Henry Ford

Early life

Henry Ford, 1888Ford 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.

In 1894, Ford also became a Freemason, joining Palestine Lodge #357 in Detroit
 

Ford Motor Company
At age 40, Ford, with 11 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. Ford was also one of the early backers of the Indianapolis 500.

Ford astonished the world in 1914 by offering a $5 a day wage that more than doubled the rate of most of his workers. The move proved hugely profitable. Instead of constant turnover of employees, the best mechanics in Detroit flocked to Ford, bringing in their human capital and expertise, raising productivity, and lowering training costs. Ford called it 'wage motive.' The company's use of vertical integration also proved successful, as Ford built a gigantic factory that shipped in raw materials and shipped out finished automobiles.


The Model T
The Model T was introduced on October 1, 1908. It had many important innovations--such as the steering wheel on the left, which every other company soon copied. The entire engine and transmission were enclosed; the 4 cylinders were cast in a solid block; the suspension used two semi-elliptic springs. The car was very simple to drive, and--more important--easy and cheap to repair. It was so cheap at $825 in 1908 (the price fell every year) that by the 1920s a majority of American drivers learned to drive on the Model T, leaving fond memories for millions. Ford created a massive publicity machine in Detroit to ensure every newspaper carried stories and ads about the new product. Ford's network of local dealers made the car ubiquitous in virtually every city in North America. As independent dealers the franchises grew rich and publicized not just the Ford but the very concept of automobiling; local motor clubs sprang up to help new drivers and to explore the countryside. Ford was always eager to sell to farmers, who looked on the vehicle as a commercial device to help their business. Sales skyrocketed--several years posted 100+% gains on the previous year. Always on the hunt for more efficiency and lower costs, in 1913 Ford introduced the moving assembly belts into his plants, which enabled an enormous increase in production. Sales passed 250,000 in 1914. Although Henry 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 1916, as the price dropped to $360 for the basic touring car, sales reached 472,000. [5]


Ford Assembly Line, 1913By 1918, half of all cars in America were Model T's. As Ford wrote in his autobiography, "Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black"[6]. Until the development of the assembly line which mandated black because of its quicker drying time, Model Ts were available in other colors including red. The design was fervently promoted and defended by Henry Ford, and production continued as late as 1927; the final total production was exactly 15,000,000. This was a record which stood for the next 45 years.

In 1918 President Woodrow Wilson personally asked Ford to run for the Senate from Michigan as a Democrat. Although the nation was at war Ford ran as a peace candidate and a strong supporter of the proposed League of Nations. Ford lost by 1%. [7]. In December 1918 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 finally convinced Henry to make a new model car. Henry pursued the project with a great deal of technical expertise in design of the engine, chassis, and other mechanical necessities, while leaving the body design to his son. Edsel also managed to prevail over his father's initial objections in the inclusion of a sliding-shift transmission. The result was the successful Ford Model A, introduced in 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. Not until the 1930s did Ford overcome his objection to finance companies, and the Ford-owned Universal Credit Company became a major car financing operation.


Time Magazine, January 14, 1935Henry Ford promoted many technical innovations and became a promoter of aviation. He was granted over 131 patents.

He sponsored the Stout Metal Airplane Company, which developed the Ford Tri-Motor, an early airliner.

 

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