Henry Ford and industrial manufacturing innovation

History Of Henry Ford

This report attempts to provide some insight into the life and times of one of the greatest entrepreneurial spirits this nation has ever known. This paper is about Henry Ford who may be best known for his contribution to capitalism through his automobile manufacturing corporation, the Ford Motor Company. The report will focus on his life and career and also present facts about his cars and company.

Henry Ford was born on July 30, 1863 in Greenfield Township, Michigan and died on April 7, 1947. Ford is best known for creating the very successful Ford Motor Company and also for influencing capitalism in the United States of America. Henry Ford married Clara Bryant in 1888. It is a little known fact that the automobile called the Edsel which eventually turned out to be a major flop for Ford and his company was named for his only child who died in 1943 and that the company was later run by Edsel's son and Henry Ford's grandson, Henry Ford II. "Edsel Ford, who had lived always in his father's shadow, died of stomach cancer in May 1943, and Charles Sorensen left the company after Henry Ford and Harry Bennett again gained the upper hand in the company's management." (Cutlip, 271)

Henry Ford was the first of six children for William and Mary Ford. The family raised Henry on a well to do family farm so Henry had a good childhood. Henry Ford led a typical life for the times actually attending school in a one-room school and then coming home to do the necessary farming related chores. It is said that Henry began tinkering and showing an interest for mechanical things and totally disliking the farming life.

When Henry was sixteen, he left home to go in search of other work opportunities. His search took him to Detroit where he found work as an apprentice machinist. Although he occasionally returned home to help around the farm, Henry kept the job as an apprentice for several years. During his stint as an apprentice, he learned how to repair and operate steam engines. With this new found skill, Ford over hauled his father's farm with new inventions and mechanical tools to make work easier. Henry had very few jobs early on but it is said that when he was married in 1888, he supported his wife by being in charge of a local Dearborn sawmill.

In 1891, Henry Ford became an engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit, Michigan. It was quite apparent that Ford from this point forward had no intention of becoming a farmer like his father. Ford did well at Edison and was promoted to Chief Engineer around 1893. It was noted that he and Thomas Edison became very close friends for many years. "On October 21, 1929, there occurred the climax of a celebration ostensibly to commemorate Edison's invention of the incandescent lamp. Edison re-enacted this procedure before a distinguished audience in Detroit which included Henry Ford and the President of the United States. Before and after the event praises of Edison were sung all over the world... Henry Ford constructed the village in which Edison was born and the original laboratory where the invention had been conceived was reproduced as faithfully as possible." (Cutlip, 206)

The promotion provided him with his own financing and allowed him focus on experiments on an internal combustion engine that he thought would revolutionize the farming industry. Ford's persistence with these experiments eventually paid off and in 1896 he completed a self-propelled Quadricycle that had four wire wheels and looked like big flat bicycle. The vehicle had new concepts such as a steering column similar to a boat tiller and it had a dual forward speed capability. One problem that was corrected years later was that the vehicle had no reverse. Inventors all over the world were coming up with their own versions of motorized vehicles that used gasoline engines, but Henry Ford was so enthusiastic and influential that he is often thought of today as the world's foremost automotive inventor, engineer and pioneer.

In 1903, Henry Ford founded the Ford Motor Company with the intent of bringing his Quadricycle to the public. The company right from the beginning hired the best and brightest engineers and thinkers who designed and developed new features that made an affordable car a real possibility. "The year 1901 saw Henry Ford, who was to change the ways of American life forever, build the motor car and market it with great public relations skill. Ford in his younger, more flexible days knew the value of publicity and used it in positive ways to emerge from the pack of automakers now lost in the mists of history." (Cutlip, 4) Ford's concept of developing and constantly refining the assembly line process for the manufacture of the Model T. is really what set him apart form all other inventors of his time.

By 1908 the company introduced the first Model T. To the market and the company eventually sold over 10 million of the Model T. cars. The famous line of the time was that you could have a Model T. In any color you desired as long as that color was black. Ford and his new company converted the Detroit area into the automobile manufacturing capital of the world in just a few short years.

Ford's business acumen made him one of the nation's most famous and powerful businessmen of the time. He often had little free time to enjoy his wealth. "In 1931 Henry Ford made my family and me a magnificent present. He gave us one entire day. It often happens, especially in America that the richer a man is in money, the poorer he is in time. I know prominent men who literally have not one hour to spare; they cannot afford it." (Phelps, 857) However, Ford's personal opinions were not always accepted making him a very controversial business leader. Ford was known to be anti-Semitic and often made very public anti-Semitic remarks about the Jewish community. Another very controversial part of Henry Ford's past was that he was known to be a staunch supporter of Adolph Hitler. Ford, but privately and through his company, made large contributions to the pre-war efforts of the Nazi party. Ford had amassed billions of dollars of wealth at the time of his death in 1947. Because of the death of his son Edsel, Ford left much of his fortune to the philanthropic Ford Foundation that aimed to give back to the community.