Henry Ford

Born: July 30, 1863
Dearborn, Michigan
Died: April 7, 1947
Dearborn, Michigan
American automobile pioneer and industrialist

After founding the Ford Motor Company, the American industrialist Henry Ford developed a system of mass production based on the assembly line and the conveyor belt which produced low-priced cars that were affordable to middleclass Americans.

Ford's early years

The oldest of six children, Henry Ford was born on July 30, 1863, on a prosperous farm near Dearborn, Michigan. He attended school until the age of fifteen, at which time he developed a dislike of farm life and a fascination for machinery. He had little interest in school and was a poor student. He never learned to spell or to read well. Ford would write using only the simplest of sentences. He instead preferred to work with mechanical objects, particularly watches. He repaired his first watch when he was thirteen years old, and would continue to repair watches for enjoyment throughout his life. Although he did not like working on the farm, he did learn that there was great value in working hard and being responsible.

In 1879 Ford left for Detroit, Michigan, to become an apprentice (a person who works for another to learn a specific skill or trade) at a machine shop. He then moved to the Detroit Drydock Company. During his apprenticeship he received $2.50 a week, but room and board cost $3.50 so he labored nights repairing clocks and watches. He later worked for Westinghouse, locating and repairing road engines.

Ford's father wanted him to be a farmer and offered him forty acres of timberland, provided he give up machinery. Ford accepted the proposal, then built a first-class machinist's workshop on the property. His father was disappointed, but Ford did use the two years on the farm to win a bride, Clara Bryant.

Ford's first car

Ford began to spend more and more time in Detroit working for the Edison Illuminating Company, which later became the Detroit Edison Company. By 1891 he had left the farm permanently. Four years later he became chief engineer. While at the Edison Illuminating Company he met Thomas A. Edison (1847–1931), who eventually became one of his closest friends.

Ford devoted his spare time to building an automobile with an internal combustion engine, a type of engine in which a combination of fuel and air is burned inside of the engine to produce mechanical energy to perform useful work. His first car, finished in 1896, followed the attempts, some successful, of many other innovators. His was a small car driven by a two-cylinder, four-cycle motor and by far the lightest (500 pounds) of the early American vehicles. The car was mounted on bicycle wheels and had no reverse gear.

In 1899 the Detroit Edison Company forced Ford to choose between automobiles and his job. Ford chose cars and that year formed the Detroit Automobile Company, which collapsed after he disagreed with his financial backers. His next venture was the unsuccessful Henry Ford Automobile Company. Ford did gain some status through the building of racing cars, which resulted in the "999," driven by the famous Barney Oldfield (1878–1946).

Ford Motor Company

By this time Ford had conceived the idea of a low-priced car for the masses, but this notion flew in the face of popular thought, which considered cars as only for the rich. After the "999" victories, Alex Y. Malcomson, a Detroit coal dealer, offered to aid Ford in a new company. The result was the Ford Motor Company, founded in 1903, with its small, $28,000 financing supplied mostly by Malcomson. However, exchanges of stock were made to obtain a small plant, motors, and transmissions. Ford's stock was in return for his services. Much of the firm's success can be credited to Ford's assistants—James S. Couzens, C. H. Wills, and John and Horace Dodge.

By 1903 over fifteen hundred firms had attempted to enter the new and struggling automobile industry, but only a few, such as Ransom Eli Olds (1864–1950), had become firmly established. Ford began production of a Model A, which imitated the Oldsmobile, and followed with other models, to the letter S. The public responded, and the company flourished. By 1907 profits exceeded $1,100,000, and the net worth of the company stood at $1,038,822.

Ford also defeated the Selden patent (the legal rights given to a company or person for the sole use, sale, or production of an item for a limited period of time), which had been granted on a "road engine" in 1895. Rather than challenge the patent's legal soundness, manufacturers secured a license to produce engines. When Ford was denied such a license, he fought back; after eight years of legal action, the courts decided the patent was valid but not violated. The case gave the Ford Company valuable publicity, with Ford cast as the underdog, but by the time the issue was settled, the situation had been reversed.

New principles

In 1909 Ford made the important decision to manufacture only one type of car—the Model T, or the "Tin Lizzie." By now he firmly controlled the company, having bought out Malcomson. The Model T was durable, easy to operate, and economical; it sold for $850 and came in one color—black. Within four years Ford was producing over forty thousand cars per year.

