He was born on July 30th, 1863 and was raised in Dearbornville, Michigan. Ford was born to his parents William and Mary Ford along with 5 siblings. He grew up on a farm and idolized his mother. To go to school he had to walk a mile and a half while, but in school he was the leader of a group of rambunctious boys.
In March of 1876 his mother passed away while Ford was only 12. His sister would later take over the family after a little help from their aunt. One Christmas he got a watch and immediately took it apart and put it back together. If anybody got any kind of mechanical toy for Christmas after that, somebody would say “Don't let Henry see them! He'll take them apart!” He lived a normal life, going to church, riding horses, taking long walk until 1879 when he finished school.
His father found him a job at Flower Brothers machine shop after leaving school. He moved into a boarding house on Baker Street and repaired watches. He then got a job at the Detroit dry-dock, and would read engineer magazines on lunch break. He considered this his training, and after reading an article about internal combustion engines, he was obsessed. When he was nineteen, Ford moved back to Dearborn where his father had given him some land. A neighbor, John Gleason, was having trouble with a Westinghouse steam engine he had bought. Gleason paid Ford three dollars a day to work for him.
On New Years Eve 1885, Ford went to a dance hosted by the dancing club. He quickly noticed a small, dark-eyed girl with chestnut hair. She was an eighteen year old daughter of a neighboring farmer named Clara Bryant. After spending only seconds with her, he realized that she was the one. He bought her a sleigh so he could take her around in the winter. They also enjoyed ice-skating and dancing.
Ford worked nights at Edison Illumination Company and set up shop in the factory to experiment with engines. Later at night he taught class at YMCA. Ford was promoted to chief engineer one week after baby Edsel was born. One Christmas Eve, Ford brought in an engine to test and set it on the kitchen table to have his wife help him test. It worked, and after that he had ideas of creating a lightweight version of the horseless carriage.
Later on Ford decided to rent a wagon shop but had to sub-contract. He hired 10 workmen to help and produced the first version, the Model-A. It had two speeds, forward and reverse. After the company failed to grow, it shutdown. Ford had another two unsuccessful attempts until a new company was established in 1903. They produced a few cars a day with groups of two or three men.
He hired a blacksmith to help with the new models. An old family friend of the Ford's, the Mayor gave him permission to drive on streets. He went to a convention and met Edison, who approved of his idea. He then sold his first Quadracycle for $200. While testing his mail wagon, a reporter gave the wagon a very good review. However, backers of the company dissolved it after losing $86,000 in the first 15 months.
Ford entered in a race after this and won a grand prize of $1,000. After this race, the Henry Ford Company was born but didn't last long. The company gave Ford $900 and left. Tom Cooper, a race car legend during these times, had saved $100,000 and paid Ford to build 2 cars. He hired a Danish immigrant to help with the race cars. The company Ford was involved with at the time was hit with a lawsuit complaining that everybody who makes the internal combustion engine should pay a fee to the original inventor. Ford disagreed and vowed to spend every dollar he had to win, and eventually after a meeting with Ford, they dropped the case.
The company sold more than 5,000 cars over the season, but Ford was still not happy. So the company lowered the price and made over $250,000. Making the race cars was easier than finding somebody to test them. So they hired a bicycle riding professional to drive them. They set the record for a mile in one minute and one second. The Ford motor company was formed on June 16, 1903, and he was vice president. In 1905, Ford decided to make their own engines and in 1906 John Grey died, which made Ford President.
Joseph Galamb helped Ford design the Model-T. The first model went on sale in 1908 for $850. Ford once said “ The Model-T came in any color as long as it was black.” It had names like Fliver, Leaping Lena, and Bouncing Betty, but the most popular was Tin Lizzie. The company moved to a new plant on January 1st, 1910. Ford made the first assembly line in 1913. Before he had been known for his generous wages and work times, but now it was harsh. Employees had to be silent, couldn't smoke, worked ten hour days and had fifteen minutes for lunch. The foreman could fire any employee for any reason, and they couldn't join a union. They got paid twenty five cents an hour. Forty to sixty percent of employees quit every month, but on January 12 FMC would make them change, and the result was five dollars a day for eight hours of work.
In 1938, Hitler awarded him a medal for the creation of mass production, which most people thought wasn't a good thing, but he could not understand why the people thought that. Ford agreed to make 6,000 engines for planes and in December of 1940, he built 1200 bombers. He said it would take $200 million to build a factory in order to produce one plane in an hour, but they still did it. Even though he built the war machines, he still spoke out against the war. He even sent a ship with peace keepers to Europe.
Ford was a pioneer in the world of cars. He made them more affordable and faster than any other company, with the invention of the assembly line. Most cars are made on the assembly line today thanks to this man.
