biography henry ford

Henry Ford was an industrialist who revolutionized assembly line production for the automobile, making the Model T one of America’s greatest inventions.

(1863-1947)

Who Was Henry Ford?

Henry Ford was an American automobile manufacturer who created the Model T in 1908 and went on to develop the assembly line mode of production, which revolutionized the automotive industry.

As a result, Ford sold millions of cars and became a world-famous business leader. The company later lost its market dominance but had a lasting impact on other technological development, on labor issues and on U.S. infrastructure. Today, Ford is credited for helping to build America's economy during the nation's vulnerable early years and is considered one of America's leading businessmen.

Early Life and Education

Ford was born on July 30, 1863, on his family's farm in Wayne County, near Dearborn, Michigan.

When Ford was 13 years old, his father gifted him a pocket watch, which the young boy promptly took apart and reassembled. Friends and neighbors were impressed and requested that he fix their timepieces too.

Unsatisfied with farm work, Ford left home at the age of 16 to take an apprenticeship as a machinist at a shipbuilding firm in Detroit. In the years that followed, he would learn to skillfully operate and service steam engines and would also study bookkeeping.

In 1888, Ford married Clara Ala Bryant. The couple had a son, Edsel, in 1893.

In 1890, Ford was hired as an engineer for the Detroit Edison Company. In 1893, his natural talents earned him a promotion to chief engineer.

All the while, Ford developed his plans for a horseless carriage. In 1892, Ford built his first gasoline-powered buggy, which had a two-cylinder, four-horsepower engine. In 1896, he constructed his first model car, the Ford Quadricycle.

In the same year, he attended a meeting with Edison executives and found himself presenting his automobile plans to Thomas Edison . The lighting genius encouraged Ford to build a second, better model.

DOWNLOAD BIOGRAPHY'S HENRY FORD FACT CARD

Ford Motor Company

By 1898, Ford was awarded with his first patent for a carburetor. In 1899, with money raised from investors following the development of a third model car, Ford left Edison Illuminating Company to pursue his car-making business full-time.

After a few trials building cars and companies, Ford established the Ford Motor Company in 1903.

Ford introduced the Model T , the first car to be affordable for most Americans, in October 1908 and continued its construction until 1927. Also known as the “Tin Lizzie,” the car was known for its durability and versatility, quickly making it a huge commercial success.

For several years, Ford Motor Company posted 100 percent gains. Simple to drive and cheap to repair, especially following Ford’s invention of the assembly line, nearly half of all cars in America in 1918 were Model T's.

By 1927, Ford and his son Edsel introduced another successful car, the Model A, and the Ford Motor Company grew into an industrial behemoth.

Henry Ford's Assembly Line

In 1913, Ford launched the first moving assembly line for the mass production of the automobile. This new technique decreased the amount of time it took to build a car from 12 hours to two and a half, which in turn lowered the cost of the Model T from $850 in 1908 to $310 by 1926 for a much-improved model.

In 1914, Ford introduced the $5 wage for an eight-hour workday ($110 in 2011), more than double what workers were previously making on average, as a method of keeping the best workers loyal to his company.

More than for his profits, Ford became renowned for his revolutionary vision: the manufacture of an inexpensive automobile made by skilled workers who earn steady wages and enjoyed a five-day, 40-hour work week.

Philosophy and Philanthropy

Ford was an ardent pacifist and opposed World War I , even funding a peace ship to Europe. Later, in 1936, Ford and his family established the Ford Foundation to provide ongoing grants for research, education and development.

In business, Ford offered profit sharing to select employees who stayed with the company for six months and, most important, who conducted their lives in a respectable manner.

At the same time, the company's "Social Department" looked into an employee’s drinking, gambling and otherwise uncouth activities to determine eligibility for participation.

Henry Ford, Anti-Semite

Despite Ford’s philanthropic leanings, he was a committed anti-Semite. He even went as far as to support a weekly newspaper, The Dearborn Independent , which furthered such views.

Ford published a number of anti-Semitic pamphlets, including a 1921 pamphlet, "The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem.” Ford was awarded the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the most important award Nazis gave to foreigners, by Adolf Hitler in 1938.

In 1998, a lawsuit filed in Newark, New Jersey, accused the Ford Motor Company of profiting from the forced labor of thousands of people at one of its truck factories in Cologne, Germany during World War II . The Ford company, in turn, said the factory was under the control of the Nazis, not the American corporate headquarters.

In 2001, Ford Motor Company released a study which found that the company did not profit from the German subsidiary, at the same time promising to donate $4 million to human rights studies focused on slavery and forced labor.

Ford died on April 7, 1947, of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 83, near his Dearborn estate, Fair Lane.

Henry Ford Museum

Ford was an avid collector of Americana, with a particular interest in technological innovations and the lives of ordinary people: farmers, factory workers, shopkeepers and business people. He decided to create a place where their lives and interests could be celebrated.

Opening in 1933, the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, displays the thousands of objects Ford collected and many more-recent additions, such as clocks and watches, an Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, presidential limousines and other exhibits.

Also on display in the expansive outdoor Greenfield Village are operational railroad roundhouses and engines, the Wright Brothers bicycle shop, a replica of Thomas Edison's Menlo Park laboratory and Ford's relocated birthplace.

Ford's vision for the museum was stated as, "When we are through, we shall have reproduced American life as lived; and that, I think, is the best way of preserving at least a part of our history and tradition."

Thomas Edison

"],["

Adolf Hitler

"]]" tml-render-layout="inline">

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Henry Ford
• Birth Year: 1863
• Birth date: July 30, 1863
• Birth State: Michigan
• Birth City: Wayne County
• Birth Country: United States
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Henry Ford was an industrialist who revolutionized assembly line production for the automobile, making the Model T one of America’s greatest inventions.
• Business and Industry
• Astrological Sign: Leo
• Goldsmith, Bryant & Stratton Business College in Detroit
• Interesting Facts
• Upon Thomas Edison's blessing, Henry Ford sought to make a better car model and eventually started his own company.
• Ford became renowned for his revolutionary vision: the manufacture of an inexpensive automobile made by skilled workers who earn steady wages.
• Despite his pacifism and philanthropy, Ford was strongly anti-Semitic.
• Death Year: 1947
• Death date: April 7, 1947
• Death State: Michigan
• Death City: Dearborn
• Death Country: United States

We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us !

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Henry Ford Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/business-leaders/henry-ford
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: September 5, 2019
• Original Published Date: April 3, 2014
• The only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today.
• Failure is simply an opportunity to begin again; this time more intelligently.
• The only real mistake is one from which we learn nothing.
• If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said, 'Faster horses.'
• Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes shine to the stars.
• Vision without execution is just hallucination.
• A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.
• You don't have to hold a position in order to be a leader.
• Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.
• Don't find fault, find a remedy.
• Whether you think you can, or you think you can't—you're right.

Philanthropists

Michael J. Fox

Alec Baldwin

Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales

Tyler Childers

Prince William

Michelle Obama

Oprah Winfrey

Madam C.J. Walker

Prince Harry

Jimmy Carter

Rosalynn Carter

Dolly Parton

• History Classics
• Your Profile
• Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window)
• This Day In History
• History Podcasts
• History Vault

By: History.com Editors

Updated: March 26, 2020 | Original: November 9, 2009

While working as an engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit, Henry Ford (1863-1947) built his first gasoline-powered horseless carriage, the Quadricycle, in the shed behind his home. In 1903, he established the Ford Motor Company, and five years later the company rolled out the first Model T. In order to meet overwhelming demand for the revolutionary vehicle, Ford introduced revolutionary new mass-production methods, including large production plants, the use of standardized, interchangeable parts and, in 1913, the world’s first moving assembly line for cars. Enormously influential in the industrial world, Ford was also outspoken in the political realm. Ford drew controversy for his pacifist stance during the early years of World War I and earned widespread criticism for his anti-Semitic views and writings.

Henry Ford: Early Life & Engineering Career

Born in 1863, Henry Ford was the first surviving son of William and Mary Ford, who owned a prosperous farm in Dearborn, Michigan. At 16, he left home for the nearby city of Detroit, where he found apprentice work as a machinist. He returned to Dearborn and work on the family farm after three years, but continued to operate and service steam engines and work occasional stints in Detroit factories. In 1888, he married Clara Bryant, who had grown up on a nearby farm.

Did you know? The mass production techniques Henry Ford championed eventually allowed Ford Motor Company to turn out one Model T every 24 seconds.

In the first several years of their marriage, Ford supported himself and his new wife by running a sawmill. In 1891, he returned with Clara to Detroit, where he was hired as an engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company. Rising quickly through the ranks, he was promoted to chief engineer two years later. Around the same time, Clara gave birth to the couple’s only son, Edsel Bryant Ford. On call 24 hours a day for his job at Edison, Ford spent his irregular hours on his efforts to build a gasoline-powered horseless carriage, or automobile. In 1896, he completed what he called the “Quadricycle,” which consisted of a light metal frame fitted with four bicycle wheels and powered by a two-cylinder, four-horsepower gasoline engine.

Henry Ford: Birth of Ford Motor Company and the Model T

Determined to improve upon his prototype, Ford sold the Quadricycle in order to continue building other vehicles. He received backing from various investors over the next seven years, some of whom formed the Detroit Automobile Company (later the Henry Ford Company) in 1899. His partners, eager to put a passenger car on the market, grew frustrated with Ford’s constant need to improve, and Ford left his namesake company in 1902. (After his departure, it was reorganized as the Cadillac Motor Car Company.) The following year, Ford established the Ford Motor Company.

A month after the Ford Motor Company was established, the first Ford car—the two-cylinder, eight-horsepower Model A—was assembled at a plant on Mack Avenue in Detroit. At the time, only a few cars were assembled per day, and groups of two or three workers built them by hand from parts that were ordered from other companies. Ford was dedicated to the production of an efficient and reliable automobile that would be affordable for everyone; the result was the Model T , which made its debut in October 1908.

Henry Ford: Production & Labor Innovations

The “Tin Lizzie,” as the Model T was known, was an immediate success, and Ford soon had more orders than the company could satisfy. As a result, he put into practice techniques of mass production that would revolutionize American industry, including the use of large production plants; standardized, interchangeable parts; and the moving assembly line. Mass production significantly cut down on the time required to produce an automobile, which allowed costs to stay low. In 1914, Ford also increased the daily wage for an eight-hour day for his workers to $5 (up from $2.34 for nine hours), setting a standard for the industry.

Even as production went up, demand for the Tin Lizzie remained high, and by 1918, half of all cars in America were Model Ts. In 1919, Ford named his son Edsel as president of Ford Motor Company, but he retained full control of the company’s operations. After a court battle with his stockholders, led by brothers Horace and John Dodge, Henry Ford bought out all minority stockholders by 1920. In 1927, Ford moved production to a massive industrial complex he had built along the banks of the River Rouge in Dearborn, Michigan. The plant included a glass factory, steel mill, assembly line and all other necessary components of automotive production. That same year, Ford ceased production of the Model T, and introduced the new Model A, which featured better horsepower and brakes, among other improvements. By that time, the company had produced some 15 million Model Ts, and Ford Motor Company was the largest automotive manufacturer in the world. Ford opened plants and operations throughout the world.