During this rapid expansion Ford held firmly to two principles: cutting costs by increasing productivity and paying high wages to his employees. In production methods Ford believed the work should be brought by a conveyor belt to the worker at waist-high level. This assembly-line technique required seven years to perfect. In 1914 he startled the industrial world by raising the minimum wage to five dollars a day, almost double the company's average wage. In addition, the "Tin Lizzie" had dropped in price to $600; it later went down to $360.

World War I

Ford was now an internationally known figure, but his public activities were less successful than his industrial ones. In 1915 his peace ship, the Oskar II, sailed to Europe to seek an end to World War I (1914–18; a war fought between the German-led Central powers and the Allies: England, the United States, Italy, and other nations). His suit against the Chicago Tribune for calling him an anarchist (a person who desires to change the existing government) received unfortunate publicity. In 1918 his race for the U.S. Senate as a Democrat met a narrow defeat. Ford's worst mistake was his approval of an anti-Semitic (anti-Jewish) campaign waged by the Ford-owned newspaper, the Dearborn Independent.

When the United States entered World War I, Ford's output of military equipment and his promise to give back all profits on war production (which he never did) silenced the critics. By the end of the conflict his giant River Rouge plant, the world's largest industrial facility, was near completion. Ford gained total control of the company by buying the outstanding stock.

In the early 1920s the company continued its rapid growth, at one point producing 60 percent of the total United States output. But problems began to arise. Ford was an inflexible man and continued to rely on the Model T, even as public tastes shifted. By the middle of the decade Ford had lost his dominant position to the General Motors (GM) company. He finally saw his error and in 1927 stopped production of the Model T. However, since the new Model A was not produced for eighteen months, there was a good deal of unemployment among Ford workers. The new car still did not permanently overtake the GM competition, Chevrolet, and Ford remained second.

Final years

Ford's last years were frustrating. He never accepted the changes brought about by the Great Depression (a period in the 1930s marked by severe economic hardship) and the 1930s New Deal, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's (1882–1945) plan to help the United States recover from the Great Depression. He fell under the spell of Harry Bennett, a notorious figure with connections to organized crime, who, as head of Ford's security department, influenced every phase of company operations and created friction between Ford and his son Edsel. For various reasons Ford, alone in his industry, refused to cooperate with the National Recovery Administration, a 1930s government agency that prepared and oversaw codes of fair competition for businesses and industries. He did not like labor unions, refused to recognize the United Automobile Workers (UAW), and brutally restricted their attempts to organize the workers of his company.

Ford engaged in some philanthropic or charitable activity, such as the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. The original purpose of the Ford Foundation, established in 1936 and now one of the world's largest foundations, was to avoid estate taxes. Ford's greatest philanthropic accomplishment was the Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan.

A stroke in 1938 slowed Ford, but he did not trust Edsel and so continued to exercise control of his company. During World War II (1939–45; a war fought between the Axis: Germany, Italy, and Japan—and the Allies: England, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States), Ford at first made pacifist, or peace-minded, statements, but changed his mind and contributed greatly to the war effort. Ford's grandson, Henry Ford II, took over the company after the war. Henry Ford died on April 7, 1947, in Dearborn.

For More Information

Brough, James. The Ford Dynasty: An American Story. New York: Doubleday, 1977.

Collier, Peter, and David Horowitz. The Fords: An American Epic. San Francisco: Summit, 2001.

Kent, Zachary. The Story of Henry Ford and the Automobile. Chicago: Children's Press, 1990.

McCarthy, Pat. Henry Ford: Building Cars for Everyone. Berkeley Hts., NJ: Enslow, 2002.

Middleton, Haydn. Henry Ford: The People's Carmaker. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Weitzman, David L. Model T: How Henry Ford Built a Legend. New York: Crown, 2002.

Henry Ford

After founding the Ford Motor Company, the American industrialist Henry Ford (1863-1947) developed a system of mass production based on the assembly line and the conveyor belt which produced a low-priced car within reach of middle-class Americans.

The oldest of six children, Henry Ford was born on July 30, 1863, on a prosperous farm near Dearborn, Mich. He attended school until the age of 15, meanwhile developing a dislike of farm life and a fascination for machinery. In 1879 Ford left for Detroit. He became an apprentice in a machine shop and then moved to the Detroit Drydock Company. During his apprenticeship he received $2.50 a week, but room and board cost $3.50 so he labored nights repairing clocks and watches. He later worked for Westinghouse, locating and repairing road engines.

His father wanted Henry to be a farmer and offered him 40 acres of timberland, provided he give up machinery. Henry accepted the proposition, then built a first-class machinist's workshop on the property. His father was disappointed, but Henry did use the 2 years on the farm to win a bride, Clara Bryant.

