Henry Ford

Introduction

Henry Ford was an innovator, an industrialist and an outdoorsmana farmer's son who turned his mechanical interests into a global company that transformed life around the world. While always a dutiful contributor to the family farm, Henry's earliest exposure to his real passionmachinery and mechanicscame from visits to town with his father, where he saw some of the earliest technology of machines, engines and mills. Henry Ford had established a solid career with good prospects at Edison Illuminating, Ford was restless and ready to venture into the field of automotive engineering, in which he had long been experimenting. He had confidence enough in his ideas that he believed he could continue to support his family on themand of course eventually, he proved right. Henry Ford was the founder of the Ford Motor Company and the father of the modern assembly lines used in mass production. His Model T eventually revolutionized transportation and American industry, contributing to the urbanization that changed American society in the early twentieth century. His contribution to the automobile industry one of the largest in the world. His intense commitment to lowering costs resulted in many technical and innovations, including a franchise system that put a dealership in every city in North America, and in major cities on six continents.

Page 1 of 21 By Mohammad Pirani

Henry Ford Ford's impact on the American life was immense. By paying his workers subsistence wages, and producing cars that were priced for this new market of workers as consumers, Ford brought the means of personal transportation to ordinary people and changed the structure of society. His plan of producing a large number of inexpensive cars contributed to the transformation of major sectors of the United States from a rural, agricultural society to an urbanized, industrial one at a time when America's role in the world appeared to many to have providential significance. A complex personality, often referred to as a genius, Ford exhibited variousprejudices and, despite his own numerous inventions and innovations, a stubborn resistance to change. His legacy, however, includes the Ford Foundation, one of the richest charitable foundations in the world, dedicated to support for activities worldwide that promise significant contributions to world peace through strengthening democratic values, reducing poverty and injustice, promoting international cooperation, and advancing human achievement.

Page 2 of 21 By Mohammad Pirani

Henry Ford

Childhood and Family Life

As a child, he was inspired by his mother, who encouraged his interest in tinkering. His father was a farmer. He encouraged Henrys interest in the use of machines on the farm. He was inspired by steam-powered tractors when he was a teenager. This made him think about the way things work. Born in Wayne County, Michigan, in an area that later became Dearborn, on July 30, 1863, Henry Ford was the oldest of six children. Although he chose to leave the family farm and pursue his own interests, Henry never strayed far from his roots. As a young boy, Ford took apart everything he got his hands on; he became known around the neighborhood for fixing people's watches. As he grew up, he explored every mechanical opportunity he could find, learning to fix steam engines and run mill operations. In the 1890s, he focused particularly on internal combustion engines. With his love for the outdoors and rural values, Ford might easily have remained in agriculture, but something even stronger pulled at Ford's imagination: mechanics, machinery, understanding how things worked and what new possibilities lay in store. During the summer of 1873, Henry saw his first self-propelled road machine, a steam engine generally used in the stationary mode to power a threshing machine or a sawmill, but also modified by its operator, Fred Reden, to be mounted on wheels connected with a drive chain connected to the steam engine. Henry was fascinated with the machine, and over the next year Reden taught him how to fire and operate it. Ford later said it was this experience "that showed me that I was by instinct an engineer."[1]

Page 3 of 21 By Mohammad Pirani

Henry Ford Henry took this passion for mechanics into his home. His father had given him a pocket watch in his early teens. At fifteen, he had developed a reputation as a watch repairman, having dismantled and reassembled timepieces of friends and neighbors dozens of times.[2] The death of his mother in 1876 was a blow that devastated little Henry. His father expected Henry to eventually take over the family farm, but Henry despised farm work. With his mother dead, Ford had little reason to remain on the farm. He later said, "I never had any particular love for the farm. It was the mother on the farm I loved."[3] In 1879, he left home for the nearby city of Detroit, Michigan to work as an apprentice machinist, first with James F. Flower & Brothers, and later with the Detroit Dry Dock Company. 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 Electric Company to service their steam engines. In April 1888, Ford married Clara Bryant, a local girl and the foster child oflike HenryIrish immigrant farmers. Success soon came to him as he took a position in 1891 as an engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company and fairly quickly climbed the ranks. Greater financial security along with more freedom to explore his own experiments came with his promotion to chief engineer in 1893the same year his only child, Edsel, was born. 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.