Henry Ford: Later Career & Controversial Views

The Model A proved to be a relative disappointment, and was outsold by both Chevrolet (made by General Motors) and Plymouth (made by Chrysler); it was discontinued in 1931. In 1932, Ford introduced the first V-8 engine, but by 1936 the company had dropped to number three in sales in the automotive industry. Despite his progressive policies regarding the minimum wage, Ford waged a long battle against unionization of labor, refusing to come to terms with the United Automobile Workers (UAW) even after his competitors did so. In 1937, Ford security staff clashed with UAW organizers in the so-called “Battle of the Overpass,” at the Rouge plant, after which the National Labor Relations Board ordered Ford to stop interfering with union organization. Ford Motor Company signed its first contract with UAW in 1941, but not before Henry Ford considered shutting down the company to avoid it.

Ford’s political views earned him widespread criticism over the years, beginning with his campaign against U.S. involvement in World War I . He made a failed bid for a U.S. Senate seat in 1918, narrowly losing in a campaign marked by personal attacks from his opponent. In the Dearborn Independent, a local newspaper he bought in 1918, Ford published a number of anti-Semitic writings that were collected and published as a four volume set called The International Jew. Though he later renounced the writings and sold the paper, he expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and Germany, and in 1938 accepted the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the Nazi regime’s highest medal for a foreigner.

Edsel Ford died in 1943, and Henry Ford returned to the presidency of Ford Motor Company briefly before handing it over to his grandson, Henry Ford II, in 1945. He died two years later at his Dearborn home, at the age of 83.

HISTORY Vault: The Cars That Made America

Explore the stories of the visionaries who built America’s vehicle landscape.

Sign up for Inside History

Get HISTORY’s most fascinating stories delivered to your inbox three times a week.

By submitting your information, you agree to receive emails from HISTORY and A+E Networks. You can opt out at any time. You must be 16 years or older and a resident of the United States.

More details : Privacy Notice | Terms of Use | Contact Us

Biography of Henry Ford, American Industrialist and Inventor

Bettmann  / Getty Imges

• Famous Inventors
• Famous Inventions
• Patents & Trademarks
• Invention Timelines
• Computers & The Internet
• American History
• African American History
• African History
• Ancient History and Culture
• Asian History
• European History
• Latin American History
• Medieval & Renaissance History
• Military History
• The 20th Century
• Women's History

Henry Ford (July 30, 1863–April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist and business magnate best known for founding the Ford Motor Company and promoting the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. A prolific innovator and shrewd businessman, Ford was responsible for the Model T and Model A automobiles, as well as the popular Fordson farm tractor, the V8 engine, a submarine chaser, and the Ford Tri-Motor "Tin Goose" passenger airplane. No stranger to controversy, the often outspoken Ford was also known for promoting anti-Semitism .

Fast Facts: Henry Ford

• Known For: American industrialist, founder of the Ford Motor Company
• Born: July 30, 1863 in Dearborn, Michigan
• Parents: Mary Litogot Ahern Ford and William Ford
• Died: April 7, 1947 in Dearborn, Michigan
• Education: Goldsmith, Bryant & Stratton Business University 1888—1890
• Published Works: My Life and Work
• Spouse: Clara Jane Bryant
• Children: Edsel Ford (November 6, 1893–May 26, 1943)
• Notable Quote: “The only true test of values, either of men or of things, is that of their ability to make the world a better place in which to live.” 

Henry Ford was born on July 30, 1863 to William Ford and Mary Litogot Ahern on the family’s farm near Dearborn, Michigan. He was the eldest of six children in a family of four boys and two girls. His father William was a native of County Cork, Ireland, who fled the Irish potato famine with two borrowed IR£ pounds and a set of carpentry tools to come to the United States in 1847. His mother Mary, the youngest child of Belgian immigrants, was born in Michigan. When Henry Ford was born, the United States was in the midst of the Civil War .

Ford completed first through eighth grades in two one-room schoolhouses, the Scottish Settlement School and the Miller School. The Scottish Settlement School building was eventually moved to Ford's Greenfield Village and opened to tourists. Ford was particularly devoted to his mother, and when she died in 1876, his father expected Henry to run the family farm. However, he hated farm work, later recalling, “I never had any particular love for the farm—it was the mother on the farm I loved.”

After the 1878 harvest, Ford abruptly left the farm, walking off without permission to Detroit, where he stayed with his father's sister Rebecca. He took a job at the streetcar manufacturer Michigan Car Company Works, but was fired after six days and had to return home.

In 1879, William got Henry an apprenticeship at the James Flower and Brothers Machine shop in Detroit, where he lasted nine months. He left that job for a position at the Detroit Dry Dock Company, which was a pioneer in iron ships and Bessemer steel. Neither job paid him enough to cover his rent, so he took a night job with a jeweler, cleaning and repairing watches.

Henry Ford returned to the farm in 1882, where he operated a small portable steam threshing machine—the Westinghouse Agricultural Engine—for a neighbor. He was very good at it, and over the summers of 1883 and 1884, he was hired by the company to operate and repair engines made and sold in Michigan and northern Ohio.

In December 1885, Ford met Clara Jane Bryant (1866–1950) at a New Year's Eve party and they married on April 11, 1888. The couple would have one son, Edsel Bryant Ford (1893–1943).

Ford continued to work the farm—his father gave him an acreage—but his heart was in tinkering. He clearly had a business in mind. Over the winters of 1888 through 1890, Henry Ford enrolled in Goldsmith, Bryant & Stratton Business University in Detroit, where he likely took penmanship, bookkeeping, mechanical drawing, and general business practices.

The Road to the Model T

By the early 1890s, Ford was convinced that he could construct a horseless carriage. He didn't know enough about electricity, however, so in September 1891 he took a job with the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit. After his first and only son Edsel was born on November 6, 1893, Ford was promoted to chief engineer. By 1896, Ford had built his first working horseless carriage, which he named a quadricycle. He sold it in order to finance work on an improved model—a delivery wagon.

On April 17, 1897, Ford applied for a patent for a carburetor, and on August 5, 1899, the Detroit Automobile Company was formed. Ten days later, Ford quit the Edison Illuminating Company. And on January 12, 1900, the Detroit Automobile Company released the delivery wagon as its first commercial automobile, designed by Henry Ford.

Ford Motor Company and the Model T 

Ford incorporated the Ford Motor Company in 1903, proclaiming, "I will build a car for the great multitude." In October 1908, he did so, as the first Model T rolled off the assembly line. Ford numbered his models by the letters of the alphabet, although not all of them made it to production. First priced at $950, the Model T eventually dipped as low as $280 during its 19 years of production. Nearly 15,000,000 were sold in the United States alone, a record that would stand for the next 45 years. The Model T heralded the beginning of the Motor Age. Ford's innovation was a car that evolved from a luxury item for the wealthy to an essential form of transportation for the “ordinary man,” which that ordinary man could afford and maintain by himself.

Thanks to Ford’s nationwide publicity effort, half of all cars in the United States were Model Ts by 1918. Every new Model T was black. In his autobiography, Ford famously wrote, “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.”

Ford, who distrusted accountants, managed to amass one of the world's largest fortunes without ever having his company audited. Without an accounting department, Ford reportedly guessed how much money was being taken in and spent each month by separating the company's bills and invoices and weighing them on a scale. The company would continue to be privately-owned by the Ford family until 1956, when the first shares of Ford Motor Company stock were issued.

While Ford did not invent the assembly line , he championed it and used it to revolutionize manufacturing processes in the United States. By 1914, his Highland Park, Michigan, plant used innovative production techniques to turn out a complete chassis every 93 minutes. This was a stunning improvement over the earlier production time of 728 minutes. Using a constantly-moving assembly line, a subdivision of labor, and careful coordination of operations, Ford realized huge gains in productivity and personal wealth.

In 1914, Ford began paying his employees $5 a day, nearly doubling the wages offered by other manufacturers. He cut the workday from nine to eight hours in order to convert the factory to a three-shift workday. Ford's mass-production techniques would eventually allow for the manufacture of a Model T every 24 seconds. His innovations made him an international celebrity.

By 1926, faltering sales of the Model T finally convinced Ford a new model was needed. Even as production of the Ford Model T ended on May 27, 1927, Ford was working on its replacement, the Model A.

The Model A, the V8, and the Tri-Motor

In designing the Model A, Ford focused on the engine, chassis, and other mechanical necessities, while his son Edsel designed the body. With little formal training in mechanical engineering himself, Ford turned much of the actual design of the Model A to a talented team of engineers working under his direction and close supervision.

The first successful Ford Model A was introduced in December 1927. By the time production ended in 1931, more than 4 million Model As had rolled off the assembly line. It was at this point Ford decided to follow the marketing lead of his main competitor General Motors in presenting annual model enhancements as a means of boosting sales. During the 1930s, the Ford-owned Universal Credit Corporation became a major car-financing operation.

As the company’s design change for 1932, Ford set the auto industry on its ear with the revolutionary flathead Ford V8, the first low-price eight-cylinder engine. Variants of the flathead V8 would be used in Ford vehicles for 20 years, with its power and dependability leaving it an iconic engine among hot-rod builders and car collectors.

As a lifelong pacifist, Ford refused to produce arms for either world wars, but he did make engines suitable for aircraft, jeeps, and ambulances. Made by the Ford Airplane Company, the Ford Tri-Motor, or "Tin Goose," was the mainstay of the earliest airplane passenger service between the late 1920s and early 1930s. Even though only 199 were ever built, Ford's all-metal construction, 15-passenger capacity planes suited the needs of almost all of the early airlines until newer, larger, and faster planes from Boeing and Douglas became available.

Other Projects  

Although best known for the Model T, Ford was a restless man and had a substantial number of side projects. One of his most successful was a farm tractor, called the Fordson, which he began developing in 1906. It was built on a Model B engine with a large water tank in place of a standard radiator. By 1916, he had built working prototypes, and when World War I started, he produced them internationally. The Fordson continued to be made in the U.S. until 1928; his factories in Cork, Ireland, and Dagenham, England, made Fordsons throughout World War II.

During World War I, he designed the "Eagle," a submarine chaser powered by a steam turbine. It carried an advanced submarine detection device. Sixty were put into service by 1919, but the costs of development were much higher than original estimates—for one thing, Ford had to excavate canals near his plants to test and transport the new ships.

Ford also built hydroelectric plants, eventually constructing 30 of them, including two for the U.S. government: one on the Hudson River near Troy, New York, and one on the Mississippi River at Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. He had a project called Ford Estates, in which he would buy up properties and rehab them for other purposes. In 1931, he bought the 18th-century manor Boreham House in Essex, England, and a surrounding 2,000 acres of land. He never lived there but set up Boreham House as an Institute of Agricultural Engineering to train men and women on new technologies. Another Ford Estates project was cooperative farming properties in several rural areas in the U.S. and U.K., where people lived in cottages and raised crops and animals.

After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, Ford became one of the major U.S. military contractors, supplying airplanes, engines, jeeps, and tanks throughout World War II.

Later Career and Death

When Ford’s son Edsel, then president of Ford Motor Company, died of cancer in May 1943, the elderly and ailing Henry Ford decided to reassume the presidency. Now nearly 80 years old, Ford had already suffered several possible heart attacks or strokes, and was described as having become mentally unstable, unpredictable, suspicious, and generally no longer fit to lead the company. However, having had de facto control of the company for the last 20 years, Ford convinced the board of directors to elect him. With Ford serving until the end of World War II, Ford Motor Company declined sharply, losing more than $10 million a month—nearly $150 million today.