Ford's First Car

Ford began to spend more and more time in Detroit working for the Edison Illuminating Company, which later became the Detroit Edison Company. By 1891 he had left the farm permanently. Four years later he became chief engineer; he met Thomas A. Edison, who eventually became one of his closest friends.

Ford devoted his spare time to building an automobile with an internal combustion engine. His first car, finished in 1896, followed the attempts, some successful, of many other innovators. His was a small car driven by a two-cylinder, four-cycle motor and by far the lightest (500 pounds) of the early American vehicles. The car was mounted on bicycle wheels and had no reverse gear.

In 1899 the Detroit Edison Company forced Ford to choose between automobiles and his job. Ford chose cars and that year formed the Detroit Automobile Company, which collapsed after he disagreed with his financial backers. His next venture was the unsuccessful Henry Ford Automobile Company. Ford did gain some status through the building of racing cars, which culminated in the "999," driven by the famous Barney Oldfield.

Ford Motor Company

By this time Ford had conceived the idea of a low-priced car for the masses, but this notion flew in the face of popular thought, which considered cars as only for the rich. After the "999" victories Alex Y. Malcomson, a Detroit coal dealer, offered to aid Ford in a new company. The result was the Ford Motor Company, founded in 1903, its small, $28,000 capitalization supplied mostly by Malcomson. However, exchanges of stock were made to obtain a small plant, motors, and transmissions. Ford's stock was in return for his services. Much of the firm's success can be credited to Ford's assistants—James S. Couzens, C. H. Wills, and John and Horace Dodge.

By 1903 over 1,500 firms had attempted to enter the fledgling automobile industry, but only a few, such as Ransom Olds, had become firmly established. Ford began production of a Model A, which imitated the Oldsmobile, and followed with other models, to the letter S. The public responded, and the company flourished. By 1907 profits exceeded $1,100,000, and the net worth of the company stood at $1,038,822.

Ford also defeated the Selden patent, which had been granted on a "road engine" in 1895. Rather than challenge the patent's validity, manufacturers secured a license to produce engines. When Ford was denied such a license, he fought back; after 8 years of litigation, the courts decided the patent was valid but not infringed. The case gave the Ford Company valuable publicity, with Ford cast as the underdog, but by the time the issue was settled, the situations had been reversed.

New Principles

In 1909 Ford made the momentous decision to manufacture only one type of car—the Model T, or the "Tin Lizzie." By now he firmly controlled the company, having bought out Malcomson. The Model T was durable, easy to operate, and economical; it sold for $850 and came in one color—black. Within 4 years Ford was producing over 40,000 cars per year.

During this rapid expansion Ford adhered to two principles: cutting costs by increasing efficiency and paying high wages to his employees. In production methods Ford believed the work should be brought by conveyor belt to the worker at waist-high level. This assembly-line technique required 7 years to perfect. In 1914 he startled the industrial world by raising the minimum wage to $5 a day, almost double the company's average wage. In addition, the "Tin Lizzie" had dropped in price to $600; it later went down to $360.

World War I

Ford was now an internationally known figure, but his public activities were less successful than his industrial ones. In 1915 his peace ship, the Oskar II, sailed to Europe to seek an end to World War I. His suit against the Chicago Tribune for calling him an anarchist received unfortunate publicity. In 1918 his race for the U.S. Senate as a Democrat met a narrow defeat. Ford's saddest mistake was his approval of an anti-Semitic campaign waged by the Ford-owned newspaper, the Dearborn Independent.

When the United States entered World War I, Ford's output of military equipment and his promise to rebate all profits on war production (he never did) silenced critics. By the end of the conflict his giant River Rouge plant, the world's largest industrial facility, was nearing completion. Ford gained total control of the company by buying the outstanding stock.

In the early 1920s the company continued its rapid growth, at one point producing 60 percent of the total United States output. But clouds stirred on the horizon. Ford was an inflexible man and continued to rely on the Model T, even as public tastes shifted. By the middle of the decade Ford had lost his dominant position to the General Motors Company. He finally saw his error and in 1927 stopped production of the Model T. However, since the new Model A was not produced for 18 months, there was a good deal of unemployment among Ford workers. The new car still did not permanently overtake the GM competition, Chevrolet; and Ford remained second.

Final Years

Ford's last years were frustrating. He never accepted the changes brought about by the Depression and the 1930s New Deal. He fell under the spell of Harry Bennett, a notorious figure with underworld connections, who, as head of Ford's security department, influenced every phase of company operations and created friction between Ford and his son Edsel. For various reasons Ford alone in his industry refused to cooperate with the National Recovery Administration. He did not like labor unions, refused to recognize the United Automobile Workers, and brutally repressed their attempts to organize the workers of his company.