Page 4 of 21 By Mohammad Pirani

Henry Ford

Edisons Encouragement
"Young man, that's the thing! You have itthe self-contained unit carrying its own fuel with it! Keep at it!" These early words of encouragement came from Thomas Edison, who was to become one of Henry Ford's closest friends. At their first meeting at a convention in 1896, Ford was still an unknown. But the enthusiasm of the famous and widely respected Edison surely fueled Ford's drive. The friendship between Henry Ford and scientist and inventor Thomas Edison, which spanned more than 30 years, is almost legendary. From their earliest meetings, they encouraged and inspired one another, often contributing to each other's work. In Edison, Ford found a sympathetic mind and true friendship that transcended the boundaries of mere celebrity or fame. The first publicly released '28 Model A Ford may have gone to the movie stars, but the first one ever produced went to Edison.

Page 5 of 21 By Mohammad Pirani

Henry Ford

Beginning of Career
He was fired from his first job. Henry built his first gasoline engine at home and tested it in the kitchen. He mounted it on the kitchen sink. Thomas Edison was Henry Fords role model and later his close friend. He built and drove race cars early in his career to demonstrate that his engineering designs produced reliable vehicles. He failed with his first two companies before he succeeded with Ford Motor Company. The idea for using a moving assembly line for car production came from the meat-packing industry. He financed a pacifist expedition to Europe during WWI. He adopted a paternalistic policy to reform his workers lives both at home and at work. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the United States Senate in 1918. He owned a controversial newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, that published anti-Jewish articles which offended many and tarnished his image. He promoted the early use of aviation technology. Henry Ford built Village Industries, small factories in rural Michigan, where people could work and farm during different seasons, thereby bridging the urban and rural experience.

Page 6 of 21 By Mohammad Pirani

Henry Ford He sought ways to use agricultural products in industrial production, including soybean-based plastic automobile components such as this experimental automobile trunk. He was one of the nations foremost opponents of labor unions in the 1930s and was the last automobile manufacturer to unionize his work force.

Page 7 of 21 By Mohammad Pirani

Henry Ford

Detroit Automobile Company and the Henry Ford Company

Henry Ford called his first vehicle the Quadricycle. It attracted enough financial backing for Ford to leave his engineer position at Edison Illuminating and help found the Detroit Automobile Company in 1899. The company faltered for a variety of reasons, and in 1901 Ford left to pursue his own work again. Later that year, the Henry Ford Company was born, but Henry Ford himself stayed with it only a few months. He left in early 1902 to devote more time to refining his vehicles. Henry Ford spent much of the next year or so working on his racing cars and winning some highprofile races with them. The record setting attracted serious financial backing, along with smart business partners such as James Couzens, the company's first business manager. Couzenss business acumen complemented Ford's mechanical talents, and in the early years he was largely responsible for important moves the company made in advertising, customer relations, dealer franchises and more. Within a few months of the June 16, 1903 founding of Ford Motor Company, the first Ford, a Model A, was being sold in Detroit. Although there were 87 other car companies in the United States, it soon became clear that Henry Ford's vision for the automotive industry was going to work. Ford, with eleven 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 (18781946), who named this new Ford model "999" in honor of a racing locomotive of the day, took the car around the Page 8 of 21 By Mohammad Pirani

Henry Ford country and thereby made the Ford brand known throughout the United States. Ford was also one of the early backers of the Indianapolis 500 race.

Page 9 of 21 By Mohammad Pirani

Henry Ford

Ford's River Rouge Plant

Ford's philosophy was one of self-sufficiency using vertical integration. Ford's River Rouge Plant, which opened in 1927, became the world's largest industrial complex able to produce even its own steel. Ford's goal was to produce a vehicle from scratch without reliance on outside suppliers. He built a huge factory that shipped in raw materials from mines owned by Ford, transported by freighters and a railroad owned by Ford, and shipped out finished automobiles. In this way, production was able to proceed without delays from suppliers or the expense of stockpiling. Ford's labor philosophy Henry Ford was a pioneer of "welfare capitalism" designed to improve the lot of his workers and especially to reduce the heavy turnover that had many departments hiring 300 men a year to fill 100 slots. Efficiency meant hiring and keeping the best workers. On January 5, 1914, Ford astonished the world by announced his $5 a day program. The revolutionary program called for a reduction in the length of the workday from 9 to 8 hours, a five-day work week, and a raise in minimum daily pay from $2.34 to $5 for qualified workers.[6] The wage was offered to men over age 22, who had worked at the company for six months or more, and, importantly, conducted their lives in a manner of which Ford's "Sociological Department" approved. They frowned on heavy drinking and gambling. The Sociological Department used 150 investigators and support staff to maintain employee standards; a large percentage of workers were able to qualify for the program. Ford was criticized by Wall Street for starting this program. The move however proved hugely profitable. Instead of constant turnover of employees, the best mechanics in Detroit flocked to Page 10 of 21 By Mohammad Pirani

