FREE ESSAY ON HENRY FORD

HENRY FORD

HENRY FORD
(1863-1947)
American Industrialist
Dennis Keating
English 103
Professor Tague
May 12, 2000
A bore is a fellow who opens his mouth and puts his feats in it.
-Henry Ford
Henry Ford's parents left Ireland during the potato famine and settled in the Detroit
area in the 1840s. Henry Ford, born July 30, 1863, was the first of William and Mary
Ford's six children. He grew up on a prosperous family farm in what is today Dearborn,
Michigan. Henry enjoyed a childhood typical of the rural nineteenth century, spending
days in a one-room school and doing farm chores. At an early age, he showed an interest
in mechanical things and a dislike for farm work. He had an intelligent, inquisitive
nature and was energized by the huge growth of industry occurring in the Detroit area. He
was also an avid experimenter. Once, in order to prove the power of steam, he plugged up
the spout of a teakettle full of boiling water and it blew apart! As he grew up his
father allowed him to tinker with many of the tools on the farm. Ford's mother called him
a born mechanic and provided him with darning needles and corset stays to make into tools
for his watch repair work. 
Probably the most dramatic event in Henry Ford's life happened in 1876 when he was
thirteen years old. While riding with his father in a wagon, they saw a steam engine
traveling along the road under its own power! Ford jumped off the wagon and excitedly
began to question the driver about this remarkable engine. Used for stationary purposes
such as sawing wood, the engine had been mounted on wheels to propel itself. The engineer
explained all about the machine and even let Ford fire the engine and run it. Ford later
said, That showed me that I was by instinct an engineer. The seed was planted that there
could be a self-propelled vehicle and that thought would haunt his imagination for years.

Although he yearned to go to Detroit and work in the machine shops, Ford stayed on the
farm helping the family until he was seventeen. Then, with his father's blessing, he
moved to Detroit and started working at the Michigan Car Company for $1.10 a day. He was
fired shortly thereafter because he angered the older employees by making repairs in a ?
hour instead of the usual five hours. By 1882 Ford had left Detroit and used the family
farm for his address as he traveled around from job to job. In 1885, at a party, he met
Clara Jane Bryant. They married April 11, 1888 and their only child, Edsel, named after
his boyhood friend Edsel Ruddiman, was born November 6, 1893. 
Ford had never given up his dream of a horseless carriage. Whenever he had a spare moment
he read about gas engines and experimented in his own workshop. By 1891 he and Clara had
moved back to Detroit and Ford began working for Detroit Edison Illuminating Company. His
promotion to Chief Engineer in 1893 gave him enough time and money to devote attention to
his personal experiments on internal combustion engines. In 1893, Ford built a gasoline
engine, and within a few years, an automobile, still a novelty item of the rich or
do-it-yourself engineers. These experiments culminated in 1896 with the completion of his
own self-propelled vehicle-the Quadricycle. The Quadricycle had four wire wheels that
looked like heavy bicycle wheels, was steered with a tiller like a boat, and had only two
forward speeds with no reverse. Although Ford was not the first to build a self-propelled
vehicle with a gasoline engine, he was, however, one of several automotive pioneers who
helped this country become a nation of motorists. Ford's Quadricycle was ready for a
try-out in 1896. It frightened the horses and caused many a protest, but it ran. 
It was through working at the Detroit Edison Illuminating Company that Ford met Thomas
Edison. At a convention Ford was introduced to Edison as the young fellow who's made a
gas car. After discussing his ideas with the great inventor, Ford was glad to hear that
Edison thought his ideas had merit. Edison told him, Young man, you have it, a
self-contained unit carrying its own fuel. Keep at it! The meeting with Thomas Edison
gave Henry Ford fresh inspiration and his spirit was renewed by the famous inventor's
words of encouragement. 
By 1899 Ford had produced an operable car that was written up in the Detroit Journal.
Ford was described as a mechanical engineer. Eventually his work developing automobiles
conflicted with his position at the Detroit Edison Illuminating Company. Even though the
company was well pleased with his work and offered him the General Superintendent
position, they asked him to make a choice. Could he give up his hobby of automobile
building and devote himself to the company? Ford made the decision. He wanted to make
automobiles. 
In 1899 Ford left Edison to help run the Detroit Automobile Company. Cars were still
built essentially one at a time. Ford hoped to incorporate ideas from other industries --
standardized parts as Eli Whitney had used with gun manufacturing, or assembly line
methods George Eastman tried in photo processing -- to make the process more efficient.