Ford engaged in some philanthropic activity, such as the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. The original purpose of the Ford Foundation, established in 1936 and now one of the world's largest foundations, was to avoid estate taxes. Ford's greatest philanthropic accomplishment was the Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Mich.

A stroke in 1938 slowed Ford, but he did not trust Edsel and so continued to exercise control of his company. During World War II Ford at first made pacifist statements but did retool and contribute greatly to the war effort. Ford's grandson Henry Ford II took over the company after the war. Henry Ford died on April 7, 1947.

Further Reading

Ford's own books, written in collaboration with Samuel Crowther, provide useful information: My Life and Work (1922), Today and Tomorrow (1926), and Moving Forward (1930). The writings on Ford are voluminous. The most authoritative on the man and the company are by Allan Nevins and Frank E. Hill, Ford: The Times, the Man, the Company (1954), Ford: Expansion and Challenge, 1915-1933 (1957), and Ford: Decline and Rebirth, 1933-1962 (1963). The best short studies are Keith Theodore Sward, The Legend of Henry Ford (1948), and Roger Burlingame, Henry Ford: A Great Life in Brief (1955). More recent works are Booton Herndon, Ford: An Unconventional Biography of the Men and Their Times (1969), and John B. Rae, Henry Ford (1969). Of the books by men who worked with Ford, Charles E. Sorensen, My Forty Years with Ford (1956), is worth reading. See also William Adams Simonds, Henry Ford: His Life, His Work, His Genius (1943), and William C. Richards, The Last Billionaire: Henry Ford (1948). □

Henry Ford 1863–1947, American industrialist, pioneer automobile manufacturer, b. Dearborn, Mich.

The Inception of the Ford Motor Company

Ford showed mechanical aptitude at an early age and left (1879) his father's farm to work as an apprentice in a Detroit machine shop. He soon returned to his home, but after considerable experimentation with power-driven vehicles, he went (1890) to Detroit again and worked as a machinist and engineer with the Edison Company. Ford continued working in his spare time as well, and in 1896 he completed his first automobile. Resigning (1899) from the Edison Company he launched the Detroit Automobile Company.

A disagreement with his associates led Ford to organize (1903) the Ford Motor Company in partnership with Alexander Malcomson, James Couzens (who devised and oversaw the company's successful early business and accounting procedures), the Dodge brothers, and others. In 1907 he purchased the stock owned by most of his associates, and thereafter the Ford family remained in control of the company. By cutting the costs of production, by adapting the conveyor belt and assembly line to automobile production, and by featuring an inexpensive, standardized car, Ford was soon able to outdistance all his competitors and become the largest automobile producer in the world. He came to be regarded as the apostle of mass production. In 1908 he guided his chief engineer Harold Wills in the design of the Model T; nearly 17 million cars were produced worldwide before the model was discontinued (1928) and a new design—the Model A—was created to meet growing competition. Highly publicized for paying wages considerably above the average, Ford began in 1914—the year he created a sensation by announcing that in future his workers would receive $5 for an 8-hr day—a profit-sharing plan that would distribute up to $30 million annually among his employees.

Later Years

In 1915, in an effort to end World War I, he headed a privately sponsored peace expedition to Europe that failed dismally, but after the American entry into the war he was a leading producer of ambulances, airplanes, munitions, tanks, and submarine chasers. In 1918 he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate on the Democratic ticket. After weathering a severe financial crisis in 1921, he began producing high-priced motor cars along with other vehicles and founded branch firms in England and in other European countries. Strongly opposed to trade unionism, Ford—who incurred considerable antagonism because of his paternalistic attitude toward his employees and his statements on political and social questions—stubbornly resisted union organization in his factories by the United Automobile Workers until 1941. A staunch isolationist before World War II, Ford again converted his factories to the production of war material after 1941. In 1945 he retired.

Other Accomplishments and Controversies

His numerous philanthropies, in addition to the Ford Foundation , included $7.5 million for the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and $5 million for a museum in Dearborn, where in 1933 he established Greenfield Village—a reproduction of an early American village. Ford also wrote, in collaboration with Samuel Crowther, My Life and Work (1923), Today and Tomorrow (1926), Moving Forward (1931), and Edison as I Knew Him (1930).

