Biography of Henry Ford

Quick Facts

Famous As: Businessman

Nationality: American
Birth Date: July30, 1863
Died At Age: 83
Born In: Greenfield Township, Michigan, U.S.
Father: William Ford
Mother: Mary Litogot Ford
Spouse/Partner: Clara Ala Bryant (M. 1888–1947)
Children: Edsel Ford
Religion: Episcopalian
Died On: April 7, 1947
Place Of Death: Fair Lane, Dearborn, Michigan, U.S.
City, States, Provinces & Districts: Michigan
Founder/Co-Founder: Ford Motor Company
Education: Detroit Business Institute
Awards: 1928 - Franklin Institute's Elliott Cresson Medal
1938 - Nazi Germany's Grand Cross Of The German Eagle

Introduction

Henry Ford was an American industrialist who founded the Ford Motor Company, which
sells automobiles and commercial vehicles under the Ford brand. He also played a major role
in the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. Before he started his
company, most American middle-class families were not in a position to own automobiles
which only the upper classes could afford. However, Ford revolutionized the automobile
industry by developing and manufacturing affordable automobiles that even the middle-class
community could conveniently purchase. Born to a farmer in Greenfield Township,
Michigan, he started displaying leadership qualities and technical skills as a young boy. He
was expected to follow his father and become a farmer, but the independent minded young
man had other plans for himself. Intelligent and hard working, he apprenticed with a
machinist and went on to become an engineer. Fascinated with automobiles, he started
conducting his own experiments in building them. During this time, he became acquainted
with the famous inventor Thomas Edison who encouraged the young man’s experiments.
Motivated, Ford built several automobiles before establishing the Ford Motor Company. As
an industrialist, he adopted several innovations in his company that revolutionized the entire
automobile industry. He was also well known for his pacifist views and staunch opposition to
war.

As the owner of the Ford Motor Company, he became one of the richest and best-known
people in the world. He is credited with "Fordism": mass production of inexpensive goods
coupled with high wages for workers.

Ford was also widely known for his pacifism during the first years of World War I, and for
promoting antisemitism through his newspaper The Dearborn Independent and the book The
International Jew.

Childhood and Early life

 Henry Ford was born on July 30, 1863, in Dearborn, Michigan, to William and
Mary Ford. He had four siblings. Margaret Ford , Jane Ford , William Ford and
Robert Ford .

 He was bright and curious as a child. He was in his teens when his father gave
him a pocket watch which he dismantled and reassembled by himself. He also
practiced on the timepieces of friends and neighbors, and soon gained the
 reputation of a watch repairman. From a young age he demonstrated mechanical
ability and leadership qualities.

 His mother died in 1876, leaving him devastated. He realized that he did not want
to live on the farm anymore now that his mother was gone.

 He left home in 1879 to work as an apprentice machinist with James F. Flower &
Bros. in Detroit. Later on he went to work for the Detroit Dry Dock Co. before
returning home in 1882.

 Ford married Clara Jane Bryant and supported himself by farming and running a
sawmill.They had one child: Edsel Ford.

Career

In 1891, Ford became an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company. 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 a self-propelled vehicle which he named the Ford Quadricycle. He test-drove it
on June 4. After various test drives, Ford brainstormed ways to improve the Quadricycle.

Also in 1896, Ford attended a meeting of Edison executives, where he was introduced
to Thomas Edison. Edison approved of Ford's automobile experimentation. Encouraged by
Edison, Ford designed and built a second vehicle, completing it in 1898. Backed by the
capital of Detroit lumber baron William H. Murphy, Ford resigned from the Edison Company
and founded the Detroit Automobile Company on August 5, 1899. However, the automobiles
produced were of a lower quality and higher price than Ford wanted. Ultimately, the
company was not successful and was dissolved in January 1901.

With the help of C. Harold Wills, Ford designed, built, and successfully raced a 26-
horsepower automobile in October 1901. With this success, Murphy and other stockholders
in the Detroit Automobile Company formed the HenryFordCompany on November 30, 1901,
with Ford as chief engineer.] In 1902, Murphy brought in Henry M. Leland as a consultant;
Ford, in response, left the company bearing his name. With Ford gone, Murphy renamed the
company the CadillacAutomobileCompany.

Teaming up with former racing cyclist TomCooper, Ford also produced the 80+ horsepower
racer "999" which BarneyOldfield was to drive to victory in a race in October 1902. Ford
received the backing of an old acquaintance, Alexander Y. Malcomson, a Detroit-area coal
dealer. They formed a partnership, "Ford & Malcomson, Ltd." to manufacture automobiles.

