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The automobile was
the brainchild of Henry Ford, a mechanical engineer. Ford was
born on a farm near Dearborn, Michigan, on July 30, 1863, and
educated in district schools. He became a machinist's apprentice
in Detroit at the age of 16. From 1888 to 1899 he was a
mechanical engineer, and later chief engineer, with the Edison
Illuminating Company. In 1893, after experimenting for several
years in his leisure hours, he completed the construction of his
first automobile, and in 1903 he founded the Ford Motor Company.
In 1913 Ford began
using standardized interchangeable parts and assembly line
techniques in his plant. Although Ford neither originated nor
was the first to employ such practices, he was chiefly
responsible for their general adoption and for the consequent
great expansion of American industry and the raising of the
American standard of living. |
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By early 1914 this innovation, although greatly
increasing productivity, had resulted in a monthly labor turnover of
40 to 60 percent in his factory, largely because of the unpleasant
monotony of assembly line work and repeated increases in the
production quotas assigned to workers. Ford met this difficulty by
doubling the daily wage then standard in the industry, raising it
from about $2.50 to $5. The net result was increased stability in
his labor force and a substantial reduction in operating costs.
These factors, coupled with the enormous increase in output made
possible by new technological methods, led to an increase in company
profits from $30 million in 1914 to $60 million in 1916. |
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An old automobile |
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In 1908 the Ford company initiated production of
the celebrated Model T. Until 1927, when the Model T was
discontinued in favor of a more up-to-date model, the company
produced and sold about 15 million cars. Within the ensuing few
years, however, Ford's preeminence as the largest producer and
seller of automobiles in the nation was gradually lost to his
competitors, largely because he was slow to adopt the practice of
introducing a new model of automobile each year, which had become
standard in the industry. During the 1930s Ford adopted the policy
of the yearly changeover, but his company was unable to regain the
position it had formerly held.
Early in 1941 Ford was granted government
contracts whereby he was, at first, to manufacture parts for bombers
and, later, the entire airplane. He thereupon launched the
construction of a huge plant at Willow Run, Michigan, where
production was begun in May 1942. Despite certain technical
difficulties, by the end of World War II (1945) this plant had
manufactured more than 8000 planes.
Ford was active in several other fields besides
those of automobile and airplane manufacturing. In 1915 he chartered
a peace ship, which carried him and a number of like-minded
individuals to Europe, where they attempted without success to
persuade the belligerent governments to end World War I. He was
nominated for the office of U.S. senator from Michigan in 1918 but
was defeated in the election. In the following year he erected the
Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit at a cost of $7.5 million. In 1919 he
became the publisher of the Dearborn Independent, a weekly journal.
Advancing age forced Ford to retire from the
active direction of his gigantic enterprises in 1945. He died on
April 7, 1947, in Dearborn. Ford left a personal fortune estimated
at $500 to $700 million, bequeathing the largest share of his
holdings in the Ford Motor Company to the Ford Foundation, a
nonprofit organization. |
