In the United States of America, there are significant figures that converted the country’s fate. One of the people influence the sociological and industrial patterns of the state is Henry Ford. As “Ford” brand, Ford has changed the dynamics in the world. Coming from a village in Detroit, Michigan, Henry Ford managed to work in different titles but all have served for one greater purpose. Here’s some more details about Henry Ford.
Henry Ford is celebrated as both a technological innovator and a folk hero, having been the driving force behind an industrial revolution that reshaped the social and economic fabric of the United States. His contributions gave rise to an era of unprecedented growth and wealth, forever altering the nation’s landscape. When the young Ford left his father’s farm for Detroit in 1879, only a quarter of Americans lived in cities. By the time of his death at 83, the urban population had more than doubled. Central to this transformation was Ford’s revolutionary Model T automobile, which played a major role in urbanization. Ironically, despite his influence on modern industry, Ford longed to recapture the rural values of his youth. In many ways, he serves as a symbol of America’s shift from an agrarian society to an industrial powerhouse.
Early Days of Henry Ford
Henry Ford was born the as the eldest son of William and Mary Ford’s children on a family farm near Dearborn, Michigan, a town eight miles west of Detroit at the time. Abraham Lincoln was president of the 24 states of the Union, while Jefferson Davis was president of the 11 states of the Confederacy.
Ford completed his education from first to eighth grade at two one-room schools, the Scottish Settlement School and the Miller School. Ford, who was particularly devoted to his mother, he was in distraught when she passed in 1876. Although his father had expected Ford to take over the family farm, he did not like farm work at all. He later wrote about these feelings as follows: “I never had any particular love for the farm, it was my mother I loved on the farm.”
Ford’s father gave him a pocket watch in his early youth. At only 15 years old, he was constantly disassembling and reassembling his friends’ and neighbors’ watches, and thus quickly gained a reputation as a watchmaker. He also worked in a mechanical workshop he had set up with his own belongings. Due to his interest in inventing, he built his first steam engine there at the age of 15.
In 1879, when Ford was 16, he walked to Detroit to find work in the machine shops. There, he apprenticed first at James Flower and Brothers Machine Shop and then at the Detroit Dry Dock Company. The money he earned at both jobs was not enough to pay his rent, so he worked at night at a jeweler, repairing and cleaning watches.
After three years in which he first came into contact with the internal combustion engine, he returned to the farm in 1882. He worked part-time for the Westinghouse Engine Company and worked as a repairman in his spare time at the workshop he had set up. He eventually built a small “farm locomotive,” a tractor that used an old mower for its chassis and a homemade steam engine for power. Later, he was hired by the Westinghouse company to service steam engines. Ford studied accounting at the Goldsmith, Bryant & Stratton Business College in Detroit.
Henry Ford’s first automobile.
In 1885, Henry Ford repaired an Otto engine. In 1887, he built a four-stroke model with a one-inch bore and three-inch stroke. Ford then began working on a two-cylinder engine. Ford married his wife Clara Bryant in 1888, and she grew up on a farm not far from him. Ford said the following about the last model he worked on: “In 1892, I completed my first motor car, which had a two-cylinder four-horsepower engine, a two-and-a-half-inch bore and six-inch stroke, driven by a belt to the countershaft and then a chain to the rear wheel.”
In 1893, the couple’s only child, Edsel Bryant Ford, was born. A month later, Ford started working as an engineer at the Detroit Edison Company’s main plant, responsible for maintaining the city’s 24-hour electrical service. Because of his achievements, he was promoted to chief engineer within two years. This process gave him enough time and money to continue his experiments on engines.
Ford said the following about the motor car he completed in 1892: “By the spring of 1893, the machine was working to my partial satisfaction, giving me more opportunity to test the design and materials on the road.” He drove the machine for about 1,000 miles between 1895 and 1896. In 1896, he started a second car and eventually built a third in his workshop.
Ford Motor Company and Model T
With the support of 3 major investors, Ford founded the Detroit Automobile Company in 1899. Things did not go as Ford wanted in the company that produced low-quality expensive vehicles and it closed in 1901.