This idea struck others in his field as nutty, so before long, Ford quite Detroit
Automobile Company and began to build his own racing cars. After two unsuccessful
attempts to establish a company to manufacture automobiles, the Ford Motor Company was
incorporated in 1903 with Henry Ford as vice-president and chief engineer. The infant
company produced only a few cars a day at the Ford factory on Mack Avenue in Detroit.
Groups of two or three men worked on each car from components made to order by other
companies. In the winter of 1906, Ford had secretly partitioned a twelve-by fifteen-foot
room in his plant, on Piquette Avenue in Detroit. With a few colleagues, he devoted two
years to the design and planning of the Model T. Early on, they made an extensive study
of materials, the most valuable aspect of which began in an offhand way. During a car
race in Florida, Ford examined the wreckage of a French car and noticed that many of its
parts were of lighter-than-ordinary steel. The team on Piquette Avenue ascertained that
the French steel was a vanadium alloy, but that no one in America knew how to make it.
The finest steel alloys then used in American automaking provided 60,000 pounds of
tensile strength. Ford learned that vanadium steel, which was much lighter, provided
170,000 pounds of tensile strength. As part of the pre-production for the new model, Ford
imported a metallurgist and bankrolled a steel mill. As a result, the only cars in the
world to utilize vanadium steel in the next five years would be French luxury cars and
the Ford Model T. A Model T might break down every so often, but it would not break. 
The car that finally emerged from Ford's secret design section at the factory would
change America forever. For $825, a Model T customer could take home a car that was
light, at about 1,200 pounds; relatively powerful, with a four-cylinder, twenty
horsepower engine, and fairly easy to drive, with a two-speed, foot-controlled planetary
transmission. Simple, sturdy, and versatile, the little car would excite the public
imagination. It certainly fired up its inventor: when Henry Ford brought the prototype
out of the factory for its first test-drive, he was too excited to drive. An assistant
had to take the wheel. 
Well, I guess we've got started, Ford observed at the time. The car went to the first
customers on October 1, 1908. In its first year, over ten thousand were sold, a new
record for an automobile model. Sales of the Tin Lizzie, or flivver, as the T was known,
were boosted by promotional activities ranging from a black-tie Ford Clinic in New York,
where a team of mechanics showcased the car, to Model T rodeos out west, in which cowboys
riding in Fords tried to rope calves. In 1909, mining magnate Robert Guggenheim sponsored
an auto race from New York to Seattle in which the only survivors were two Model T Fords.
I believe Mr. Ford has the solution of the popular automobile, Guggenheim concluded. 
In the early years, Model Ts were produced at Piquette Avenue in much the same way that
all other cars were built. Growing demand for the new Ford overwhelmed the old method,
though. Ford realized that he not only had to build a new factory, but a new system
within that factory. 
Ford still met resistance to his ideas for mass production of a car the average worker
could afford. Ford gradually adapted the production line until in 1913, his plant
incorporated the first moving assembly line. In 1913 Ford began using standardized
interchangeable parts and assembly-line techniques in his plant. Although Ford neither
originated nor was the first to employ such practices, he was chiefly responsible for
their general adoption and for the consequent great expansion of American industry and
the raising of the American standard of living. By early 1914 this innovation, although
greatly increasing productivity, had resulted in a monthly labor turnover of 40 to 60
percent in his factory, largely because of the unpleasant monotony of assembly-line work
and repeated increases in the production quotas assigned to workers. Ford met this
difficulty by doubling the daily wage then standard in the industry, raising it from
about $2.50 to $5. The net result was increased stability in his labor force and a
substantial reduction in operating costs. These factors, coupled with the enormous
increase in output made possible by new technological methods, led to an increase in
company profits from $30 million in 1914 to $60 million in 1916. By 1918, half of all
cars in America were Model Ts. To meet the growing demand for the Model T, the company
opened a large factory at Highland Park, Michigan, in 1910. 
The central role that the Model T had come to play in America's cultural, social and
economic life elevated Henry Ford into a full-fledged folk hero. But Ford wasn't
satisfied. Fancying himself a political pundit and all-around sage, he allowed himself to
be drawn into national and even world affairs. Before the United States entered World War
I, he despaired with many others over the horrors of the fighting; late in 1915, he
chartered a Peace Ship and sailed with a private delegation of radicals for France in a
native attempt to end the war. In 1918, he lost a campaign for a U.S. Senate seat. The
following year, he purchased a newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, which was to become
the vehicle for his notorious anti-Semitism. The newspaper railed against the
International Jew, and reported scurrilous conspiracy theories such as The Protocols of
the Elders of Zion. 
