business tactics also contributed to its success.

The Model T

Racing was, by 1913, no longer necessary from a publicity standpoint because the Model T was already famous and ubiquitous on American roads. It was in this year that Henry Ford introduced the moving assembly belts into his plants, which enabled an enormous increase in production. Although Ford is often credited with the idea, contemporary sources indicate that the concept and its development came from employees Clarence Avery, Peter E. Martin, Charles E. Sorensen, and C.H. Wills. (See Piquette Plant)

By 1918, half of all cars in America were Model Ts. The design, fervently promoted and defended by Henry Ford, would continue through 1927 (well after its popularity had faded), with a final total production of fifteen million vehicles. This was a record which would stand for the next 45 years. Ford is rumored to have said, "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black," though the story may be apocryphal. Until the development of the assembly line which mandated black because of its quicker drying time, Model T's were available in other colors including red.

In December 1918, after losing a race for the Senate, Henry Ford turned the presidency of Ford Motor Company over to his son Edsel Ford. Henry, however, retained final decision authority and sometimes reversed his son. Henry and Edsel purchased all remaining stock from other investors, thus giving the family sole ownership of the company.

By the mid 1920s, sales of the Model T began to decline due to rising competition. Other auto makers offered payment plans through which consumers could buy their cars, which usually included more modern mechanical features and styling not available with the Model T. Despite urgings from Edsel, Henry steadfastly refused to incorporate new features into the Model T or to form a customer credit plan.

The, "Model A," and Ford's Later Career

By 1926, flagging sales of the Model T convinced Henry of what Edsel had been suggesting for some time: a new model was necessary. The elder Ford pursued the project with a great deal of technical expertise in design of the engine, chassis, and other mechanical necessities, while leaving it to his son to develop the body design. Edsel also managed to prevail over his father's initial objections in the inclusion of a sliding-shift transmission. The result was the highly successful Ford Model A, introduced December, 1927 and produced through 1931, with a total output of over four million automobiles. Subsequently, the company adopted an annual model change system similar to that in use by automakers today.

Despite his traditional Midwestern upbringing and being skeptical of new innovations, Henry Ford eventually grew to be an early promoter of aviation. As such, he also heavily sponsored the Stout Metal Airplane Company, which developed the Ford Tri-Motor, an early airliner. During the thirties, Ford also overcame his objection to finance companies, and the Ford-owned Universal Credit Company became a major car financing operation.

Death of Edsel Ford

In May 1943, Edsel Ford died, leaving a vacancy in the company presidency. Henry Ford advocated long-time associate Harry Bennett to take the spot. Edsel's widow Eleanor, who had inherited Edsel's voting stock, wanted her son Henry Ford II to take over the position. The issue was settled for a period when Henry himself, at the age of 79, took over the presidency personally. Henry Ford II was released from the Navy and became an executive vice president, while Harry Bennett had a seat on the board and was responsible for personnel, labor relations, and public relations.

The company saw hard times during the next two years, losing $10 million a month. President Franklin D. Roosevelt considered a federal bailout for Ford Motor Company so that wartime production could continue. By 1945, Henry Ford's senility was quite evident, and his wife and daughter-in-law forced his resignation in favor of his grandson, Henry Ford II.

Ford's labor philosophy

Henry Ford had very specific thoughts on relations with his employees. On January 5, 1914 Ford announced his five-dollar a day program. The program called for a reduction in length of the workday from 9 to 8 hours and a raise in minimum daily pay from $2.34 to $5 for qualifying workers. Ford labeled the increased compensation as profit sharing rather than wages. The wage was offered to men over the age of 22, who had worked at the company for 6 months or more, and, importantly, conducted their lives in a manner of which Ford approved. This included a lack of alcohol consumption, and no gambling. He required workers to appear at a local Daarborn square-dance every Saturday night to make sure that his workers were not getting into, "trouble," every Saturday night...

The company established a Sociological Department complete with 150 investigators and support staff in order to verify this last point. Even with these requirements, a large percentage of workers were able to qualify for the profit sharing.

Conversely, Ford was adamantly against labor unions in his plants. To forestall union activity, he promoted Harry Bennett, a former Navy boxer, to be the head of the Service Department. Bennett employed various intimidation tactics to squash union organizing. The most famous incident, in 1937, was a bloody brawl between company security men and organizers that became known as The Battle of the Overpass.

Ford was the last Detroit automaker to recognize the United Auto Workers union (UAW). A sit-down strike by the UAW union in April 1941 closed the River Rouge Plant. Under pressure from Edsel and his wife, Clara, Henry Ford finally agreed to collective bargaining at Ford plants, and the first contract with the UAW was signed in June 1941.

Peace ship

In 1915, he funded a trip to Europe, where World War I was raging, for himself and about 170 other prominent peace leaders. He talked to President Wilson about the trip but had no government support. His group went to neutral Sweden and the Netherlands to meet with peace activists there. Ford, the target of much ridicule, left the ship as soon as it reached Sweden.

Ford does business with the world

Ford believed that international trade and cooperation led to international peace, and used the assembly line process and production of the Model T to demonstrate it [Watts 236-4. He opened Ford assembly plants in Britain and Canada in 1911, and soon became the biggest automotive producer in those countries. In 1912 Ford cooperated with Agnelli of Fiat to launch the first Italian automotive assembly plants. The first plants in Germany were built in the 1920s with the encouragement of Herbert Hoover and the Commerce department, which agreed with Ford's theory that international trade was essential to world peace [Wilkins]. In the 1920s Ford also opened plants in Australia, India, and France, and by 1929 he had successful dealerships on six continents. Ford experimented with a commercial rubber plantation in the Amazon jungle called Fordlândia; it was one of the few failures. In 1929 Ford accepted Stalin's invitation to build a model plant at Gorky, and he sent American engineers and technicians to help set it up, including future labor leader Walter Reuther.