Some of the investors and shareholders in the Detroit Automobile Company came together again and founded the Henry Ford Company in 1903, in which Henry Ford held a 25.5% share.
Ford served as both vice president and chief engineer here. At first, only a few cars were produced in the company, with two or three men working for each car that was collected. The first car produced was sold on July 23, 1903.
Ford Motor Company produced eight different car models in its first five years and by 1908, its production was 100 cars per day. The shareholders were ecstatic; Ford was not happy with this situation and tried to produce 1,000 per day. The shareholders seriously considered going to court to stop him from using it to expand his profits. In 1909, Ford, who owned 58% of the shares, announced that he would only make one car in the future – the Model T.
With the Model T, released in 1908, Henry Ford realized his dream of producing an affordable, reliable and efficient car. The vehicle could be easily used even on rough roads, was easy to maintain and operate, and was a great success from the moment it was released. Another important feature of the Model T is that it was the first vehicle produced using a conveyor belt system, starting in 1913.
As commercial success continued rapidly, Ford expanded into Europe. He established factories in Italy, Belgium, Germany and England. In 1914, Ford Motor Company announced that it would pay its workers $5 a day for working 8 hours a day. This incident shocked the industrial world because workers in other factories worked 9 hours a day and were paid half as much as those working at Ford.
By 1919, Ford had taken over the company with his son Edsel, who bought out all the minority stock for $106,000,000, making them the sole owner. Ford handed over the presidency to his son Edsel that year. Edsel would continue in the position until his death in 1943. After his death, Henry Ford returned to the company.
What Ford envisioned was not just increased capacity but also complete self-sufficiency. World War I, with its shortages and rising prices, showed him the need to control raw materials; slow-moving suppliers convinced him to make his own parts. Wheels, tires, upholstery, and accessories were purchased from other companies around Detroit. As Ford production increased, it became nearly impossible to coordinate production and shipping so that every product arrived at the right place and at the right time. At first, he tried to accumulate large inventories to prevent delays or interruptions on the assembly line, but he soon realized that stockpiling was a waste of capital. Instead, he embraced the idea of expanding the movement to inventory as well as production. The factory he built at River Rouge embodied the idea of an integrated operation encompassing production, assembly, and transportation. To complete the vertical integration of his empire, he purchased a railroad, took control of 16 coal mines and approximately 700,000 (285,000) acres of timberland, built a sawmill, and purchased a fleet of Great Lakes freighters to bring ore from the Lake Superior mines.
The move to the River Rouge plant was accomplished in 1927. Every morning at 8 a.m., a Ford freighter would arrive from the Ford mines in Michigan and Minnesota, with enough ore for the day, and would be processed into steel by conveyor and heat from the Ford mines in Kentucky. The foundry molds would continue through stamping mills, and exactly 28 hours after arrival, the ore would emerge as a finished automobile. At the height of its success, the company’s assets stretched from the iron mines of northern Michigan to the forests of Brazil, and it operated in 33 countries around the world. Most notably, not a penny of debt was borrowed to pay for any of this. Everything was built with profits from the Model T.
By 1926, the company’s capital had surpassed $1 billion. The Ford Company had become the world’s largest motor company, but all this, along with the Model T’s poor sales, led Ford to develop a new model. He was working on the Model A to replace the Model T, which had ceased production on May 27, 1927.
Henry Ford’s Later Years
In 1926, Ford began working on a new model when sales of the Model T declined. He left the body design of the model to his son Edsel, while he took care of the design of the engine, chassis and other mechanical requirements himself. Although Henry Ford was very confident in his engineering skills, he had little formal training in mechanical engineering. For this reason, he entrusted most of the work of designing the Model A to a team of engineers working under his direction and supervision.
The first successful Ford Model A was introduced in December 1927, and more than four million were produced by 1931. When production of the Model A ended in 1931, Ford decided to follow the marketing leadership of its main competitor, General Motors.
