By: Nicholas Wong
Henry Ford was born on July 30, 1863 to a farming family in what is now Dearborn, Michigan. William Ford and Mary Litogot O'Hern Ford were his parents. Henry was expected to take over the farm when he grew up, but at an early age, he displayed an interest in mechanical devices and a dislike for farmwork. One of his earliest inventions was a watch, much like the watch he recieved for his twelfth birthday, which fascinated Ford so much, he built his own.
When Ford turned 16, he left his home for Detroit to become a machinist's apprentice. He returned home occasionally to lend a hand on the family farm and remaied an apprentice for three years. Clara Jane Bryant was wed to Henry on April 11, 1888. They had first met at a party in 1885. They had only one child, Edsel Ford, whom Henry named after his friend, Edsel Ruddiman. He supported his family by running a saw mill.
One of history's greatest inventors was a hero and great friend to Henry Ford. This man was non other than Thomas Edison, whose most notable inventions include the incandescent light bulb, phonograph, and telegraph. Edison offered encouragement when Henry was just starting out. This encouragement never ceased. Ford became an engineer with the Edison Iluminating Company in 1891. In 1893, he was promoted to Chief Engineer. This gave him the time and financial support he needed to allocate some of his attention to personal experiments on internal combustion engines. Ford built his first car in 1896. It was called the Quadricycle. It had four heavy bicycle-like wire wheels, a tiller to steer, and a two-speed transmission with no reverse gear.
Henry Ford once said, "Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently." After two unsuccessful tries at establishing an automobile manufacturing company, the Ford Motor Company was born on June 16, 1903. Henry led the company for many years to come. In 1908, he decided to only produce the Model T. His idea of the assembly line made the "Tin Lizzie" affordable and allowed it to be produced more quickly. Initially, it sold for $850. The price would drop over time to as low as $360. Over the next two decades, 15 million Model T's would be produced. Recently, the Model T was named Automobile of the Century, defeating other important people carriers such as the Volkswagen Beetle and Austin/Rover Mini.
"A business that makes nothing but money is a poor kind of business," said Henry Ford in an interview in 1919. He stunned the entire industrial world by raising minimum wage to $5 a day in 1914. Ford can also be seen as fair, he once stated, "It is all one to me if a man come from Sing Sing or Harvard. We hire a man, not his history". But he never took to labor unions and did not recognize the United Automobile Workers.
Although he did not join the armed forces, Ford did play a part in the two World Wars. In World War I, he had his peace ship, the Oskar II, sail to Europe to seek an end to the war. In World War II, he played an even greater role. Ford built specialized factories to produce military aircraft and vehicles for the Allied Forces. For his efforts, in World War II, he was awarded the American Legion's Distinguished Service Medal in 1944. Henry Ford died on April 7, 1947 at the age of eighty-four.
I believe one of Henry Ford's own quotes sums up his life best. "I will build a motorcar for the masses...constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise...so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God's great open spaces."