In 1915, James Couzens resigned from the Ford Motor Company, recognizing that it Henry's
company, and that no one else's opinion would ever matter as much. In 1916, Ford
antagonized the other shareholders by declaring a paltry dividend, even in the face of
record profits. In response, the shareholders sued, and in 1919 the Michigan Supreme
Court upheld a lower court ruling that it was unreasonable to withhold fair dividends
under the circumstances. The Ford Motor Company was forced to distribute $19 million in
dividend payments. In his own response to the escalating feud, Henry threatened publicly
to leave the company and form a new one. He even made plans and discussed the next car he
would produce. 
Fearing that the worth of Ford stock would plummet, the minority shareholders suddenly
became eager to sell; agents working surreptitiously for Henry Ford quietly bought up lot
after lot of shares. The sellers did not receive all that the shares were worth, because
of the rumors, but they each emerged with a fortune. James Couzens, the most wily of the
lot, received the highest price per share, and turned to a career in the U.S. Senate (he
won his race, unlike the old boss) with $30 million in the bank. Ford gained complete
control of the company at a cost of $125 million -- $106 million of the stock, plus $19
million for the court-ordered dividend -- a fantastic outlay that he financed with a $75
million loan from two eastern banks. On July 11, 1919, when he signed the last stock
transfer agreement, the fifty-five-year-old mogul was so enthused that he danced a jig.
The stock was divided up and placed in the names of Henry, Clara, and Edsel Ford. 
In 1921, the Model T Ford held 60 percent of the new-car market. Plants around the world
turned out flivvers as though they were subway tokens, and Henry Ford's only problem, as
he often stated it, was figuring out how to make enough of them. As a concession to
diversification, he purchased the Lincoln Motor Car Company in 1921. Company plans seemed
to be in place for a long, predictable future and Ford was free to embark on a great new
project: the design and construction of the world's largest and most efficient automobile
factory at River Rouge, near Detroit. Arrayed over 2,000 acres, it would include 90 miles
of railroad track and enough space for 75,000 employees to produce finished cars from raw
material in the span of just forty-one hours. River Rouge had its own power plant, iron
forges, and fabricating facilities. No detail was overlooked: wastepaper would be
recycled into cardboard at the factory's own paper mill. River Rouge was built to produce
Model T Fords for decades to come, by the time it was capable of full production later in
the decade, a factory a tenth its size could have handled the demand for Model Ts. 
On June 4, 1924, the ten millionth Model T Ford left the Highland Park factory, which
would remain the main facility for T production. While the flivver outsold its nearest
competitor by a six-to-one margin that year, its unbridled run was nearing an unforeseen
conclusion. After years of conceding the low end of the market to Ford, another automaker
was setting its sights on that very sector. 
At the beginning of the decade, General Motors was an awkward conglomerate of car
companies and parts suppliers, managed more for the sake of its whipsaw stock-price than
for efficiencies in automaking. In the middle of the decade, though, a revitalized GM,
under the brilliant leadership of Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., began to offer inexpensive
Chevrolets with amenities that the Model T lacked. Instead of the sturdy but antiquated
planetary transmission, it had a smooth three-speed. The market began to shift; price and
value ceased to be paramount factors. Styling and excitement suddenly counted to the
customer. Even though the Model T cost a mere $290 in the mid-twenties, dealers clamored
for a new Ford that would strike the fancy of the more demanding and sophisticated
consumers. But Henry Ford refused even to consider replacing his beloved Model T. Once,
while he was away on vacation, employees built an updated Model T and surprised him with
it on his return. Ford responded by kicking in the windshield and stomping on the roof.
We got the message, one of the employees said later, As far as he was concerned, the
Model T was god and we were to put away false images. Only one person persisted in
warning him of the impending crisis: his son, Edsel, who had been installed as president
of the Ford Motor Company during the dividend trial and its aftermath in 1919. It was the
first of many arguments that Edsel would lose, as the once adoring relationship between
the two deteriorated into distrust and disrespect on Henry's part and woeful
disillusionment on Edsel's. 
The Chevrolet continued to take sales from the dour Model T. By 1926, T sales had
plummeted, and the realities of the marketplace finally convinced Henry Ford that the end
was at hand. On May 25, 1927, Ford abruptly announced the end of production for the Model
T, and soon after closed the Highland Park factory for six months. The shutdown was not
for retooling: there was no new model in the works. In history's worst case of product
planning, Henry sent the workers home so that he could start to design his next model.