Ford's international reputation made him a natural target for journalists. His libel suit against the Chicago Tribune in 1919 led to an examination by the Tribune attorney, intended to show Ford's lack of education. Anti-Semitic articles in Ford's Dearborn Independent brought further legal controversy; he was forced to apologize for the articles. In the 1930s, Ford was widely attacked for employing Harry Bennett, a former boxer who established a squad of thugs to spy, beat up, and otherwise intimidate union organizers.

Ford was also a poor manager who failed to capitalize on his company's early success. In the 1920s he failed to respond to consumer tastes by introducing new models and the company fell far behind General Motors. By the time of his retirement, the company's accounting procedures were so primitive that Ford's managers were unable to accurately tell how much it cost to manufacture a car and the company was losing $9.5 million a month.

Later Generations

Henry Ford's son, Edsel Bryant Ford, 1893–1943, b. Detroit, shared in the control of the vast Ford industrial interests. He was president of the Ford Motor Company from 1919 until his death, when his father once more became (1943) president of the company. The eldest Ford soon retired again when his grandson, Henry Ford 2d, 1917–87, b. Detroit, succeeded him in 1945. The younger Henry Ford moved quickly to restructure and modernize the company, which had slipped from the world's largest automobile manufacturer in 1920 to number three in the U.S. market in 1945. He removed a number of long-time Ford executives, such as Bennett, and for the first time in company history, recruited outsiders for positions of responsibility. The company spent $1 billion between 1945 and 1955 to expand its operations, introduced successful new models, and raised $690 million in capital by offering stock to the public (1956). Although Ford modernized and revitalized the company, his tenure also saw the introduction of the Edsel, which lost the company $250 million, and Ford's autocratic management style forced a number of top executives, such as Lee Iacocca , to quit. In 1960, Ford became chief executive officer and chairman of the corporation, offices he held until retiring as CEO in 1979 and as chairman in 1980.

Although family shareholders continued to have voting control of the company, nonfamily members headed Ford until 1999, when Bill Ford (William Clay Ford, Jr.), 1957–, became chairman. Working at Ford Motor Company from 1979, Bill Ford became vice president of the commercial truck vehicle center in 1994, chairman of the finance committee in 1995, and chairman of the board in 1999. In 2001 he also became chief executive officer of Ford, but the company's difficulties led him to resign that post in 2006.

Bibliography

See biographies by A. Nevins and F. E. Hill (3 vol., 1954–62), B. Herndon (1969), R. Lacey (1986), and S. Watts (2005); R. M. Wik, Henry Ford and Grass-Roots America (1970); P. Collier and D. Horowitz, The Fords (1987); N. Baldwin, Henry Ford and the Jews (2001); D. Brinkley, Wheels for the World (2003).

Ford, Henry (1863–1947), automobile manufacturer.Born on a farm near Dearborn, Michigan, Henry Ford as a young man held various jobs in Detroit, including machine‐shop apprentice, traction car operator, and engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company. Tinkering with internal combustion engines in his spare time, he produced his first prototype automobile in 1896. His racing cars gained national attention, and in 1903 he formed the Ford Motor Company and began commercial production. In the turbulent world of early automobile manufacturing, Ford initially stood out primarily for his race cars and his 1911 legal defeat of George B. Selden, who had tried to gain a monopoly over automobile manufacturing by taking out a series of patents in 1895.

Three contributions coalesced to assure Ford's worldwide reputation and his iconic status in the pantheon of U.S. heroes: the Model T, the moving assembly line, and the five‐dollar day. The 1908 Model T was a remarkable match of technical design and social context. Well‐built and inexpensive in contrast to its competitors, the Model T succeeded despite terrible roads and primitive repair facilities thanks to an exceptionally strong frame, high wheel clearance, and a fix‐it‐yourself simplicity. Growing demand led to production breakthroughs between 1908 and 1915 that came to be known collectively as the “Assembly Line” or simply “Fordism”. But Ford's integrated handling of materials and machine‐tool specialization also involved an authoritarian management style that led to high worker turnover. In response, Ford in January 1914 not only announced completion of the moving assembly line, but also approximately doubled daily wages, to five dollars a day, and shortened the workday from nine to eight hours. This combination of technical achievement and beneficence dramatically enhanced Ford's image and brought him international fame.

In 1916, at a price of $316 each, Ford sold 730,000 Model Ts. Sales faltered by the mid‐1920s, however, as rival General Motors offered a range of attractively designed models in color. (The boxy Model T came only in black.) After a period of retooling, Ford introduced the smart Model A in 1928. The innovative V–8 engine came in 1932, but the company never regained the market dominance it had once enjoyed.