In September 1945, with his health failing, Ford retired and ceded the presidency of the company to his grandson, Henry Ford II. Henry Ford died at age 83 on April 7, 1947, of a cerebral hemorrhage at his Fair Lane estate in Dearborn, Michigan. More than 5,000 people per hour filed past his casket at a public viewing held at Greenfield Village. Funeral services were held in Detroit's Cathedral Church of St. Paul, after which Ford was buried in the Ford Cemetery in Detroit.

Legacy and Controversy

Ford's affordable Model T irrevocably altered American society. As more Americans owned cars, urbanization patterns changed. The United States saw the growth of suburbia, the creation of a national highway system, and a population entranced with the possibility of going anywhere anytime. Ford witnessed many of these changes during his lifetime, all the while personally longing for the agrarian lifestyle of his youth.

Unfortunately, Ford was also criticized as an anti-Semite. In 1918, Ford purchased a then-obscure weekly newspaper called The Dearborn Independent, in which he regularly expressed his strongly anti-Semitic views. Ford required all of his auto dealerships nationwide to carry the Independent and distribute it to its customers. Ford's anti-Semitic articles were also published in Germany, prompting Nazi Party leader Heinrich Himmler to describe him as “one of our most valuable, important, and witty fighters.”

In Ford’s defense, however, his Ford Motor Company was one of the few major corporations known for actively hiring Black workers during the early 1900s, and was never accused of discriminating against Jewish workers. In addition, Ford was among the first companies of the day to regularly hire women and handicapped persons.

Sources and Further References

• Bryan, Ford Richardson. "Beyond the Model T: The Other Ventures of Henry Ford." 2nd ed. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1997.
• Bryan, Ford R. "Clara: Mrs. Henry Ford.” Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2013.
• Ford, Henry and Crowther, Samuel (1922). "My Life and Work." CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014.
• Lewis, David L. "The Public Image of Henry Ford: An American Folk Hero and His Company." Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1976.
• Swigger, Jessica. "History Is Bunk: Historical Memories at Henry Ford's Greenfield Village." University of Texas , 2008.
• Weiss, David A. "The Saga of the Tin Goose: The Story of the Ford Tri-Motor." 3rd ed. Trafford, 2013.
• Wik, Reynold M. "Henry Ford and Grass-roots America." Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1973.
• Glock, Charles Y. and Quinley, Harold E. “Anti-Semitism in America.” Transaction Publishers, 1983.
• Allen, Michael Thad. “The Business of Genocide: The SS, Slave Labor, and the Concentration Camps.” University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
• Wood, John Cunningham and Michael C. Wood (eds). "Henry Ford: Critical Evaluations in Business and Management, Volume 1." London: Routledge, 2003.

Updated by Robert Longley .

• Henry Ford's Greatest Quotes
• Biography of Mary Anderson, Inventor of the Windshield Wiper
• History's 15 Most Famous Inventors
• Famous Automobile Makers
• Henry Blair - African American Inventor
• Black History Month - African American Inventors
• Biography of Samuel Colt, American Inventor and Industrialist
• Women Inventors A to Z
• Biography of George Pullman, Inventor of the Railroad Sleeping Car
• A Biography of Henry T. Sampson
• Biography of Thomas Newcomen, Inventor of the Steam Engine
• Biography of Cyrus Field
• Biography of Garrett Morgan, Inventor of the Gas Mask
• Biography of Humphry Davy, Prominent English Chemist
• Henry Brown - Inventor
• Biography of John Lee Love, Portable Pencil Sharpener Inventor

• World Biography

Henry Ford Biography

Born: July 30, 1863 Dearborn, Michigan Died: April 7, 1947 Dearborn, Michigan American automobile pioneer and industrialist

After founding the Ford Motor Company, the American industrialist Henry Ford developed a system of mass production based on the assembly line and the conveyor belt which produced low-priced cars that were affordable to middleclass Americans.

Ford's early years

The oldest of six children, Henry Ford was born on July 30, 1863, on a prosperous farm near Dearborn, Michigan. He attended school until the age of fifteen, at which time he developed a dislike of farm life and a fascination for machinery. He had little interest in school and was a poor student. He never learned to spell or to read well. Ford would write using only the simplest of sentences. He instead preferred to work with mechanical objects, particularly watches. He repaired his first watch when he was thirteen years old, and would continue to repair watches for enjoyment throughout his life. Although he did not like working on the farm, he did learn that there was great value in working hard and being responsible.

In 1879 Ford left for Detroit, Michigan, to become an apprentice (a person who works for another to learn a specific skill or trade) at a machine shop. He then moved to the Detroit Drydock Company. During his apprenticeship he received $2.50 a week, but room and board cost $3.50 so he labored nights repairing clocks and watches. He later worked for Westinghouse, locating and repairing road engines.

Ford's father wanted him to be a farmer and offered him forty acres of timberland, provided he give up machinery. Ford accepted the proposal, then built a first-class machinist's workshop on the property. His father was disappointed, but Ford did use the two years on the farm to win a bride, Clara Bryant.

Ford's first car

Ford began to spend more and more time in Detroit working for the Edison Illuminating Company, which later became the Detroit Edison Company. By 1891 he had left the farm permanently. Four years later he became chief engineer. While at the Edison Illuminating Company he met Thomas A. Edison (1847–1931), who eventually became one of his closest friends.

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 perform useful work. His first car, finished in 1896, followed the attempts, some successful, of many other innovators. His was a small car driven by a two-cylinder, four-cycle motor and by far the lightest (500 pounds) of the early American vehicles. The car was mounted on bicycle wheels and had no reverse gear.

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 did gain some status through the building of racing cars, which resulted in the "999," driven by the famous Barney Oldfield (1878–1946).

Ford Motor Company

By this time Ford had conceived the idea of a low-priced car for the masses, but this notion flew in the face of popular thought, which considered cars as only for the rich. After the "999" victories, Alex Y. Malcomson, a Detroit coal dealer, offered to aid Ford in a new company. The result was the Ford Motor Company, founded in 1903, with its small, $28,000 financing supplied mostly by Malcomson. However, exchanges of stock were made to obtain a small plant, motors, and transmissions. Ford's stock was in return for his services. Much of the firm's success can be credited to Ford's assistants—James S. Couzens, C. H. Wills, and John and Horace Dodge.

By 1903 over fifteen hundred firms had attempted to enter the new and struggling automobile industry, but only a few, such as Ransom Eli Olds (1864–1950), had become firmly established. Ford began production of a Model A, which imitated the Oldsmobile, and followed with other models, to the letter S. The public responded, and the company flourished. By 1907 profits exceeded $1,100,000, and the net worth of the company stood at $1,038,822.

Ford also defeated the Selden patent (the legal rights given to a company or person for the sole use, sale, or production of an item for a limited period of time), which had been granted on a "road engine" in 1895. Rather than challenge the patent's legal soundness, manufacturers secured a license to produce engines. When Ford was denied such a license, he fought back; after eight years of legal action, the courts decided the patent was valid but not violated. The case gave the Ford Company valuable publicity, with Ford cast as the underdog, but by the time the issue was settled, the situation had been reversed.

New principles

In 1909 Ford made the important decision to manufacture only one type of car—the Model T, or the "Tin Lizzie." By now he firmly controlled the company, having bought out Malcomson. 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 rapid expansion Ford held firmly 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. In 1914 he startled the industrial world by raising the minimum wage to five dollars a day, almost double the company's average wage. In addition, the "Tin Lizzie" had dropped in price to $600; it later went down to $360.

World War I

Ford was now an internationally known figure, but his public activities were less successful than his industrial ones. In 1915 his peace ship, the Oskar II, sailed to Europe to seek an end to World War I (1914–18; a war fought between the German-led Central powers and the Allies: England, the United States, Italy, and other nations). His suit against the Chicago Tribune for calling him an anarchist (a person who desires to change the existing government) received unfortunate publicity. In 1918 his race for the U.S. Senate as a Democrat met a narrow defeat. Ford's worst mistake was his approval of an anti-Semitic (anti-Jewish) campaign waged by the Ford-owned newspaper, the Dearborn Independent.

When the United States entered World War I, Ford's output of military equipment and his promise to give back all profits on war production (which he never did) silenced the critics. By the end of the conflict his giant River Rouge plant, the world's largest industrial facility, was near completion. Ford gained total control of the company by buying the outstanding stock.

In the early 1920s the company continued its rapid growth, at one point producing 60 percent of the total United States output. But problems began to arise. Ford was an inflexible man and continued to rely on the Model T, even as public tastes shifted. By the middle of the decade Ford had lost his dominant position to the General Motors (GM) company. He finally saw his error and in 1927 stopped production of the Model T. However, since the new Model A was not produced for eighteen months, there was a good deal of unemployment among Ford workers. The new car still did not permanently overtake the GM competition, Chevrolet, and Ford remained second.

Final years

Ford's last years were frustrating. He never accepted the changes brought about by the Great Depression (a period in the 1930s marked by severe economic hardship) and the 1930s New Deal, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's (1882–1945) plan to help the United States recover from the Great Depression. He fell under the spell of Harry Bennett, a notorious figure with connections to organized crime, who, as head of Ford's security department, influenced every phase of company operations and created friction between Ford and his son Edsel. For various reasons Ford, alone in his industry, refused to cooperate with the National Recovery Administration, a 1930s government agency that prepared and oversaw codes of fair competition for businesses and industries. He did not like labor unions, refused to recognize the United Automobile Workers (UAW), and brutally restricted their attempts to organize the workers of his company.

Ford engaged in some philanthropic or charitable activity, such as the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. The original purpose of the Ford Foundation, established in 1936 and now one of the world's largest foundations, was to avoid estate taxes. Ford's greatest philanthropic accomplishment was the Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan.

A stroke in 1938 slowed Ford, but he did not trust Edsel and so continued to exercise control of his company. During World War II (1939–45; a war fought between the Axis: Germany, Italy, and Japan—and the Allies: England, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States), Ford at first made pacifist, or peace-minded, statements, but changed his mind and contributed greatly to the war effort. Ford's grandson, Henry Ford II, took over the company after the war. Henry Ford died on April 7, 1947, in Dearborn.

For More Information

Brough, James. The Ford Dynasty: An American Story. New York: Doubleday, 1977.

Collier, Peter, and David Horowitz. The Fords: An American Epic. San Francisco: Summit, 2001.

Kent, Zachary. The Story of Henry Ford and the Automobile. Chicago: Children's Press, 1990.

McCarthy, Pat. Henry Ford: Building Cars for Everyone. Berkeley Hts., NJ: Enslow, 2002.

Middleton, Haydn. Henry Ford: The People's Carmaker. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Weitzman, David L. Model T: How Henry Ford Built a Legend. New York: Crown, 2002.

User Contributions:

Comment about this article, ask questions, or add new information about this topic:.

Biography Online

Henry Ford Biography

Henry Ford (1863–1947) was an industrialist who changed the face of automobile manufacture in America, becoming the epitome of American Capitalism. He lent his name to ‘Fordism’ – efficient mass production.

Henry Ford Early Life

Shortly after his mother passed away, Henry left the family farm to seek employment in Detroit. He worked his way up to becoming an engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company. By 1893 he had become chief engineer and gained the recognition and encouragement of Thomas Edison. Henry Ford retained a deep affection for Thomas Edison throughout his life.

The Model T

1910 Ford Model T

It was working as chief engineer at Edison’s that he was able to work on a petrol drive quadricycle. His testing was successful, and this enabled him to develop the quadricycle into a small car. In the late 1890s, he quit Edison Illuminating Company to form his own motor car company. In 1903 the Ford Motor Company was born with the backing of $28,000 from various investors. He worked assiduously on the optimal components for a new car. The company developed the Model A, B, C, F, N before coming out with the famous Model T in 1908. The Model T had many limitations – no speedometer, no starter, no oil gauge, an idiosyncratic gear system, different sized front and back wheels and headlights which ran off a dynamo. However, it was remarkably cheap and over the years, Ford constantly sought to improve the efficiency of the assembly line, enabling higher output and lower costs.

