Henry Ford

Henry Ford was the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production of the Model T automobile that would revolutionize transportation and American industry. Henry Ford was one of the wealthiest men during his life because of how he revolutionized not just the automobile industry but how his mass production technique became used by almost every company after and is still used to this day by companies. The man changed everything by making a car more affordable for everyone in the world and changed the way everything else was made after the model T, he is considered one of the greatest inventors of all time because of his work in the automobile industry. Henry Ford was born July 30, 1863, on his family's farm in Dearborn, Michigan. From the time he was a young boy, Ford enjoyed learning about and playing with machines. He hated farm life and was more interested in machines and how they worked. Ford struggled in school and was never truly interested in it, he would much rather be working on a machine and trying to understand its functions and the way it worked. He barely knew how to read and write do to him not fully paying attention in school. He found he loved watches and would repair them at even a young age and did so throughout his life. With him working on a farm and having a job in a Detroit machine shop gave Ford a lot of different ways he could experiment on different machines though he didnt like working on a farm it helped him learn how to work hard and the value of working hard. In 1879 Ford left for Detroit, Michigan, to become an apprentice at a

machine shop. He then moved to the Detroit Drydock Company. During his apprenticeship he received $2.50 a week but since room and board cost $3.50 he began repairing clocks and watches on the side to help pay his way during his apprenticeship. After that Ford's father wanted him to be a farmer so he offered him forty acres of timberland to start a farm but he needed to give up machinery. Ford accepted the offer from his dad but then built a huge machinist's workshop on the property instead; his father was highly disappointed but knew his son found something he loved. With having the farm for around two year ford then meet a girl Clara Bryant who he would then go on to get married to. Ford began to spend more and more time in Detroit working for the Edison Illuminating Company, later becoming the Detroit Edison Company. By 1891 he had left the farm permanently to focus on the company and then four years later he became chief engineer at Edison Illuminating Company. While working at the Edison Illuminating Company he would meet Thomas A. Edison the two became close friends throughout each others lives. 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 run on. His first car, finished in 1896 it was mounted on bicycle wheels and had no reverse gear though. 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 then started building race cars in which he built one of the most successful cars it was labeled 999. After the "999" victories, Alex Y. Malcomsona a coal dealer from Detroit offered to help Ford start a new company. Then started

the Ford Motor Company in 1903, with only a small financing supplied mostly by Malcomson the company took off with Fords model A car. In 1909 Ford made the important decision to manufacture only one type of car the Model T. Since Ford controlled the company because he ended up buying out Malcomson do to the success he had. 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 expansion Ford held 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 and it would change everything then in 1914 he startled the industrial world by raising the minimum wage to five dollars a day, almost double the company's average wage. The assembling line became one of the greatest ideas in any industries history it made it simple to make the item and it made it fast. It helped also bring in a lot of jobs, before the assembly line it was only considered few people could have cars only the rich could afford them. With having mass produced the car and making it simple and fast everyone could now afford to buy a car the Model T would go down to $360.

During Ford final years he was having problems with his sons decisions in the company and would still remain in main control of all the major decisions up until his death in 1947. His son however did push his dad to make a new model type after more companies began to catch up to the Model T and the result was a great one it helped Ford stay ahead of its competition. After his death his grandson would take over the company. Henry Ford changed everything with the

invention of just not the Model T but in the invention of the assembly line. The assembly line made it possible for most people to buy a car and changed everything else after it companies today still use this way today to make products or cars. Henry Ford was one of the greatest inventors and one of the great minds of an industry in history the Ford Company is still running to this day and is estimated to be worth $188.1 billion, all possible because of Henry Ford.

http://inventors.about.com/od/fstartinventors/a/HenryFord.htm http://www.incwell.com/Biographies/Ford.html

http://www.biography.com/articles/Henry-Ford-9298747

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/btford.html