For Ford himself, fame took its toll, as his eccentricities and prejudices became increasingly evident. In an abortive effort to end World War I through arbitration, he chartered a “peace ship” in December 1915 to sail to Europe. Ford's newspaper The Dearborn Independent, distributed in the 1920s through Ford dealers, disseminated a virulent anti‐Semitism. Confronted with a libel suit by a Jewish attorney, Ford issued a retraction and halted publication in 1927. Adolf Hitler quoted Ford with approval in his 1924 manifesto Mein Kampf.

Increasingly autocratic, Ford drove away creative lieutenants; bought out stockholders; and enforced employee conformity, on the job and off, with spies and sometimes brutal company police. His bitter anti‐unionism led to outbreaks of bloody labor violence at Ford plants during the Great Depression. Only in 1941 did Ford sign a contract with the United Automobile Workers union.

In later life Ford increasingly withdrew from the day‐to‐day operations at his company's massive River Rouge plant, and lived reclusely on his two‐thousand‐acre Dearborn estate, Fairlane, where he pursued various pet projects and philanthropies, including Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital (which initially excluded Jewish physicians). Ford's agents scoured Great Britain and the United States for artifacts relating to the history of technology, which after 1929 he housed in a museum near his estate, called the Edison Institute. The museum was also a fully accredited school, where students from kindergarten through twelfth grade could study amid physical reminders of technological progress. Nearby stood Greenfield Village, Ford's replica of a bucolic preindustrial community. An elusive figure, Ford shunned visitors but roamed the grounds alone at night. He also restored the Old Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Massachusetts, immortalized by the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Ford's obsession with these projects and his growing aversion to work‐a‐day management reveal a man caught in the classic ambivalence of the modernist technological aesthetic. He exulted in the march of inventive progress on display in his museum, while in Greenfield Village he nostalgically invoked a world untroubled by change. The paradox of Ford's attachment to his premodern fantasy world coupled with his heroic stature as a technological innovator helps explain his enduring grip on the American imagination.

The Ford Foundation, established by Henry Ford and his son Edsel in 1936, ultimately received many millions in nonvoting Ford Motor Company stock, making it one of America's wealthiest foundations.
See also Automobile Racing; Automotive Industry; Congress of Industrial Organizations; Industrialization; Mass Production; Motor Vehicles; Peace Movements; Reuther, Walter.

Bibliography

Allan Nevins with and Frank E. Hill , Ford, 3 vol., 1954–1963.
Anne Jardim , The First Henry Ford: A Study in Personality and Business Leadership, 1970.
David L. Lewis , The Public Image of Henry Ford: An American Folk Hero and His Company, 1976.
Stephen Meyer III , The Five Dollar Day: Labor, Management and Social Control in the Ford Motor Company, 1908–1921, 1981.
Robert Lacey , Ford: The Men and the Machine, 1986.
Donald Finlay Davis , Conspicuous Production: Automobiles and Elites in Detroit, 1899–1933, 1988.

John M. Staudenmaier

FORD, HENRY 1863-1947

Industrialist

Early Aptitude

Henry Ford did not invent the automobile, but he developed design concepts and production techniques that allowed its manufacture in such high volume and at such low cost as to bring it within reach of the average wage earner. His impact on American life in the twentieth century was enormous. Ford was born on a farm near Dearborn, Michigan. From his earliest days he displayed a marked mechanical aptitude, and all his life he loved working with machinery. In 1879 he became an apprentice in a machine shop in Detroit, repairing watches at night to make ends meet.

Farm to Factory

In 1888 his father gave him a fortyacre tract of land in Dearborn on the condition that he abandon the machinist's trade and return to the farm. Ford built a house on the land and made a small income selling lumber and firewood. But he did not engage in farming and used his spare time to experiment with steam and gasoline engines in a shop attached to the home. In 1891 he left the farm for an engineering job in Detroit. In 1899, with the support of a group of investors, he established the Detroit Automobile Company, capitalized at $150,000. This was the first company organized in Detroit for the manufacture of autos, but after turning out twelve unreliable vehicles, it went out of business in the fall of 1900.

Henry Ford Company

Ford then turned to auto racing and built a racer to gain a wider reputation. The success of his racer revived the enthusiasm of former stockholders and resulted in his firm's reorganization as the Henry Ford Company in November 1901. The firm was capitalized at $60,000, of which more than half was paid in stock. Dissension broke out between Ford and the promoters, and in 1902 Henry M. Leland was brought into the firm as a consulting engineer. Ford resigned, and the firm was then reorganized as the Cadillac Motor Car Company.