“I will build a car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be 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.” – Henry Ford “My Life and Work” (1922)

In its first year of production, it sold 10,607 cars and for the next five years output roughly doubled until by 1914, a quarter of a million Model T cars were rolling off his assembly lines with Ford making a profit of $27 million. By 1921, the number of cars produced had risen to 1.25 million. Despite their quirks, they were very popular with working families and farmers, who for the first time saw a motor car as a realistic proposal and not just the plaything of the rich. Such was its reliability that farmers bought the Model-T and converted it to work as a tractor.

Working Practices of Henry Ford

A drawback of Ford’s assembly line was that the work was very monotonous and highly regulated, workers were only given a very limited time for breaks and they were metaphorically chained to their post. As a result, the company experienced very high labour turnover, it was difficult to get people to stay. Ford’s solution was revolutionary, he significantly increased wages to $5 a day – far above the national average for workers. This solved the problem of labour turnover as the rewards outstripped the cost. He was even criticised by fellow capitalists for seemingly over-generous pay, but in reply, he pointed out that the high wage helped the workers to be able to afford the cars they were making.

It was Henry Ford who also revolutionised the production line processes. He helped to develop the assembly line method of production and was always seeking to cut costs. Although he did not ‘invent’ the assembly line, he did make one of the most successful commercial applications of its potential. This led to his decision to give customers any colour they choose so long as it was black.

“Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.” –  My Life and Work (1922) Chapter IV, p. 71

The motive for insisting on black was because black was the quickest colour to dry and therefore the cheapest.

The impact of the assembly line was to help reduce the cost of the Model T motor car. It helped Ford become the dominant firm in the motor car industry. An estimation from 1932 suggested Ford was producing 33% of the world’s automobile production.

Relative decline

Although Ford played a crucial role in the development of the motor company, in the early days of the company, he also relied heavily on the organisation and management of his Canadian partner James Couzens to promote and distribute the cars. Couzens had a great instinct for business. But, Ford and Couzens often fell out, and Ford resented the high salary of Couzens ($150,000 a year in 1914). In 1915, Couzens sold out and left the company. Ford continued to grow and expand, however by the 1920s, rival motor companies started to chip away at Ford’s dominance. In particular, General Motors and Chrysler replicated Ford’s efficiency but they were able to offer better cars, such as cars with an automatic starter. From the mid 1920s, Ford saw its market share slip.

Other interests

In the 1920s, Ford became interested in other projects outside the motor industry. He was fascinated with the properties of the soybean and its versatility in creating different foodstuffs. In 1927, he launched an ambitious project to develop his own rubber supply in Brazil. Ford didn’t like being at the mercy of imports from the British Empire with a lack of control over costs. He aimed to build a model plantation and town on the edges of the Amazon rainforest. However, the project was an expensive failure, with rubber proving hard to grow in Brazil and the project was beset with high costs and a high death rate of workers.

Battle with the unions

Whilst Henry Ford paid a high wage, he was hostile to the role of trades unions. For a long time, he battled against the trades unions, refusing to have anything to do them. Ford employed the notorious Harry Bennett who was ruthless in attacking those seeking to unionise. In 1932, Bennett’s armed men shot and killed five workers at Ford’s River Rouge Complex.

Strike at Ford Motor Company

In 1937, the great union leader Walter Reuther began distributing leaflets at the Ford factory in Michigan, with the simple slogan ‘Unionism not Fordism.’ Again, Ford’s hired thugs viciously beat up Reuther and other trades unionists. However, this time the event was witnessed by journalists – in what became known as the “Battle of the Overpass.” The brutality shifted public opinion away from car owners to workers wishing to unionise. In 1941, with the workers again on strike, his wife encouraged Ford to capitulate to the United Auto Workers (UAW) and Ford finally agreed to the recognition of unions.

Views on Peace and War

Henry Ford had a dislike of war. He helped to fund a peace ship to Europe in 1915 and spoke out against the ‘vague financiers who encourage war’.

“Instead, many of these business men are working hand in glove with the military men who start, drive and end the wars. And they are in it for what they can get out of the murder to fatten their wallets. They work for the very conditions that pre- vent good wages and steady work for willing men. What will they do with their surplus of munition-makers when the war is ended?”

– Henry Ford, Published September 5, 1915 in the Detroit Free Press

In the lead up to the Second World War, like many Americans, he advocated an isolationist stance. Even after Pearl Harbour, he never got involved in the Second World War effort, though he allowed other officials in the Ford company to transform Ford into one of the biggest military plane builders of the war.

Henry Ford generally did not affiliate to a political party. However, in 1924, Woodrow Wilson persuaded him to run for the Senate as a Democrat. After narrowly losing his bid, he did not get involved in party politics again.

Anti-semitic views

Henry Ford also subscribed to various anti-semitic pamphlets and in the 1920s bought his own newspaper and turned it into his own general magazine. The magazine did not sell well because the articles were often obtuse with little popular appeal. However, Ford continued to put money into magazine and pushed the magazine at Ford motor showrooms across the country. The magazine printed several anti-semitic articles accusing Jews of controlling the media, Hollywood and even fixing baseball’s World Series of 1921. Ford felt it was perfectly rational to have no prejudice to individual Jews (he employed a good Jewish friend Albert Kahn to design his factories) whilst at the same time holding political views which were prejudicial.

However, in 1927, his magazine was sued by a Jewish lawyer named Aaron Shapiro who had been defamed in Ford’s independent with typical anti-semitic smears. The case went to trial and Ford was called to testify. One day before he was due to testify, he had a serious road accident and the trial had to be rescheduled. Before the trial came to cour, Ford decided to send a letter of apology, pay costs and promise not to repeat the smears. The Independent was closed with a loss of $5 million and Ford retreated from making anti-semitic public statements, but his apology may have been written by others in the company, and in private he continued to share his anti-semitic views.

Adolf Hitler openly admired Henry Ford (he had a picture of Ford in his room). Ford is the only foreigner mentioned in Mein Kampf. Hitler wanted Volkswagen to mirror the production techniques and philosophy of Ford Motor company. In 1938, Ford accepted the Grand Cross of the German Eagle – the highest civilian honour from Nazi Germany. However, he was sceptical of German militarism saying to the New York Times.

“My acceptance of a medal from the German people does not, as some people seem to think, involve any sympathy on my part with Nazism. Those who have known me for many years realize that anything that breeds hate is repulsive to me”. ( 1 )

Personal qualities

Henry Ford embodied the Protestant work ethic of honest hard work, thrift and continual self-improvement. He has become noted for some of his inspirational self-improvement quotes – emphasising hard work and self-sufficiency.

“You will find men who want to be carried on the shoulders of others, who think that the world owes them a living. They don’t seem to see that we must all lift together and pull together.” – Henry Ford. As quoted in Wisdom & Inspiration for the Spirit and Soul (2004)

Towards the end of his life, he spent considerable time with his friend Thomas Edison , who moved into West Orange, New Jersey. He said that money never particularly appealed to him and throughout his life, he retained his thrifty nature and unwillingness to spend money on himself.

“I never have known what to do with money after my expenses were paid—can’t squander it on myself without hurting myself, and nobody wants to do that. Money is the most useless thing in the world, anyhow.” – Henry Ford’s Own Story, ch.4

Religion of Henry Ford

Ford was brought up in the Episcopalian church, but he was not a committed follower. He adopted a belief of reincarnation into his world view, saying that he believed it took many lives to develop certain skills and abilities.

“Genius is experience. Some seem to think that it is a gift or talent, but it is the fruit of long experience in many lives.”

Talking of religion, he advocated the importance of living rather than studying religion.

“Religion, like everything else, is a thing that should be kept working. I see no use in spending a great deal of time learning about heaven and hell. In my opinion, a man makes his own heaven and hell and carries it around with him. Both of them are states of mind.” ( Henry Ford’s own story )

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “Biography of Henry Ford”, Oxford, www.biographyonline.net , 25th Oct. 2009. Last updated 20 April 2020.

Henry Ford at Amazon

Related pages

Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and many others proved that the contributors of the world have mostly been people of little formal education. Which has been a great inspiration to many others. Most of the others who flaunt various degrees are nearly thr technicians of progress.

• February 13, 2019 10:43 PM
• By David Banner

he got the watch when he was 13, not 15

• February 12, 2019 12:45 AM

Amazing biographies

• November 15, 2018 1:55 AM
• By Rambharat

Amazing people henary ford

• October 30, 2018 4:41 PM

i dont think you spelled henry right BROTHEr

• January 16, 2019 9:55 PM
• By jimmy neutron BOY GENOUS

Inducted 1967

1863 - 1947.

Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company, put the world on wheels with his revolutionary Model T. Ford was born in Springwells Township, Wayne County, Michigan, on July 30, 1863, to Mary and William Ford. He was the eldest of six children in a family of four boys and two girls. His father was a native of County Cork, Ireland, who came to America in 1847 and settled on a farm in Wayne County.  

Young Henry Ford showed an early interest in mechanics. By the time he was 12, he was spending most of his spare time in a small machine shop he had equipped himself. There, at 15, he constructed his first steam engine.  

In July 1891, Ford was hired as an engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company of Detroit. He became chief engineer on November 6, 1893. Thomas Edison became a lifelong mentor and friend to Henry Ford. In 1888, Henry married Clara Jane Bryant, together they had one child, Edsel Bryant Ford, who was born in 1893.   

On August 19, 1899, Ford resigned from the Edison Illuminating Company and, with others, organized the Detroit Automobile Company, which went into bankruptcy about 18 months later. Meanwhile, Henry Ford designed and built several racing cars. In one of them, called Sweepstakes, he defeated Alexander Winton on a track in Grosse Pointe, MI on October 10, 1901. One month later, Henry Ford founded his second automobile venture, the Henry Ford Company. He left that enterprise, which later became the Cadillac Motor Car Company, in early 1902. In another of his racing cars, the 999, he established a world record for the mile, covering the distance in 29.4 seconds on January 12, 1904, on the winter ice of Lake St. Clair.  

Henry Ford founded Ford Motor Company in 1903 with a handful of talented and dedicated employees. In 1908, the first of some 15 million Model T Ford vehicles took to the road. The Model T met the public’s needs perfectly: inexpensive, reliable, easy to repair, and maneuverable on rough and muddy roads. Ford made these cars inexpensively and efficiently using an automated, moving assembly line. The hard, repetitive work of the assembly line resulted in high employee turnover that reduced productivity. Ford responded to that situation in 1914 when he announced that he would pay his workers $5 per day for just eight hours – about twice the going rate. Job seekers applied by the thousands and Ford became a hero to workers who now could afford to buy their own car. In 1923, more than half of America’s cars were Model Ts.  

In 1919, Henry, Clara, and Edsel Ford acquired the interest of all minority stockholders for $105,820,894 and became the sole owners of the Company. Edsel, who succeeded his father as president in 1919, occupied that position until his death in 1943, when Henry returned to the post.     

In September 1945, when he resigned the presidency for a second time, Henry Ford recommended that his grandson, Henry Ford II, be elected to the position. The board of directors followed his recommendation.   