Ford motor company

In response, Malcomson brought in another group of investors and convinced the Dodge
Brothers to accept a portion of the new company. Ford & Malcomson was reincorporated as
the Ford Motor Company on June 16, 1903, with $28,000 capital. The original investors
included Ford and Malcomson, the Dodge brothers, Malcomson's uncle John S. Gray,
Malcolmson's secretary James Couzens, and two of Malcomson's lawyers, John W. Anderson
and Horace Rackham. Ford then demonstrated a newly designed car on the ice of Lake St.
Clair, driving 1 mile (1.6 km) in 39.4 seconds and setting a new land speed record at 91.3
miles per hour (146.9 kilometres per hour). Convinced by this success, the race driver Barney
Oldfield, who named this new Ford model "999" in honor of the fastest locomotive of the
day, took the car around the country, making the Ford brand known throughout the United
States. Ford also was one of the early backers of the Indianapolis 500.

Model T

The Model T, also known as the “Tin Lizzie,” changed the way Americans live, work and
travel. Henry Ford’s revolutionary advancements in assembly-line automobile
manufacturing made the Model T the first car to be affordable for a majority of Americans.
For the first time car ownership became a reality for average American workers, not just the
wealthy. More than 15 million Model Ts were built in Detroit and Highland Park, Michigan,
and the automobile was also assembled at a Ford plant in Manchester, England, and at plants
in continental Europe.
The Model T was offered in several body styles, including a five-seat touring car, a two-seat
runabout, and a seven-seat town car. All bodies were mounted on a uniform 100-inch-
wheelbase chassis. A choice of colors was originally available, but from 1913 to 1925 the
car was mass-produced in only one color—black. The engine was simple and efficient, with
all four cylinders cast in a single block and the cylinder head detachable for easy access and
repair. The engine generated 20 horsepower and propelled the car to modest top speeds of
40–45 miles per hour (65–70 km/h). In most models the engine was started by a hand crank,
which activated a magneto connected to the flywheel, but after 1920 some models were
equipped with battery-powered starters. The transmission, consisting of two forward gears
and one reverse, was of the planetary type, controlled by foot pedals rather than the more
common hand lever used in sliding-gear transmissions. Spark and throttle were controlled by
a hand lever on the steering column. The 10-gallon fuel tank was located under the front
seat. Because gasoline was fed to the engine only by gravity, and also because the reverse
gear offered more power than the forward gears, the Model T frequently had to be driven up
a steep hill backward.

Later career and Death

When Edsel Ford, President of Ford Motor Company, died of cancer in May 1943, the elderly
and ailing Henry Ford decided to assume the presidency. By this point in his life, he had had
several cardiovascular events (variously cited as heart attacks or strokes) and was mentally
inconsistent, suspicious, and generally no longer fit for such immense responsibilities.

Most of the directors did not want to see him as President. But for the previous 20 years,
though he had long been without any official executive title, he had always had de fact of
control over the company; the board and the management had never seriously defied him, and
this moment was not different. The directors elected him, and he served until the end of the
war. During this period the company began to decline, losing more than $10 million a month
($141,420,000 today). The administration of President Franklin Roosevelt had been
considering a government takeover of the company in order to ensure continued war
production, but the idea never progressed.

His health failing, Ford ceded the company Presidency to his grandson, Henry Ford II, in
September 1945 and went into retirement. He died on April 7, 1947, of a cerebral
hemorrhage at Fair Lane, his estate in Dearborn, at the age of 83. A public viewing was held
at Greenfield Village where up to 5,000 people per hour filed past the casket. Funeral
services were held in Detroit's Cathedral Church of St. Paul and he was buried in the Ford
Cemetery in Detroit.

Honors and recognition

 In December 1999, Ford was among 18 included in Gallup's List of Widely Admired
People of the 20th Century, from a poll conducted of the American people.
 In 1928, Ford was awarded the Franklin Institute's Elliott Cresson Medal.
 In 1938, Ford was awarded Nazi Germany's Grand Cross of the German Eagle, a medal
given to foreigners sympathetic to Nazism.
 The United States Postal Service honored Ford with a Prominent Americans
series (1965–1978) 12¢ postage stamp.
 He was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 1946

REFERENCES

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford
2. https://www.biography.com/people/henry-ford-9298747
3. https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/henry-ford-122.php
4. http://www.history.com/topics/henry-ford
5. https://henryford88.weebly.com/accomplishments.html