Despite design changes in 1932 and the introduction of the Ford V-8, Ford Motor Company ranked third in the industry in sales in 1936. The same year, the company established the Ford Foundation, which he thought would be a way to maintain family control.
Henry Ford left the management of the company, which was growing with successive production of vehicles, to his son Edsel. After his son’s death in 1943, he took over again, but 2 years later, in 1945, he left the business to his grandson, Henry Ford II, who shared his name.
Henry Ford died at the age of 83 in his house on Fair Lane in Dearborn, Michigan, USA, on April 7, 1947. Ford, who left behind a company worth billions of dollars, received his shares from the Ford Foundation, which was established in 1936.
ADDITIONAL INFO ABOUT HENRY FORD
Henry Ford started working as an engineer at the “Edison Illuminating Company” founded by Thomas Alva Edison in 1891. He was appointed as the chief engineer in 1893. The world-famous inventor Edison and Ford became close friends in the following years.
Henry Ford produced his first single-cylinder gasoline engine in his own kitchen in 1893. Then, he built his first automobile 3 years later. Ford, who was able to allocate enough time and money to his personal research on fuel engines after his promotion to chief engineer, completed the development of his vehicle called Quadricycle in 1896.
After this success, he left Edison’s company and founded the Detroit Automobile Company in 1899 with other investors. In order to show the superiority of his own models, he successfully competed his vehicles with the vehicles of other manufacturers. However, he could not earn enough money and the Detroit Automobile Company went bankrupt in 1091.
The “Model T” was produced between 1908-1927 and 15 million units were sold. In 1906, it opened its first European branch in England. Ford established factories in Belgium, Italy, and Germany. After 1928, Ford’s European business was managed centrally from a new factory based in England.
How did Henry Ford managed their funds?
Ford has never borrowed from anyone since its establishment, nor has it sold bonds or bills. In the year the company was established, 1708 two-cylinder 8-horsepower cars were manufactured. The company’s capital was 100 thousand dollars when it started. Cars in different models were in demand. In 1917, the company expanded its production range by adding agricultural vehicles to its production. In 1926, the company’s capital had increased to 1 billion dollars. Ford Company became the world’s largest motor company.
In other factories, workers worked 9 hours a day, but they received half as much wages as those working at Ford. The vehicles produced by Ford were sold with very little profit. However, it earned from manufacturing and selling in large quantities. Thus, the company quickly became one of the world’s largest companies. In 1915, the 1 millionth car was made. In 1926, the factory was able to make 2 million cars per year. In 1928, the 15 millionth car was made.
The Y Model, launched in 1932, was designed specifically for the European market. This model, together with the V8 engine developed in 1933, played a decisive role in the development of the company in the following years. In World War II, Ford, just as it had done in World War I, completely adapted its company to war production.
What did Ford Company do during the World Wars?
Ford Motor Company became one of the largest companies in the delivery of war materials and made great profits. Despite this, Ford had made efforts to maintain peace before both world wars and established the Ford Foundation, a foundation aimed at securing peace, in 1936.
Henry Ford ran for senator in 1918, but he did not win.
Henry Ford brought a new theory to engineering and manufacturing system
Thanks to the assembly line he developed for the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford completely revolutionized the automotive industry. However, the impact of this assembly line extended beyond the automotive sector. It inspired many methods of mass-producing affordable goods. Yet, for sales to increase, purchasing power also needed to rise. For this reason, Henry Ford consistently ensured that workers’ wages remained high. The production system based on the assembly line, known as Fordism, brought not only innovations in manufacturing but also in commerce. Moreover, the Fordist production model, which emphasized standardization and mass production through automation, highlighted the regulatory and controlling aspects of the welfare state. As a result, productivity, especially in labor processes and work organization, increased. In this sense, Fordism maintained its relevance in balancing mass production and mass consumption until the 1970s. However, it lost significance in Europe with the shift to post-Fordist production models. Nevertheless, the name Henry Ford and Fordism still hold importance in countries that have not yet completed their industrialization.
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