Henry Ford died at his residence, Fair Lane Estate in Dearborn, at 11:40 p.m. on Monday, April 7, 1947, following a cerebral hemorrhage. He was 83 years old. 

Henry Ford was born in Wayne County, MI

Married Clara Jane Bryant

Hired by the Edison Illuminating Company of Detroit

Henry’s only child, Edsel was born

Promoted to chief engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company

Ford left the Edison Illuminating Company and founded The Detroit Automobile Company

After his first company went bankrupt, Ford founded the Henry Ford Company

Created the Ford Motor Company, and sold his first Model T car the same year

Ford became the president and sole owner of the Ford Motor Company

The first fleet of Model Ts hit American roads, forever changing mobility

Changed American labor standards by paying his workers $5 a day for 8 hours of work

Clara and Edsel Ford purchased all remaining Ford Motor Company shares, making the company completely family owned

Henry’s son Edsel passed away forcing Henry to return as the head of the Ford Motor Company

Henry retired and left his grandson, Henry Ford II as his successor

Henry Ford passed away in his childhood home at the age of 83

Henry Ford was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame

• Henry and Edsel: The Creation of the Ford Empire
• My Life & Work - An Autobiography of Henry Ford
• Henry Ford Heritage Association
• Ford Piquette Plant
• Henry Ford Estate
• Model A Ford Foundation
• The Henry Ford Museum

Class of 1967

Walter P. Chrysler

Alfred p. sloan, jr..

Charles F. Kettering

Inductees from related companies, ford motor company, sign up for our mailing list.

• History & Society
• Science & Tech
• Biographies
• Animals & Nature
• Geography & Travel
• Arts & Culture
• Games & Quizzes
• On This Day
• One Good Fact
• New Articles
• Lifestyles & Social Issues
• Philosophy & Religion
• Politics, Law & Government
• World History
• Health & Medicine
• Browse Biographies
• Birds, Reptiles & Other Vertebrates
• Bugs, Mollusks & Other Invertebrates
• Environment
• Fossils & Geologic Time
• Entertainment & Pop Culture
• Sports & Recreation
• Visual Arts
• Demystified
• Image Galleries
• Infographics
• Top Questions
• Britannica Kids
• Saving Earth
• Space Next 50
• Student Center

Henry Ford summary

Henry Ford , (born July 30, 1863, Wayne county, Mich., U.S.—died April 7, 1947, Dearborn, Mich.), U.S. industrialist and pioneer automobile manufacturer. Ford worked his way up from a machinist’s apprentice (at age 15) to the post of chief engineer at the Edison Company in Detroit. He built his first experimental car in 1896. In 1903, with several partners, he formed the Ford Motor Company . In 1908 he designed the Model T; demand became so great that Ford developed new mass-production methods, including the first moving assembly line in 1913. He developed the Model A in 1928 to replace the Model T, and in 1932 he introduced the V-8 engine. He observed an eight-hour workday and paid his workers far above the average, holding that well-paid laborers become the consumers that industrialists require, but strenuously opposed labor unions. As the first to make car ownership affordable to large numbers of Americans, he exerted a vast and permanent influence on American life. Ford agitated against U.S. involvement in World War I, and in 1918 he bought a Michigan newspaper and used it to attack Jews and spread anti-Semitic misinformation. In 1936 he created the Ford Foundation, which later became the richest private philanthropic foundation in the world.

Henry Ford: Biography

"When Ford entered the automobile business, people didn’t drive their own cars, they had drivers. And so cars were seen as this luxury item. Ford’s insight was that cars could be an everyday item." - HW BRANDS, Historian

Henry Ford is born on 30 July 1863 to an Irish immigrant father and a Michigan born mother. Raised on a farm, he soon shows his technical abilities by repairing watches and aged 16, leaves the rural life for an apprenticeship as a machinist. He marries a farmer’s daughter and briefly returns to farming to support his new family. But, in 1896, aged 33, after years of work in his back shed, he finishes his first model car, the Quadricycle. But it’s expensive to produce, and prone to break downs. Thomas Edison recognizes a fellow pioneer and encourages him to try again.

In 1901, in Grosse Point, Michigan, Ford challenges Alexander Winton, the owner of the biggest car company to a race. Alexander Winton is known as the fastest driver in America. Ford has never raced before. Ten miles later, Ford wins and becomes famous.

What is the ultimate American car? #CarsThatMadeAmerica starts 2nd September. pic.twitter.com/jlUPQhP8KO — HISTORY UK (@HISTORYUK) August 25, 2017

In 1903, Ford seeks permission of the patent holders of the automobile, the Association of License Automobile manufacturers, ALAM. One of its members is Alexander Winton. They reject his application.

Determined to carry on, Ford raises $28,000, just enough to build his first factory outside Detroit. And soon, 15 affordable cars a day are rolling off the production line. ALAM take him to court claiming breach of patent. They want royalties on every car he makes, making each car too expensive for the average consumer.

"Henry Ford was able to position himself as an anti monopolist, really in a certain way, as a kind of antithesis of the Rockefellers and the Carnegies. He is a kind of heroic individual entrepreneur, who believed in competition, who believed in developing a product and bringing it to the people." - STEVEN WATTS, Ford Biographer

The judge will eventually find in Ford’s favour, but Ford isn’t waiting for court approval.

THE FIRST AFFORDABLE AUTOMOBILE FOR THE AVERAGE AMERICAN

In 1908, his third model, the Ford Model T goes on sale and demand is such even his new assembly lines can’t keep up and he stops accepting new orders. The Ford motor car is durable and light, weighing only 1,000 pounds. It 4-cylinder engine can do 45 mph.

Crucially, it costs $900 dollars, nearly half the price of its competitors. Until Ford, there were only around 8,000 hand built cars in America. They were the expensive toys of the wealthy. Now his farmer father could afford one. Prices plummet. In 1913, a Model T costs two years wages; nine years later, it’s just 3 months. By then, half of all cars in America were black Model T’s.

With Morganisation, profits are increased by eliminating competition and by reducing workers’ wages. Ford increases wages to increase his employees’ productivity and lowers costs by making a high volume of identical products which, with an assembly line approach, increases profits.

In 1914, Ford pays his workers $5 per day, double the rate of most US factories. And rather than hand craft each car one at a time, they’re assembled piece by piece by a line of workers. The assembly line changes manufacturing forever. Ford didn’t invent mass production. But he perfected it. Ford cars are built eight times faster than any other, reducing production time from 12 hours, to just one and a half.

And this innovation allows Ford to standardise the eight hour workday and the five day week. Ford is also revolutionary in paying blacks and whites the same, a staggering $5 a day, five times more than a tenant farmer in Georgia. His progressive views on race don’t extend to Jews, however, and he supports anti-Semitic propaganda.

In an attempt to end World War I, Ford plans a ‘Peace Ship’ expedition hoping an ocean liner expedition to Europe may hasten a cessation of hostilities. It doesn’t. After the war is finally over, Ford suddenly resigns from his own company and then announces that he’s starting a rival business. Fearing a slide in their shares, Ford stockholders sell. Agents are, however, all too happy to buy. It’s later revealed that the agents worked for Ford, and the whole stunt was devised to return sole ownership to the Ford family.

In 1943, Ford’s only son dies from stomach cancer. Less than four years later, aged 83, the father suffers a cerebral haemorrhage and follows his son.

Most Recent

What does Nostradamus predict for 2025?

How did abolishing the monarchy change France?

9 little known facts about the Battle of Agincourt

The Pickles Report: Alderney’s hidden history exposed

More from history.

The original January 6th: When British forces invaded Washington

Take heart: Bloody execution in the Americas from the Aztecs to the Incas

Surprising family links of US Presidents

What if JFK was never assassinated?

Keep reading.

Who Survived the Alamo?

Facts About Louisiana

Hillary Clinton: 9 Interesting Facts

Custer's ego came out on top

You might be interested in.

6 Things you didn't know about the CIA

Presidential scandals throughout history

10 things you didn't know about Roosevelt

The Unsung Heroes of 9/11

Henry Ford - principles of service of a self-made man

Henry Ford — Biography

Henry Ford was born in 1863, in Dearborn, Michigan, on his family’s farm. There his spent his early years till when at the age of 17 he left it and headed to Detroit to become an apprentice.

In 1882 he finished the apprenticeship and Westinghouse hired him for summer periods to demonstrate their steam engines on different farms. Winter time he spent with his father (his mother died when he was 12) on the farm, building his own steam engine. During one of such winter periods he met his future wife, Clara Bryant, whom he married in 1888 and with whom he moved to Detroit in 1891. There he started working for the Edison Illuminating Company in order to learn more about electricity. Thanks to this and to his work in his free time he managed to design his own gasoline engine ignited by electricity and on June 4, 1896 he completed the Quadricycle — his first successful horseless carriage.

Success of his own construction work made him believe that he could build automobiles for sale and that people need cars, which would be useful and make their lives easier. He tried several companies together with investors, but they disbanded in a short time. At the same time Ford was building and driving his own racecars and this was the first what made his name well known.

The third attempt in creating a company with investors was more successful than previous ones and this way Ford Motor Company was established. On July 15, 1903, the first car, Model A was sold by the Ford Motor Company for 850$. It created an opportunity for Ford to work further and improve design of his cars.

After several models (B, C and F) Ford designed the Model T (1908). It was specially created for mass production and was light, fast and strong. For this car Henry Ford used Vanadium steel (which was found also by him) and allowed the Model T to be much stronger and reliable. He also painted this model black because this color dried faster than others what helped to save extra time in production circle.

Model T became popular very quickly and due to strong demand Ford had to find a way to increase speed of production. Thanks to this, in 1913 he added a motorized assembly line in the plant. Now a car was moved to workers who had to add parts to it while it was passing them.

This invention significantly reduced time and cost of manufacturing and helped Ford to produce cars much faster and to drop prices (from 850$ for the first car the price eventually dropped to 300$). For a period 1908-1925 Ford produced about 15 millions of the Model T cars.

In order to improve productivity and quality of his workers Henry Ford doubled their wages offering 5$ per day which was the highest for those times in the automobile industry. He also set a reduced work week for his employees starting from 6 days for 8 hours (48-hour week) to 5 days for 8 hours (40-hour week).

In an interview to Samuel Crowther he commented it next way:

«We have,» said Henry Ford, «decided upon and at once put into effect through all the branches of our industries the five day week. Hereafter there will be no more work with us on Saturdays and Sundays. These will be free days, but the men, according to merit, will receive the same pay equivalent as for a full six day week. A day will continue to be eight hours, with no overtime.»

«We are now working out the wage schedules. We have stopped thinking in terms of a minimum wage. That belongs to yesterday, before we quite knew what paying high wages meant. Now so few people get the minimum wage that we do not bother about it at all. We try to pay a man what he is worth and we are not inclined to keep a man who is not worth more than the minimum wage.»

These improvements allowed Ford to attract more skillful workers and instead of heavy turnovers, which were in common those days amongst workers, to collect a constant set of skillful mechanics to his factory and to use their experience and knowledge raising productivity and lowering training costs.

Due to the growing demand the company started building of a large industrial complex along the banks of the Rouge River in Dearborn, Michigan. Construction works were completed by September 1927 and the resulting complex included in itself all what was needed for automobile production from steel mill and automotive assembly line to glass factory. It made Rouge Plant one of the biggest in the world in that time and was embodied realization of Henry Ford’s idea of mass automobile production.

In 1918, Henry Ford was asked by the president of USA to run as a Democrat for the United States Senate from Michigan. His candidature was as one of peace and as a supporter of the proposed League of Nations.