The technical assistance agreement between Ford Motor Company, VSNH and Amtorg (as purchasing agent) was concluded for nine years and signed on May 31, 1929, by Ford, FMC vice-president Peter E. Martin, V. I. Mezhlauk, and the president of Amtorg, Saul G. Bron. Any nation where the United States had peaceful diplomatic relations, Ford Motor Company worked to conduct business. By 1932, Ford was manufacturing one third of all the world-s automobiles.

Henry Ford's image transfixed Europeans, especially the Germans, arousing the "fear of some, the infatuation of others, and the fascination among all" [Nolan p 3. Germans who discussed "Fordism" often believed that it represented something quintessentially American. They saw the size, tempo, standardization, and philosophy of production demonstrated at the Ford Works as a national service - an "American thing" that represented the culture of United States. Both supporters and critics insisted that Fordism epitomized American capitalist development, and that the auto industry was the key to understanding economic and social relations in the United States. As one German explained, "Automobiles have so completely changed the American's mode of life that today one can hardly imagine being without a car. It is difficult to remember what life was like before Mr. Ford began preaching his doctrine of salvation" [Nolan p 3. For many Germans Henry Ford himself embodied the essence of successful Americanism. A Detroit News columnist interviewed Hitler in 1931 (two years before the Nazis took power in Germany) and asked about the portrait of Ford above his desk; Hitler told her, "I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration."

In 1938 the German consul at Cleveland gave Ford and the senior executive of General Motors the award of the Grand Cross of the German Eagle for building a car for the masses . A picture of Ford receiving the Cross is available here.

Racing

Ford began his career as a racing car driver and maintained his interest. From 1909 to 1913, Ford entered stripped-down Model Ts in races, finishing first (although later disqualified) in an "ocean-to-ocean" (across the United States) race in 1909, and setting a one-mile oval speed record at Detroit Fairgrounds in 1911 with driver Frank Kulick. In 1913, Ford attempted to enter a reworked Model T in the Indianapolis 500, but was told rules required the addition of another 1,000 pounds (450 kg) to the car before it could qualify. Ford dropped out of the race, and soon thereafter dropped out of racing permanently, citing dissatisfaction with the sport's rules and the demands on his time by the now-booming production of the Model Ts.

He was inducted in the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1996.

The Ford Foundation

Henry Ford, with his son Edsel, founded the Ford Foundation in 1936 with a broad charter to promote human welfare. Ford split his stock into a small number of voting shares, which he gave his family, and a large number of nonvoting shares he gave the Foundation. The Foundation grew immensely and, by 1950, had become international in scope. It sold all its shares on the stock market and dropped all connections with the Ford Motor Company and the Ford family.

Death

Ford suffered an initial stroke in 1938, after which he turned over the running of his company to Edsel. Edsel's 1943 death brought Henry Ford out of retirement. In ill health, he ceded the presidency to his grandson Henry Ford II in September 1945, and went into retirement. He died in 1947 of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 83 in Fair Lane, his Dearborn estate, and is buried in the Ford Cemetery in Detroit.

Quotations

Ford was quick with a quip, and hired writers to produce aphorisms attributed to him.

• "History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today."

• "Nothing is particularly hard, as long as you divide it into small jobs."

• "Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young."

• "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black."

• "Most people spend more time and energy in going around problems than in trying to solve them."

• "I don't believe in preparedness. It's like a man carrying a gun. Men and nations who carry guns get into trouble. If I had my way, I'd throw every ounce of gunpowder into the sea and strip the soldiers and sailors of their insignias."

• "It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages."

• "It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."

Sidelights

Henry Ford long had an interest in plastics developed from agricultural products, especially soybeans. He cultivated a working relationship with George Washington Carver for this purpose, building him a laboratory specifically for researching alternative uses for agricultural products. Soybean-based plastics were used in Ford automobiles throughout the 1930s in plastic parts such as car horns, in paint, etc. This project culminated in 1942, when Ford patented an automobile made almost entirely of plastic, attached to a tubular welded frame. It weighed 30% less than a steel car, and was said to be able to withstand blows ten times greater than could steel. Furthermore, it ran on grain alcohol (ethanol) instead of gasoline. The design never caught on. [Lewis 199

Ford was instrumental in developing charcoal briquets, under the brand name "Kingsford". Along with his brother in law, E.G. Kingsford used wood scraps from the Ford factory to make the briquets, adding backyard grilling as a pasttime.

Ford maintained a vacation residence (known as the "Ford Plantation") in Richmond Hill, Georgia. He contributed substantially to the community, building a chapel and schoolhouse and employing a large number of local residents.

Ford had an interest in "Americana". In the 1920s, Ford began work to turn Sudbury, Massachusetts into a themed historical village. He moved the schoolhouse (supposedly) referred to in the nursery rhyme, Mary had a little lamb from Sterling, Massachusetts and purchased the historical Wayside Inn. This plan never saw fruition, but Ford repeated it with the creation of Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. It may have inspired the creation of Old Sturbridge Village as well. About the same time, he began collecting materials for his museum, which had a theme of practical technology. It was opened in 1929 as the Edison Institute and, although greatly modernized, remains open today.

Henry Ford is sometimes credited with the invention of the automobile, generally attributed to Karl Benz, and the assembly line, invented by Ransom E. Olds. Ford's employees did develop the first moving assembly line based on conveyor belts.

Ford was the winner of the award of Car Entrepreneur of the Century in 1999.

d