Fortunately, Edsel had been quietly marshaling sketches from the company's designers, and
he was ready and able to work with his father on producing plans for the new car, called
the Model A. It was a success from its launch in December 1927, and placed the company on
sound footing again. By the time it went into production, the River Rouge had become the
main Ford manufacturing facility. 
When the last Model T rolled off the assembly line, it was not the end of an era; it was
still the very dawn of the one that the little car had inaugurated. Cars -- more than
half of them Model Ts -- pervaded American culture. They jammed the streets of the great
eastern cities and roamed newly laid roads in southern California. Adapted to haul
everything from mail to machine-guns to coffins to schoolchildren, automobiles
represented an opportunity for change in practically everything. They also became a
crucial factor in recasting a growing economy. Henry Ford had created a car for the
multitudes and that car had created the basis of the car culture embraced by every
subsequent generation. 
The Ford Motor Company, having survived its own crisis in the twenties, was one of only
forty-four U.S. automakers left in 1929, out of the hundreds that had entered the fray
since the beginning of the century. That year, Ford, General Motors, and the newly formed
Chrysler Corporation -- known then and now as the Big Three -- accounted for 80 percent
of the market. 
He continued to innovate, but competitors (growing more powerful though fewer in number)
began to cut into Ford's market share. Within the ensuing few years, however, Ford's
preeminence as the largest producer and seller of automobiles in the nation was gradually
lost to his competitors, largely because he was slow to adopt the practice of introducing
a new model of automobile each year, which had become standard in the industry. During
the 1930s Ford adopted the policy of the yearly changeover, but his company was unable to
regain the position it had formerly held.
In the period from 1937 to 1941, the Ford Company became the only major manufacturer of
automobiles in the Detroit area that had not recognized any labor union as the collective
bargaining representative of employees. At hearings before the National Labor Relations
Board Ford was found guilty of repeated violations of the National Labor Relations Act.
The findings against him were upheld on appeal to the federal courts. Ford was
constrained to negotiate a standard labor contract after a successful strike by the
workers at his main plant at River Rouge, Michigan, in April 1941. Early in 1941 Ford was
granted government contracts whereby he was, at first, to manufacture parts for bombers
and, later, the entire airplane. He thereupon launched the construction of a huge plant
at Willow Run, Michigan, where production was begun in May 1942. Despite certain
technical difficulties, by the end of World War II (1945) this plant had manufactured
more than 8000 planes.
Advancing age obliged Ford to retire from the active direction of his gigantic
enterprises in 1945. He died on April 7, 1947, in Dearborn. Ford left a personal fortune
estimated at $500 to $700 million, bequeathing the largest share of his holdings in the
Ford Motor Company to the Ford Foundation, a nonprofit organization. Editorial tributes
were favorable to Henry Ford. He was praised as a patriot, philanthropist, philosopher,
reformer, economist, and teacher and depicted as a symbol of individualism and productive
genius. Today Ford's genius can be seen at the historic sites dedicated to him: Edison
and Ford Winter Estates, Fort Myers, Florida; Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village
and the Henry Ford Estate-Fair Lane, in Dearborn, Michigan.
Ford and his family spent a good deal of time and money on charitable work. They set up
an historical museum in Greenfield Village, Michigan, and most notably set up the Ford
Foundation. The Ford Foundation is a resource for innovative people and institutions
worldwide. Their goals are to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice,
promote international cooperation and advance human achievement 
This has been their purpose for almost half a century. The Ford Foundation feels that
there is a real fundamental challenge facing every society today: to create political,
economic and social systems that promote peace, human welfare and the sustainability of
the environment on which life depends. They believe that the best way to meet this
challenge is to encourage initiatives by those living and working closest to where
problems are located; to promote collaboration among the nonprofit, government and
business sectors, and to assure participation by men and women from diverse communities
and at all levels of society. In their experience, such activities help build common
understanding, enhance excellence, enable people to improve their lives and reinforce
their commitment to society. 
The Ford Foundation is one source of support for these activities. They work mainly by
making grants or loans that build knowledge and strengthen organizations and networks.
Since their financial resources are modest in comparison to societal needs, they focus on
a limited number of problem areas and program strategies within our broad goals. 
Founded in 1936, the Foundation operated as a local philanthropy in the state of Michigan
until 1950, when it expanded to become a national and international foundation. Since
inception it has been an independent, nonprofit, nongovernmental organization. It has
provided more than $9.3 billion in grants and loans. These funds derive from an
investment portfolio that began with gifts and bequests of Ford Motor Company stock by
Henry and Edsel Ford. The Foundation no longer owns Ford Motor Company stock and its
diversified portfolio is managed to provide a perpetual source of support for the
Foundation's programs and operations. 