This time Henry Ford involved his only son, Edsel Ford, in managing the company and turned the presidency of Ford Motor Company over to him, thou, staying with the final decision authority. In a while they managed to gain control over the whole company thus gaining the family sole ownership over it. Nevertheless, Henry and Edsel Ford not always could find common points about the way their business should be run. For example, when in mid-1920s sales of Model T reduced, Henry Ford declined any ideas of incorporating new features to the model and forming a customer credit plan which were offered and supported by his son. Drop of sales of Model T made Ford finally change his opinion and agree with creation of a new model. Edsel was responsible for the car’s body design and his father for the technical equipment. This resulted in a new, successful Ford Model A, which was introduced in December 1927 and for 3 years of its production made a total output of more than 4 million.

The Ford Motor Company played also a major role in the Allied victory during World War I and World War II. In order to support Europe Henry Ford’s company started mass production for the war effort. The most produced Allied bomber in history, B-24 Liberator bomber, was mostly produced on Ford’s factory, Willow Run (they achieved 600 machines per month in  24-hours shifts).

In May 1943 dies Edsel Ford, Henry Ford’s son. For a while he assumed the presidency of the company, but weak health made him turned it soon to his oldest grandson, Henry Ford II in 1945. Two years later, on April 7, 1947, he died at age 83 in his Dearborn estate. He was buried in the Ford Cemetery in Detroit.

• Related sites

„There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.“

- Henry Ford

English ::: Deutsch ::: Legal ::: Data privacy policy

Henry Ford Biography

Birthday: July 30 , 1863 ( Leo )

Born In: Springwells Township, Michigan, United States

Henry Ford was an American industrialist who founded the ‘Ford Motor Company,’ which sells automobiles and commercial vehicles under the ‘Ford’ brand. He also played a major role in the development of the ‘assembly line’ technique of mass production. Before he started his company, most American middle-class families could not afford automobiles. However, Ford revolutionized the automobile industry by developing and manufacturing affordable automobiles that even the middle-class community could conveniently purchase. Born to a farmer in Greenfield Township, Michigan, he started displaying leadership qualities and technical skills as a young boy. He was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a farmer, but he had other plans for himself. Intelligent and hard-working, he apprenticed with a machinist and went on to become an engineer. Fascinated with automobiles, he started conducting his own experiments in building them. During this time, he became acquainted with the famous inventor Thomas Edison who encouraged his experiments. Motivated, Ford built several automobiles before establishing the ‘Ford Motor Company.’ As an industrialist, he adopted several innovations in his company that revolutionized the entire automobile industry. He was also well-known for his pacifist views and staunch opposition to wars.

Recommended For You

Died At Age: 83

Spouse/Ex-: Clara Ala Bryant (m. 1888–1947)

father: William Ford

mother: Mary Litogot Ford

siblings: Jane Ford, Margaret Ford, Robert Ford, William Ford Jr.

children: Edsel Ford

Born Country: United States

Automobile Industry American Men

Died on: April 7 , 1947

place of death: Dearborn, Michigan, United States

Ancestry: Irish American, British American, Belgian American

U.S. State: Michigan

Founder/Co-Founder: Ford Motor Company

awards: 1928 - Franklin Institute's Elliott Cresson Medal 1938 - Nazi Germany's Grand Cross of the German Eagle

You wanted to know

What was henry ford's impact on the automotive industry.

Henry Ford revolutionized the automotive industry by introducing the assembly line production method, making cars more affordable and accessible to the general public.

How did Henry Ford contribute to the development of mass production techniques?

Henry Ford implemented the concept of the moving assembly line in his factories, which significantly increased production efficiency and decreased manufacturing costs.

What was the significance of the Ford Model T in Henry Ford's career?

The Ford Model T was the first affordable automobile produced on a large scale, making car ownership attainable for the middle class and cementing Ford's legacy in the automotive industry.

How did Henry Ford's business practices impact the American economy?

Henry Ford's business practices, such as offering higher wages to workers and reducing working hours, played a role in shaping labor practices and standards in the United States.

What was Henry Ford's vision for the future of transportation?

Henry Ford envisioned a future where automobiles would be widely accessible to the masses, leading to increased mobility and economic growth across the country.

Recommended Lists:

Henry Ford was born on July 30, 1863, in Greenfield Township, Michigan, USA, to William and Mary Ford. He had four siblings.

He was bright and curious as a child. He was in his teens when his father gave him a pocket watch, which he dismantled and reassembled by himself. He also practiced with the timepieces of his friends and neighbors, and soon became known as a watch repairman in his neighborhood. From a young age, he also demonstrated leadership qualities.

His mother died in 1876, leaving him devastated. Now that his mother was gone, he did not want to live on the farm anymore.

He left home in 1879 to work as an apprentice machinist with ‘James F. Flower & Bros.’ in Detroit. Later on, he worked for the ‘Detroit Dry Dock Co.’ before returning home in 1882.

Back home, he started working on the family farm and became an expert at operating the Westinghouse portable steam engine. His technical skills gained recognition and he was hired by ‘Westinghouse’ to service their steam engines.

His mechanical skills and ability to grasp new things led to his appointment as night engineer for ‘Edison Electric Illuminating Company’ in 1891. He found the job very exciting as he got the opportunity to learn more about electricity, which was a fairly new concept back then.

Hardworking and determined, Ford rose to the position of chief engineer of the ‘Illuminating Company’ by 1896. Apart from working for the company, he also started working on building automobiles, something he was always fascinated with.

He teamed up with a group of friends and built a self-propelled vehicle, the quadricycle. The vehicle had four wire wheels that looked like heavy bicycle wheels and a tiller for steering. It also had two forward speeds with no reverse.

He met Thomas Edison who approved of his experimentation. Motivated, Ford continued improving his model of automobile and completed a second vehicle in 1898.

Ford then decided to form his own company and resigned from his job. He founded the ‘Detroit Automobile Company’ in 1899. However, the automobiles produced by the company did not perform well in the market. Soon, he was forced to shut down the business.

He then started working on improving the quality of his automobiles. He successfully raced a 26-horsepower automobile in October 1901. He then teamed up with the stockholders of his ‘Detroit Automobile Company’ to form the ‘Henry Ford Company’ in November 1901.

However, some issues came up between Ford and other stockholders and Ford left the company. Following Ford’s departure, the company was renamed ‘Cadillac Automobile Company.’

Undaunted by the failure of yet another venture, he continued to pursue his passion for building automobiles. He built several racing cars over the ensuing years, including the ‘999’ racer, which looked quite promising.

In 1903, Henry incorporated the ‘Ford Motor Company.’ The original investors included Henry Ford, Alexander Y. Malcomson, the Dodge brothers, and John S. Gray among others. Around this time, race driver Barney Oldfield drove the ‘999’ around the country, making the ‘Ford’ brand known throughout the United States.

The company launched ‘Model T’ in October 1908. The vehicle had a steering wheel on the left—an idea that other automobile companies soon copied. The model proved to be highly successful as it was not only affordable but also very simple to drive. It was also easy and cheap to repair the vehicle.

The ‘Model T’ was so successful that Ford had to greatly expand its production in order to meet the ever-increasing demand. In order to meet the demand, Ford and his company staff developed a moving assembly line for automobiles in 1913. The company developed techniques for mass production, which enabled them to greatly increase their output.

The ‘Model T’ dominated the automobile market for several years. By 1918, half of all cars in America were Model Ts. In 1918, Ford handed over the presidency of the ‘Ford Motor Company’ to his son Edsel Ford, though he retained the final decision authority.

By the mid-1920s, the sales of ‘Model T’ began to decline. Thus, the company introduced the ‘Ford Model A’ in 1927. The new model proved to be profitable till 1931, but the company continued to decline in the 1930s. By 1936, ‘Ford Motor Company’ had fallen to third place in the US market, behind ‘General Motors’ and ‘Chrysler Corporation.’

Henry Ford was a pacifist. When the ‘Second World War’ broke out in 1939, he opposed the United States’ entry into the war. However, when America entered the war, ‘Ford Motor Company’ became one of the major US military contractors, supplying airplanes, engines, jeeps, and tanks.

A tragedy befell the aging Ford in 1943 when his son Edsel died of cancer. Even though Henry Ford formally resumed control of the company after his son’s death, he no longer exercised absolute authority. The key decisions were taken by others and he was largely sidelined. Eventually, his grandson Henry Ford II was made the president of the company.

Henry Ford was the founder of the ‘Ford Motor Company,’ which revolutionized the automobile industry. Under Ford’s leadership, the company introduced methods for large-scale manufacturing of cars and large-scale management of an industrial workforce using specialized techniques. Today, it is the second-largest US-based automaker.

Ford was awarded the Franklin Institute's ‘Elliott Cresson Medal’ in 1928.

In 1938, Ford was awarded Nazi Germany's ‘Grand Cross of the German Eagle,’ a medal given to foreigners sympathetic towards Nazism.

He married Clara Jane Bryant in 1888, and they had a son named Edsel.

Henry Ford died of a cerebral hemorrhage on 7 April 1947, at the age of 83. His funeral was held in Detroit's ‘Cathedral Church of St. Paul.’ His mortal remains were buried in the ‘Ford Cemetery’ in Detroit.

Henry Ford was known to have a unique sense of fashion, often wearing a suit made of denim, which was quite unusual for his time.

He had a fascination with soybeans and even built a car with body panels made from soybean-based plastic in the 1940s.

Ford had a strong interest in promoting a healthy lifestyle and encouraged his employees to exercise regularly by setting up athletic clubs and sports teams at his factories.

He was an avid supporter of technological advancements and believed in the potential of renewable energy sources, experimenting with ethanol fuel for his automobiles.

Ford had a love for music and even hired a violinist to play for his workers during their lunch breaks to boost morale and productivity.

See the events in life of Henry Ford in Chronological Order

How To Cite

People Also Viewed

Also Listed In

© Famous People All Rights Reserved

Henry Ford | Biography of the Famous American Industrialist

Henry Ford was an American industrialist and business magnate who is most renowned for his contributions to the automobile industry . Born in a farming family, Ford showed his mechanical aptitude from an early age by repairing watches of family and friends. He became an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company in 1891 and in two years he rose to the position of chief engineer . By the end of the 19th century, he had quit his job and started working towards realizing his dream of creating an affordable automobile . In 1903, with the help of investors, Ford founded the Ford Motor Company . The famous Model T was introduced in 1908 . It transformed the automobile industry and became the most popular car in the United States . Consequently Ford became one of the richest and best known businessmen in the nation . Know about the family, childhood, life, marriage, career and death of Henry Ford though his biography.

Family And Early Life

John Ford , the paternal grandfather of Henry , was born in Ballinascarthy, Ireland. He was forced to leave Ballinascarthy due to a famine and he ultimately settled his family on a farm in Dearborn, Michigan in the United States . In 1861, his son William Ford married Mary Litogot , daughter of Belgian immigrants . On July 30, 1863, Henry Ford was born on a farm in Greenfield Township, Michigan . He was the first surviving child of William and Mary Ford. They had lost their first son at birth in January 1862. William and Mary went on to have five more children: John, Margaret, Jane, William and Robert .

Henry was educated at a local one-room school for eight years . While he was in his teens, his father gave him a pocket watch. Henry was able to easily take it parts apart and reassemble them . Impressed by this feat, his friends and family often requested him to fix their watches and thus he soon gained the reputation of an expert watch repairman . In 1876 , when Henry was in his early teens, his mother passed away leaving him devastated.