Henry Ford Ford, bringing in their human capital and expertise, raising productivity, and lowering training costs. Ford called it "wage motive." Also, paying people more enabled the workers to be able to afford the cars they were producing, and was therefore good for the economy. Ford was adamantly against labor unions in his plants. To forestall union activity, he promoted Harry Bennett, a former Navy boxer, to be the head of the service department. Bennett employed various intimidation tactics to squash union organizing. The most famous incident, in 1937, was a bloody brawl between company security men and organizers that became known as "The Battle of the Overpass." Ford was the last Detroit automaker to recognize the United Auto Workers union (UAW). A sitdown strike by the UAW union in April 1941 closed the River Rouge Plant. Under pressure from Edsel and his wife, Clara, Henry Ford finally agreed to collective bargaining at Ford plants and the first contract with the UAW was signed in June 1941.

Page 11 of 21 By Mohammad Pirani

Henry Ford Bringing Cars to the Common Man What made Henry Ford successful where others had failed (or succeeded on a much smaller scale)? It wasn't just his vehicles, excellent as they wereit was his unique understanding of the potential of those vehicles to transform society. Before Ford, cars were luxury items, and most of his early competitors continued to view them that way, manufacturing and marketing their vehicles for the wealthy. Ford's great stroke of genius was recognizing that with the right techniques, cars could be made affordable for the general publicand that the general public would want them. Ford focused on making the manufacturing process more efficient so he could produce more cars and charge less for each.

Page 12 of 21 By Mohammad Pirani

Henry Ford Innovating a New Future Some of Ford's greatest innovations came not in the cars themselves but in the processes for creating them, like his 1914 introduction of a moving conveyor belt at the Highland Park plant, which dramatically increased production. Starting construction on the Rouge plant in 1917 was the first step toward Ford's dream of an all-in-one manufacturing complex, where the processing of raw materials, parts and final automobiles could happen efficiently in a single place. Ford was also unique in recognizing that his business was about more than just cars; it was about transportation, mobility, changing lifestyles. He anticipated the ripple effect from mass production to create more jobs that let more people afford the cost-effective cars he produced. Ford pushed for more gas stations and campaigned for better roads, understanding conditions necessary for his product to make its mark. And his far-reaching vision opened his eyes to the global market, making Ford Motor Company an international enterprise far earlier than any of its competitors. At the height of Henry Ford's fame and business power, his company operated or sold in more than 30 countries around the world, including such far-reaching places as Indonesia, China, Brazil and Egypt, as well as much of Europe.

Page 13 of 21 By Mohammad Pirani

Henry Ford Providing Opportunities for a Better Society Henry Ford's personal motto of "Help the Other Fellow" spilled over into his management style; he recognized that policies generous to his employees would result in happier workers and a better product. He claimed, however, not to believe in conventional charity; rather he preferred to provide opportunities for people to help themselves. These are just some of the liberal innovations Ford implemented within his company:

The $5 workday, doubling the industry standard for a day's wages and bringing his hardworking employees closer to affording the cars they built. Ford considered it a way of sharing the company's profits with all those who had helped make those profits possible.

Employment policies that created opportunities for the physically and mentally handicapped and even ex-convicts.

A variety of educational facilities at the workplace, starting with the English Language School at the Highland Park plant in 1914, when he realized his largely immigrant workforce needed language skills and assistance.

Page 14 of 21 By Mohammad Pirani

Henry Ford A Fascinating Personality As Ford Motor Company's public image developed, much of it began to focus on the personality of the company's charismatic leader. Ford made a fascinating subject for a variety of reasons. He wasn't a "behind-the-scenes" kind of executive; rather, he stayed actively involved in company operations and was frequently on hand at milestone events. He had a forceful, outspoken personality that often expressed itself in highly quotable remarks. Moreover, his wide-ranging interests led him to explore a variety of fieldsaviation, film, politics (including a run for the U.S. Senate)that led to associations with other celebrities and people of note. But it would be a mistake to conclude that Ford's celebrity associations involved just smiling for the camera with the latest movie stars. The list of dignitaries and personalities with whom he exchanged letters is long and impressive. Moreover, Ford had meaningful relationships with many luminaries of his time. He shared an interest in agricultural experimentation with African American educator and agriculturalist George Washington Carver. He communicated with aviation pioneers such as Wilbur and Orville Wright and Charles Lindbergh, who were consultants to the company's aviation division. America's leaders relied on Ford Motor Company's wartime production, and Ford himself was well-acquainted with several U.S. presidents.