Birth of Ford Motor Company

Ford again turned to auto racing and began construction of two racing cars, the Arrow and the 999. With success in racing Ford again turned his attention to creating a model car capable of competing with such popularly priced cars as Oldsmobile. Needing $3,000 in developmental cost, Ford approached Alexander Y. Malcomson, a leading Detroit coal dealer, and in 1902 they formed a partnership to produce a marketable automobile. With demand growing for their model they were able to attract a substantial number of investors, and the Ford Motor Company was incorporated in June 1903 with $150,000 capital. The first Ford automobile, the Model A, was brought out in June 1903, selling for $850. A total of 1,708 sold in the first fifteen months, so a second story was added to the plant. Higher priced B, C, and F models were offered in 1904 and 1905. In early 1905 manufacturing operations were transferred to a newer and larger plant.

Cash Flow Problems

The financial panic of 1907 turned out to be a turbulent summer rather than an extended depression. Makers of expensive cars and ill-financed marginal plants suffered most, but makers of inexpensive cars were also damaged. Since income had dropped, luxuries had to be sacrificed. Fortunately for the Ford Motor Company it had maintained large reserves, but because of the panic and the recent purchases of the Highland Park tract for a new factory and its absorption of the Ford Manufacturing Company, tremendous strain was put on the cash flow. Ford was forced to postpone paydays several times in the fall of 1907. In order to maintain adequate cash flow, the company turned to its dealers for cash and resorted to paying bills by issuing notes. Ford kept building cars and shipping them to dealers, who had to pay for those cars. This forced the dealers to raise the money for the cars or risk losing their dealership.

Model T

The result of Ford's vision, the Model T was introduced in 1908, combining in a standard utility vehicle the features of lightness, durability, efficiency, interchangeable parts, and low cost. By 1916 the company was able to reduce the price of the car to about $350 because of cost-cutting production methods. From its inception until 1927 the Model T was the sole model sold by the company, and most of the time was available only in black. Ford designed the car for rural America, and it was well suited for travel over poor country roads. It became extremely popular in the untapped market of the Midwest and Plains states and rode the prosperity of agriculture's "golden age" from 1909 to 1916. Production went from 18,664 in 1911 to 78,440 in 1912. By 1913 there were seven thousand dealers affiliated with the company, with at least one in every town with a population of more than two thousand.

Later Years

Although Ford was a mechanical genius, he was otherwise ignorant, narrow, and naive. He published many scurrilous anti-Semitic articles and fought unionization with every weapon at his disposal, including a private police force. Nor would he allow modern management techniques to interfere with his autocratic ways. By the mid 1930s the company was riven by factions, and no one was really in charge. A decade later the Ford Motor Company, once the most prodigious engine of wealth creation in the American economy, was on the brink of ruin, losing $1 million a day. Two years before his death Henry Ford's family finally forced him to cede control to his grandson, Henry Ford II.

Sources:

Henry Ford, My Life and Work (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page, 1922);

Robert Lacy, Ford: The Men and The Machine (Boston: Little, Brown, 1986);

Allan Nevins, with Frank Ernest Hill, Ford: The Times, The Man, The Company (New York: Scribners, 1954).

FORD, HENRY 1863-1947

Automotive genius

Model T

Henry Ford, a self-taught mechanical genius, was undoubtedly the most famous automaker and perhaps the most famous man of the era. Ford vastly improved the techniques of mass assembly and production and revolutionized the auto industry by producing the famous Model T, or "Tin Lizzie," an inexpensive, durable car that essentially democratized automobile ownership. The Model T, which was first produced in 1908 and remained in production until 1927, had sales of more than seventeen million during its nineteen years.

Contradictions

Ford was a man of many contradictions: an idealist who was a pacifist during World War I and health-food faddist all his life, he was also a pragmatist and sometime cynic; an obviously bright man, he also proved doggedly anti-intellectual, dismissing books and art as wastes of time. A would be politician running for the Senate in 1918 and frequently mentioned as a presidential candidate, he did not have a politician's skills or instincts. His domain remained the auto industry.

Ford Innovations

In its early years the Ford Motor Company was considered a good place for labor. On 5 January 1914 Henry Ford introduced the five-dollar day and reduced the normal shift from nine to eight hours, innovations that generally horrified other industrialists but had obvious appeal for workers. He also became famous for his paternalistic Sociology Department, which attempted to offer humanitarian services to his workers but also closely monitored their private lives to be certain that they conformed to Ford's own standards. He forbade his employees to smoke, for example, since he regarded tobacco as evil and disgusting.