Henry’s father wanted him to eventually take over the family farm. However, Henry had little interest in the farm. He later said: “I never had any particular love for the farm – it was the mother on the farm I loved.” Thus at the age of 16, soon after his mother’s death, Henry left left home for the nearby city of Detroit . At Detroit, Henry found apprentice work as a machinist first with James F. Flower & Bros. and then with Detroit Dry Dock Co.

Marriage and Children

In 1882, Henry returned to Dearborn to work on the family farm for three years. During these three years, Ford became an expert at operating the Westinghouse portable steam engine . He continued to work occasional stints in Detroit factories. Moreover, he studied bookkeeping at Goldsmith, Bryant & Stratton Business College in Detroit.

In 1885 , Henry first met Clara Jane Bryant at a New Year’s dance in Michigan in 1885. Both Henry and Clara came from farm families and soon Henry started courting Clara. On April 11, 1888 , the 24-year-old Henry Ford married Clara Jane Bryant on her 22nd birthday at her parent’s home in Greenfield Township, Michigan . 50 years later, Ford said that, “The greatest day of my life is when I married Mrs. Ford” . On November 6, 1893 , the couple had their first and only child , a son named Edsel after Edsel Ruddiman, one of Henry’s closest childhood friends. Edsel Ford served as President of Ford Motor Company from 1919 till his death in 1943 .

Early Career In The Automobile Industry

In 1891 , Henry Ford secured the position of an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit. He found the job exciting as it gave him an opportunity to learn more about electricity. Ford quickly rose through the ranks in his new job and in two years he was appointed chief engineer of the Illuminating Company. Alongside this job, he also began working towards creating a gasoline-powered horseless carriage , or automobile . In 1896 , at the age of 32, Ford completed his self-propelled vehicle , known as the Ford Quadricycle . Ford’s first car, the Quadricycle was a simple frame with an ethanol-powered engine and four bicycle wheels mounted on it .

Subsequent tests and design tweaks, coupled with a successful meeting with Thomas Edison, encouraged Ford to design and build a second vehicle by 1898 . This was also the year when Ford was awarded his first patent for a carburetor . Within the next year, Ford developed a third model car, raised money from investors and left the Edison Illuminating company to venture into entrepreneurship . Receiving backing from various investors, the Detroit Automobile Company (later the Henry Ford Company) was formed in 1899 . Ford refused to put a car into production until he had perfected it . This made the investors impatient leading to Ford leaving the company in 1902 .

Breakthrough With Model T

Henry Ford established the Ford Motor Company on June 16, 1903 , with a capital of $28,000 . Twelve investors invested in the company most notably John and Horace Dodge . Between 1903 and 1908, Ford produced the Models A, B, C, F, K, N, R, and S. On October 1, 1908 , Ford introduced the Model T, which was an immediate success. Model T sported a unique design with the steering wheel on the left , which was soon picked up by every other car manufacturer. In addition to this, the car was smooth in functioning, easy to drive and extremely cheap to repair . As a result, sales of Model T skyrocketed, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 100% every year .

There were more orders for Model T than the company could satisfy and this led to Ford putting into practice the techniques of mass production that would revolutionize American industry. These included the use of large production plants ; standardized, interchangeable parts ; and the moving assembly line . By 1914, sales of Model T had passed 250,000 and by 1916, prices had dropped to $360 , shooting sales further to 472,000 . By 1918, half of all cars in America were Model Ts . Production of Model T continued till 1927 . The final total production was 15,007,034 . This record stood for the next 45 years.

Later Career

Ford ultimately stepped down from the position of presidency of the Ford Motor Company. He, instead installed his son Edsel Ford in his place in December 1918 . By the mid-1920s, the Model T encountered its first hurdles when sales began to decline due to rising competition . This was primarily due to the introduction of payment plans by other companies that allowed customers to easily buy cars with more features and better designs.

By 1926 , sales plummet even further, convincing Henry Ford to make a new model. By 1927, the Ford duo worked closely together to introduce the Ford Model A , that clocked a total output of more than 4 million cars in 4 years. However, the Model A was a relative disappointment . It was outsold by both General Motors’ Chevrolet and Chrysler’s Plymouth . By 1936, the Ford Motor Company had dropped to number three in the automobile industry.

Final Years And Death

Ford’s son Edsel passed away due to cancer in May 1943 , leaving an elderly Ford to resume the presidency of the large company. Ford had been the subject of multiple heart attacks and strokes by this point and was also deemed to be mentally inconsistent . Therefore, he was not fit for such an immense responsibility and the move was opposed by most of the directors. But since they had never defied his authority in the past, even during the presidency of Edsel, they decided to let him have his way. The move turned out to be a short-term disaster when the company entered a period of decline, losing more than $10 million a month .

Ford’s health continued to fail him and he ultimately retired from the role, installing his grandson Henry Ford II as the president of the company in September 1945 . Henry Ford died on April 7, 1947 , due to a cerebral hemorrhage at his estate in Dearborn, Michigan. He was 83 years old at the time. The public viewing of his funeral at Greenfield Village hosted thousands of attendees and Ford was buried in the Ford Cemetery in Detroit. His wife Clara Jane Bryant Ford died a few years later on September 29, 1950 and she was buried along with him in the Ford Cemetery.

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Privacy overview.

• Search Search Please fill out this field.

Who Was Henry Ford?

Early life and career, inventing motor vehicles, ford motor co., later life and recognition, legacy and controversies, the bottom line.

• Business Leaders

Henry Ford: American Industrialist and Founder of Ford Motor Company

Henry Ford was an American inventor and business magnate and the founder of Ford Motor Co. He invented several vehicles, most famously the Model T automobile, and changed the auto industry forever by introducing the moving assembly line to car production.

His industrial innovations were so economically impactful that the term “Fordism” came to refer to the mass production and consumption that they enabled, which then more broadly characterized the pace and nature of the postwar era’s capitalist economy.

Key Takeaways

• Henry Ford was an American businessman and inventor.
• The son of Irish immigrants, Ford grew up on a farm in Michigan but had an early penchant for mechanics and invention, which spurred his career as an innovator.
• Henry Ford founded Ford Motor Co. and invented the famous Model T car.
• Ford introduced several innovations to the car industry, including the moving assembly line method of production, which had a major impact on vehicle manufacturing as well as the American economy more broadly.
• Ford also invented the five-day, 40-hour workweek, implementing it for his workforce in 1926.

Julie Bang / Investopedia

As a powerful business figure, Ford himself was also quite impactful, publishing several books over his lifetime that featured his views on industry, society, and innovation. Unfortunately, this impact also had its dark sides. In 1922, he took over ownership of The Dearborn Independent , his local newspaper, and for many years wrote and issued a series of antisemitic articles titled “The International Jew,” in which he scapegoated Jewish people and claimed they were conspiring to run the world. Ford later released a formal apology regarding the series after being sued for libel.

Born in Springwells Township, Wayne County (now part of southwest Detroit), Michigan, in 1863, Henry Ford was the eldest of six children. His father, an Irish immigrant, settled in America in 1847 on a farm in Wayne County. He showed an interest in mechanics and machinery from a young age, spending much of his time in a self-built machine shop. By the age of 15, he had built a steam engine.

His career began with an apprenticeship in Detroit in 1879, followed by a stint repairing steam engines in southern Michigan. For a while, he ran a small lumber business selling timber from his father’s land, but by 1891, had a job as an engineer at Detroit’s Edison Illuminating Co., founded by Thomas Edison (who would go on to mentor Ford and become his lifelong friend). In November 1893, he was appointed their chief engineer.

In 1888, Henry Ford married Clara Jane Bryant, whose father was also a farmer from Wayne County. In 1893, their first and only son, Edsel Bryant Ford, was born.

Ford’s first vehicle-related invention was a one-cylinder, gasoline-fueled internal combustion engine that he built in 1893. The engine would later power his first vehicle, finished in 1896. The quadricycle, a sort of horseless carriage, comprised four bicycle wheels and a four-horsepower engine and could only drive forward, not in reverse.

In 1899, Ford left Edison Illuminating Co. to become one of the founders of Detroit Automobile Co., but left within a year. The company went bankrupt about 18 months after its founding.

In 1901, Ford founded Henry Ford Co. (which later became Cadillac Motor Car Co.) and again left after about a year. Meanwhile, Ford had been working on a series of racing cars, which turned out to be quite successful at winning races and even setting speed records.

June 1903 saw the founding of Ford Motor Co., which sold its first car in July, turned a profit in its first year, and expanded internationally over the years to follow.

The famous Model T was introduced in 1908, and by 1927, 15 million of them had been sold, setting all-time car sales records. Known as “Tin Lizzie,” the Model T was reliable, cheap, and easy to maintain—aspects that contributed to its major mass-market appeal. In 1913, the introduction of the moving assembly line method of production and its introduction to the Model T factory revolutionized the car industry and manufacturing more broadly.

Though the moving assembly line was incredible for the Model T, making it possible to produce one in just 90 minutes, workers hated it. The new production method had made work boring and repetitive, but it also strictly timed due to its requirement that workers finish their tasks before the vehicle could move along down the production line. Many workers left to find jobs with competitors.

This high turnover led Ford to introduce the “$5 Day” in 1914. At the time, $5 was double what a factory worker could expect to earn in a day. Ford also reduced the shift length to eight hours, an hour less than the previous standard. Though favorable to workers, the change also allowed Ford to run three shifts per day, making the factory operations substantially more efficient.

In 1926, Henry Ford introduced the five-day workweek, shutting down his factories on Saturdays and Sundays. After the initial tumult, these changes turned out to be remarkably competitive in the contemporary labor market, eventually giving the company a significant hiring advantage as well as increasing employee retention and quality of life (in part by making Ford’s cars affordable to their own employees and offering employees more leisure time).

Henry Ford was replaced as president of Ford Motor Co. in 1919 by his son, Edsel. He remained one of the sole owners of the business, along with his wife, Clara, and Edsel, having bought out his investors on the same day he was succeeded as president of the company. However, in 1943, upon the death of his son, Henry Ford once again assumed the presidency of Ford Motor Co. until his grandson, Henry Ford II, took over in 1945.

In 1946, Henry Ford was recognized by several major industry organizations for his achievements, including the first-ever Gold Medal award from the American Petroleum Institute.

During his life, Ford wrote several books together with collaborator Samuel Crowther: “My Life and Work” (1922), “Today and Tomorrow” (1926), “Moving Forward” (1930), and “Edison, As I Know Him” (1930). “Moving Forward” discussed his thoughts on industrialism and society.

Ford died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 83 in Dearborn, Michigan, on April 7, 1947. His body is buried at St. Martha’s Episcopal Church in Detroit.

‘Fordism’ and the Moving Assembly Line

Ford did not invent the assembly line, but in borrowing the conveyor belt and production processes from industries such as meatpacking, he did revolutionize it. Rather than workers needing to move around the factory and the vehicle as they built it, the vehicle was built as it literally moved along the production line.

The introduction of increased wages, leisure time, and access to the affordable Model T are often cited as influential in the creation of America’s middle class . Ford famously increased wages for his employees, paying them enough that they were able to afford to buy his cars and creating a workspace that was more likely to retain workers for longer.

The term “Fordism” speaks to the impact of Ford’s industrial innovations and refers to the contemporary era’s feverish pace of mass production and consumption in the postwar era. It is no coincidence that Aldous Huxley chose Ford’s name to signify a sort of religious figure in his 1932 science fiction novel, “Brave New World.” References to “Ford,” “fordliness,” and “Our Ford” throughout accent Huxley’s dystopian portrayal of mass culture.