The Trustees of the Foundation set policy and delegate authority to the president and
senior staff for the Foundation's grants making and operations. Program officers in New
York, and in offices in Africa and the Middle East, Asia, Latin America and Russia,
explore opportunities to pursue the Foundation's goals, formulate strategies and
recommend proposals for funding. 
CHRONOLOGY OF THE LIFE OF HENRY FORD
1863 Born July 30 in Greenfield Township, Michigan.
1879 Leaves family farm for Detroit to work in machine shops. 
1888 Marries Clara Bryant of Greenfield Township and moves to 80-acre farm in what is
today Dearborn. 
1891 Secures position as engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company; returns to
Detroit. 1893 Edsel Bryant Ford, only child of Henry and Clara Ford, born. 
1896 Completes his first automobile, the Quadricycle, and drives it through the streets
of Detroit. 1899 Ends eight years of employment with the Edison Illuminating Company to
devote full attention to the many manufacture of automobiles. Made chief engineer and
partner in the newly formed Detroit Automobile Company which produced only a few cars. 
1901 Henry Ford Company organized with Ford as engineer. Ford resigns over dispute with
bankers in 1902 and the company becomes the Cadillac Motor Car Co. 
1903 Ford Motor Company is officially incorporated. Ford's first Model A appears on the
market in Detroit. 
1908 Ford begins manufacturing the famous Model T. 
1910 Begins operations at factory in Highland Park, Michigan. 
1913 Introduces first moving automobile assembly line at Highland Park. 
1914 Announces his plan to share the Ford Motor Company's profits with workers, paying
them $5.00 for an eight hour day. 
1915 The Oscar II, Ford's Peace Ship, sets sail for Norway on a pacifist expedition to
end World War I. 
1917 Begins construction of industrial facility on the Rouge River in Dearborn, Michigan.

1918 Loses his bid for the U.S. Senate. 
1919 Edsel B . Ford, son of Henry Ford, is named president of Ford Motor Company 
1921 Ford Motor Company dominates auto production with 55 percent of industry's total
output. 1926 Focuses on air transportation and develops the Tri-Motor airplane. 
1927 Transfers final assembly line from Highland Park plant to the Rouge. Production of
the Model T ends, and the Model A is introduced. 
1929 Dedicates his Edison Institute of Technology and Greenfield Village with a
celebration of 50 years of the electric light. 
1932 Builds first V-8 Ford car. 
1933 Successfully resists first efforts to unionize workers at Ford plants. 
1937 Battle of the Overpass occurs between Ford security staff and United Auto Workers
union organizers. As a result, the court orders Ford not to interfere with union
activity. 
1941 Ford Motor Company signs a contract with UAW. 
1943 Edsel B. Ford dies at age 49. 
1947 Henry Ford dies at age 83, at Fair Lane, his Dearborn home.
Bibliography
Bibliography
1) Collier, Peter and David Horowitz. The Fords. New York: Summit Books, 1987. 
2) Head, Jeanine and Wllliam S . Pretzer. Henry Ford: A Pictorial Biography. Dearborn: 
3) Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Vlllage, 1990. 
4) Lacey, Robert. Ford: The Men and the Machine. New York: Ballantine Books, 1986.
5) Lewis, David. The Public lmage of Henry Ford: An American Folk Hero and His Company.
Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1976. 
6) Nevins, Allen. Ford: the Times, the Man, the Company. New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1954. 
7) Nevins, Allen and Frank Ernest Hill. Ford: Expansion and Challenge 1915-1932. New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1957. 
8) Nevins, Allen and Frank Ernest Hill. Ford: Decline and Rebirth 1933-1962. New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1963. 
Bibliography
1) Collier, Peter and David Horowitz. The Fords. New York: Summit Books, 1987. 
2) Head, Jeanine and Wllliam S . Pretzer. Henry Ford: A Pictorial Biography. Dearborn: 
3) Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Vlllage, 1990. 
4) Lacey, Robert. Ford: The Men and the Machine. New York: Ballantine Books, 1986.
5) Lewis, David. The Public lmage of Henry Ford: An American Folk Hero and His Company.
Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1976. 
6) Nevins, Allen. Ford: the Times, the Man, the Company. New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1954. 
7) Nevins, Allen and Frank Ernest Hill. Ford: Expansion and Challenge 1915-1932. New
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1957. 
8) Nevins, Allen and Frank Ernest Hill. Ford: Decline and Rebirth 1933-1962. New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1963.