Page 15 of 21 By Mohammad Pirani

Henry Ford Life Beyond the Automobile Cars were always central to Henry Ford's life: He built them, he raced them, he sold them. But there was so much more to the man than his automobiles. He was a man of many interests and had a highly developed sense of curiosity; he never stopped exploring new fields and learning about new subjects. In many ways, for many years, Ford Motor Company was inseparable from the man who founded it, and Henry Ford's constant exploration of new areas and opportunities led the company into a variety of pursuits beyond just automobiles:

Ford always maintained strong ties to his rural upbringing and frequently looked for ways to support the work of farmers. In 1917, he and his son, Edsel, founded the Fordson ("Ford" and his "son") division to manufacture tractors that, like the Model T, would be lightweight and inexpensive.

Ford Motor Company's Motion Picture Department was established in 1914 with a staff of 24 that traveled worldwide producing promotional and educational short films. In the 1920s, the company was the world's largest producer of motion picturesmore than Hollywood or the New York studios! In that same period, half of all rural Americans saw a Ford film as their first motion picture ever.

Ford's fondness for small-town American life and culture is most comprehensively recorded in the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village (now part of what is called "The Henry Ford"), which together form the largest museum in the country. In 1929, Ford founded The Edison Institute, a combination school and museum to allow for education through the studying of artifacts and cultural history, not just books. As he collected pieces of Americana, historic Page 16 of 21 By Mohammad Pirani

Henry Ford buildings, and more, this project of Ford's evolved into the sprawling cultural complex that it is today. Company and tax records show that over his lifetime, Ford poured more than $10 million of his own money into it. There was very little that Henry Ford didn't either dabble in or undertake seriously. He coauthored several books; he loved to dance and sparked a revival in old-fashioned American dancing and country fiddling; he participated actively in a variety of philanthropic ventures. What bound those interests together were curiosity and the will to learn.

Page 17 of 21 By Mohammad Pirani

Henry Ford A Business Leader Henry Ford retired (for the first time) in 1919, when he handed over leadership of his company to his son, Edsel. Also In 1919, Henry, along with his wife and Edsel, acquired the stock of the company's minority shareholders for the astonishing (for 1919) sum of $105,820,894 and became the sole owners of Ford Motor Companytruly making it a family-owned business for the first time. In 1943, after Edsel's death from cancer at age 49, Henry was persuaded to return as president of the company and showed remarkable energy for a man in his 80sbut many say he was never the same after the death of his beloved son. On September 21, 1945, the Ford Motor Company board of directors was presented with a letter from Henry Ford, resigning as president of the company and recommending Henry Ford II, Edsel's eldest son and Henry's eldest grandson, as his successor. With that, Henry Ford permanently left behind the management of Ford Motor Company. He was 82 years old. Henry Fords retirement found him as busy as ever, pursuing interests, accepting awards, satisfying his boundless curiosity. His last day was no different: He spent April 7, 1947, inspecting buildings and grounds around Dearborn that had been damaged by the worst floods in that area's history. The flood had cut off power to Ford's home, Fair Lane. He died in his bed that night by candlelight, in an odd re-creation of the electricity-free world into which he had been born.

Page 18 of 21 By Mohammad Pirani

Henry Ford An Immeasurable Legacy The impact Henry Ford had on the world is almost immeasurable. His introduction of the automobile into the mass market transformed agricultural economies in the United States and even around the world into prosperous industrial and urban ones. Many historians credit him with creating a middle class in America. His mass production techniques provided work that many people (even the less educated) could do, and he paid them well for doing it. His high minimum wages were revolutionary at the time, but these "profit-sharing" programs set a precedent for fair distribution of company wealth that greatly influenced later management practices. And of course, there were the cars themselves. Henry Ford's curiosity and enterprising nature were directly responsible for a long list of automotive innovations, many of which we take for granted today, from the V-8 engine to safety glass. As an outdoorsman, Henry Ford was deeply conscious of the impact his industry had on the delicate natural world. He implemented practices that were progressive for his timereplacing wood with steel to conserve forests, using lighter materials to increase fuel efficiency, even prohibiting the use of crowbars to open wooden crates so as not to damage the potentially reusable lumber.

Page 19 of 21 By Mohammad Pirani

Henry Ford Death of Edsel Ford In May 1943, Edsel Ford died, leaving a vacancy in the company presidency. Henry Ford advocated long-time associate Harry Bennett (18921979) to take the spot. Edsel's widow Eleanor, who had inherited Edsel's voting stock, wanted her son Henry Ford II to take over the position. The issue was settled for a period when Henry himself, at age 79, took over the presidency personally. Henry Ford II was released from the Navy and became an executive vice president, while Harry Bennett had a seat on the board and was responsible for personnel, labor relations, and public relations.

Page 20 of 21 By Mohammad Pirani

Henry Ford

Page 21 of 21 By Mohammad Pirani