Twenties Accomplishments

During the 1920s Ford and his company flourished. Journalists amused themselves by speculating on the size of his fortune, and, although he was often called the "last billionaire," he lived quite modestly compared to other tycoons. Between 1919 and 1927 his River Rouge production plant became a model of modern industrial design. In the early 1920s he bought Lincoln so that the Ford Motor Company could have and refine a luxury car and thus appeal to a different market from that of his Tin Lizzie. And his 1927 introduction of the replacement for Lizzie, the Model A, was one of the media events of the decade. During this period, too, Ford became a figure in aviation when he produced the fine Ford Tri-Motor aircraft. He personally hated to fly and did so only once, on a short flight piloted by Charles Lindbergh; he ultimately dropped the aviation operation after a crash in the early 1930s killed a pilot of whom he was fond.

Final Years

As Ford grew older he became more imperious. His one-man control of the giant corporation began to cause organizational difficulties, and the firm went into decline. During World War II Ford's son Edsel, who had been a stabilizing force in the company, died. Ford Motor Company was serving as a major military contractor, but its operations became so chaotic that officials felt it might be unable to meet its production goals. Consequently, the navy released young Henry Ford II, Henry Ford's grandson, from his military duties so that he could take leadership of the corporation. Under his direction Ford Motor Company was rebuilt and went public in 1961. It remains a major American auto producer in the mid 1990s.

Sources:

Harry Bennett, We Never Called Him Henry (New York: Fawcett, 1951);

Alan Nevins and Frank E. Hill, Ford: Decline and Rebirth, 1933-1962 (New York: Scribners, 1962);

William C. Richards, The Last Billionaire (New York: Scribners, 1948);

Charles Sorenson, My Forty Years With Ford (New York: Norton, 1956).

Ford, Henry (1863–1947), industrialist and isolationist.Born on a Michigan farm, Ford used his skill as a machinist to develop an automobile, founding the Ford Motor Company in Detroit in 1903. Cutting production costs through an assembly line, Ford produced an inexpensive, standardized car, selling over 15 million autos between 1908 and 1928, and becoming a multimillionaire.

In 1914–15, Ford spoke out against World War I and arms races, blaming them on financiers and the military men. He personally financed an effort by pacifists to end the war through mediation by neutral nations. The “Ford Peace Ship” took a contingent of American pacifists to neutral Sweden in December 1915, and the dramatic gesture broke the previous suppression of peace news in the warring nations. Nevertheless, many newspapers derided the effort as naive, especially when Ford proclaimed that he hoped to end the war by Christmas. The Ford Neutral Conference, composed of unofficial delegations of men and women from six neutral nations, met in Stockholm in February 1916. Although Sweden and Denmark were interested in calling a conference of neutral governments, they were blocked by the belligerents.

When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Ford became a leading producer for the military, supplying airplane engines, ambulances, munitions, tanks, trucks, and submarine chasers. In the 1930s, he was a staunch supporter of isolationism, but Ford again converted his factories to production of war material after 1941. He retired in 1945.

Bibliography

Allan Nevins and and Frank E. Hill , Ford, 3 vols., 1954–62.
Barbara S. Kraft , The Peace Ship: Henry Ford's Pacifist Adventure in the First World War, 1978.

John Whiteclay Chambers II

Ford, Henry (1863–1947) US motor manufacturer. He was a pioneer of mass production and had a profound influence on the widespread use of motor vehicles. In 1909 Ford produced his famous Model T, of which 15 million were made over the next 19 years at gradually reducing prices due to large-scale manufacture, a succession of simple assembly tasks, and the use of a conveyor belt. He went on to produce a cheap and effective farm tractor, the Fordson, which had a great effect on agricultural mechanization. Control of the Ford Motor Company passed to his grandson, Henry Ford II (1917–87), in 1945 and is now a huge multinational corporation. Among the first Henry Ford's philanthropic legacies is the Ford Foundation (established 1936), a major charitable trust.

Ford, Henry (1863–1947) US industrialist. He developed a gas-engined car in 1892, and founded Ford Motors in 1903. In 1908 Ford designed the Model T. His introduction of an assembly line (1913) revolutionized industrial mass production. In 1914, Ford raised the minimum wage to $5 a day and reduced the workday to eight hours. He refused, however, to allow union organization in his factories until 1941. In 1945, with the company losing c.$9 million per month, he handed control of the company to his grandson, Henry Ford II (1917–87).

Henry Ford, 2d see under Ford, Henry .