Stance on War, and Antisemitism

During World War I, Ford was an active pacifist, funding a ship in 1915 called the Oscar II that journeyed to neutral European countries in an effort to mediate and promote peace. However, Ford’s pacifism had a troubling expression in terms of his larger worldview. In 1918, he purchased the local newspaper, The Dearborn Independent , and in 1920, started publishing a series of antisemitic articles, which would continue over the next few years and were carried in 91 issues of the paper in total.

The newspaper campaign portrayed Jewish people as scapegoats for World War I, as well as anything and everything he came to take issue with, from modern music to economic upheaval. Though Ford’s views might seem to be situated within his contemporary context and the atmosphere of xenophobia in late 19th and early 20th century America, he went to great lengths to publish and participate in antisemitic discourse. He collected the series of articles into a four-volume set titled “The International Jew” and printed and distributed half a million copies, some via subscription.

Ford also reprinted “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” in The Dearborn Independent . The piece was a forged document claiming to reveal a conspiracy of Jewish world domination, but Ford printed it as if it were a factual article. The reach and influence of his newspaper were immense for what would otherwise have been a small-town publication, given Ford’s reputation and the fact that his network of dealerships across the country carried the paper. He was even considered as a candidate for the American presidency in the 1920s.

In 1924, Ford was sued for libel by a Jewish American activist, Aaron Sapiro, regarding an article Ford had published in The Dearborn Independent . Shortly before the trial, Ford closed the newspaper and settled the case outside of court with Sapiro, paying him a cash settlement and releasing a formal apology written by a mediator and the president of the American Jewish Committee, Louis Marshall.

For What Is Henry Ford Best Known?

Henry Ford founded Ford Motor Co. and invented the Model T car. He also introduced the moving assembly line method of production to car manufacturing.

Did Henry Ford Invent the Car?

Henry Ford was not the first person to invent a car, but he did invent one of the most famous vehicles of all time: the Model T.

Did Henry Ford Invent the Assembly Line?

Henry Ford did not invent the concept of the assembly line (that is credited to Adam Smith in “The Wealth of Nations”), but he did introduce it to the car manufacturing industry, borrowing the idea of a conveyor belt from the meatpacking industry to make it into a moving production line.

Was Henry Ford Antisemitic?

Yes. Henry Ford was vocally antisemitic and for many years published a series of articles in his newspaper The Dearborn Independent that blamed Jews for anything with which he took issue. In his newspaper, he also reprinted “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a forged document that claimed to uncover an international Jewish conspiracy, presenting it as an authentic exposé.

Did Henry Ford Invent the 40-Hour Workweek?

Yes. Henry Ford introduced the 40-hour workweek to his factory staff in May 1926 and to his office staff in August 1926.

By introducing the moving assembly line, Henry Ford was hugely influential in changing the way that we manufacture not only cars but all types of goods. His innovations in the structure of work also contributed to the post-World War II rise of the American middle class, changing the economic landscape of the country.

The Making of the Modern U.S., via Internet Archive Wayback Machine. “ $5 a Day .”

• Terms of Service
• Editorial Policy
• Privacy Policy

• Occupation: Businessman and Inventor
• Born: July 30, 1863 in Greenfield Township, Michigan
• Died: April 7, 1947 in Dearborn, Michigan
• Best known for: Founder of the Ford Motor Company and helped develop the assembly line for mass production

• Henry worked as an engineer at the Edison Illumination Company where he met Thomas Edison.
• His first try at an automobile company was in collaboration with Thomas Edison and was called the Detroit Automobile Company.
• Ford had Edison's last breath saved in a test tube and you can still see the test tube at the Henry Ford Museum.
• In 1918 he ran for a US Senate seat, but lost.
• He was a race car driver early in his career.
• Listen to a recorded reading of this page:

HFHA Happenings HFHA Status Vote here!

The Birth of Ford Motor Company

• THE FORD STORY /

A Young Henry Ford

from Henry Ford's "A Personal History"

The Birth of Ford Motor Co.

by Ford R. Bryan

Henry Ford An Impact Felt

by Steven C. Stanford

The Illustrious Vagabonds

by Dr. David L. Lewis

1863 Henry Ford was Born on July 30th

1888 ford marries clara bryant, 1888 henry ford accepts a position with edison power plant, 1896 the "quadricycle".

The woodshed at 58 Bagley in which Henry Ford assembled the "Quadricycle" in June of 1896, and then had to widen the door it get the rig out of the building.

1899 60 mile demonstration ride, July of 1899

1899 detroit automobile company was founded on august 5, 1899, 1901 the "sweepstakes " racer of 1901, with henry ford at the wheel and ed huff on running board, 1901 henry ford company is formed on november 30, 1901.

With Ford's much enhanced reputation, Murphy and the other members of the Detroit Automobile Company formed the Henry Ford Company on November 30, 1901. Ford was named Chief Engineer with one-sixth of the company stock valued at $100,000. The goal was to build a lightweight runabout to sell for about $1000. But Henry, with "racing fever," spent most of his time on the design of a giant 4-cylinder racing car. Although Murphy had financed the 2-cylinder racer, he did not want Ford working on a larger car. To Ford's annoyance, a wearied Murphy brought in Henry M. Leland, a well respected mechanical engineer, as a consultant.

1902 The Monstrous Ford Racer

1902 alexander v. malcomson joins henry ford in the automobile business.

Even before the race in October 1902, Henry had been in touch with Alexander Malcomson, a well-known Detroit coal dealer, in regard to marketing a motor car of simple design. Wills had made drawings of such a vehicle, and a partnership of Ford & Malcomson was arranged to continue work at 81 Park Place. Based on a "Memorandum of Agreement" dated August 20, 1902, details of the partnership were signed by Malcomson and Ford with C. Harold Wills as a witness. Under the agreement, Wills was to receive a wage of $125 a month to be split 50/50 with Ford. In essence, Ford was working as an employee of Malcomson who was paying the bills. In November 1902, the partnership took the name of Ford & Malcomson Company, Ltd. and was capitalized at $150,000 with 15,000 shares at a par value of $10.00 each. A lightweight automobile, which Malcomson was inclined to call the "Fordmobile," was designed and built before Christmas.

Plans to move operations to a larger building on Mack Avenue, leased by Malcomson for $75 a month, were made in January 1903. The move to the new plant took place on May 1, of the same year. On February 28, 1903, Ford and Malcomson, "doing business as the Ford Motor Company," bravely entered into a costly and detailed "Memorandum of Agreement" with John F. Dodge and Horace E. Dodge involving the purchase of 650 automotive running gears at $250 each, totaling a cost of $162,500. Other smaller purchases were at the same time being arranged with other suppliers for car bodies, wheels, and tires. As early as March 25, 1903, for example, 300 sets of automobile wheels were ordered from the W. K. Prudden Company of Lansing, Michigan, to be delivered during the period of April to July 1903. In May of 1903, 100 Runabout bodies at $23 each, and 50 Tonneaus at $24 each, were ordered from the C.R. Carriage Company of Detroit. Tires were purchased from the Hartford Rubber Company at $40 per set of four.

1903 Election of Board of Directors: Mr. Ford - nominated by John Anderson Mr. John Dodge - nominated by Mr. Anderson Mr. Couzens - nominated by Ford, seconded by Mr. Bennett Mr. Wills - nominated by Ford, seconded by Mr. Bennett Mr. Anderson - nominated and supported by Mr. Rackham

1903 first model a sale, 1904 ford motor company was recognized as a successful automobile manufacturer.

• The Midwest
• Reading Lists

The 10 Best Books on Henry Ford

Essential books on henry ford.

There are countless books on Henry Ford, and it comes with good reason, aside from founding the Ford Motor Company, he developed the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that middle-class Americans could afford, he converted the automobile from an expensive curiosity into an accessible conveyance that profoundly impacted the landscape of the 20th century.

“If money is your hope for independence, you will never have it,” Ford remarked. “The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.”

In order to get to the bottom of what inspired one of history’s most consequential figures to the heights of societal contribution, we’ve compiled a list of the 10 best books on Henry Ford.

I Invented the Modern Age by Richard Snow

Every century or so, our republic has been remade by a new technology: 170 years ago the railroad changed Americans’ conception of space and time; in our era, the microprocessor revolutionized how humans communicate. But in the early twentieth century the agent of creative destruction was the gasoline engine, as put to work by an unknown and relentlessly industrious young man named Henry Ford. Born the same year as the battle of Gettysburg, Ford died two years after the atomic bombs fell, and his life personified the tremendous technological changes achieved in that span.

Growing up as a Michigan farm boy with a bone-deep loathing of farming, Ford intuitively saw the advantages of internal combustion. Resourceful and fearless, he built his first gasoline engine out of scavenged industrial scraps. It was the size of a sewing machine. From there, scene by scene, Richard Snow vividly shows Ford using his innate mechanical abilities, hard work, and radical imagination as he transformed American industry.

In many ways, of course, Ford’s story is well known; in many more ways, it is not. Snow masterfully weaves together a fascinating narrative of Ford’s rise to fame through his greatest invention, the Model T. When Ford first unveiled this car, it took twelve and a half hours to build one. A little more than a decade later, it took exactly one minute. In making his car so quickly and so cheaply that his own workers could easily afford it, Ford created the cycle of consumerism that we still inhabit.

The People’s Tycoon by Steven Watts

How a Michigan farm boy became the richest man in America is a classic, almost mythic tale, but never before has Henry Ford’s outsized genius been brought to life so vividly as it is in this engaging and superbly researched biography.

The real Henry Ford was a tangle of contradictions. He set off the consumer revolution by producing a car affordable to the masses, all the while lamenting the moral toll exacted by consumerism. He believed in giving his workers a living wage, though he was entirely opposed to union labor. He had a warm and loving relationship with his wife, but sired a son with another woman. A rabid anti-Semite, he nonetheless embraced African American workers in the era of Jim Crow.

Uncovering the man behind the myth, situating his achievements and their attendant controversies firmly within the context of early twentieth-century America, Watts has given us a comprehensive, illuminating, and fascinating biography of one of America’s first mass-culture celebrities.

Fordlandia by Greg Gandin

In 1927, Henry Ford, the richest man in the world, bought a tract of land twice the size of Delaware in the Brazilian Amazon. His intention was to grow rubber, but the project rapidly evolved into a more ambitious bid to export America itself, along with its golf courses, ice-cream shops, bandstands, indoor plumbing, and Model Ts rolling down broad streets.

Fordlandia, as the settlement was called, quickly became the site of an epic clash. On one side was the car magnate, lean, austere, the man who reduced industrial production to its simplest motions; on the other, the Amazon, lush, extravagant, the most complex ecological system on the planet. Ford’s early success in imposing time clocks and square dances on the jungle soon collapsed, as indigenous workers, rejecting his midwestern Puritanism, turned the place into a ribald tropical boomtown. Fordlandia’s eventual demise as a rubber plantation foreshadowed the practices that today are laying waste to the rain forest.

More than a parable of one man’s arrogant attempt to force his will on the natural world,  Fordlandia depicts a desperate quest to salvage the bygone America that the Ford factory system did much to dispatch. As Greg Grandin shows in this gripping and mordantly observed history, Ford’s great delusion was not that the Amazon could be tamed but that the forces of capitalism, once released, might yet be contained.

Wheels for the World by Douglas G. Brinkley

In this monumental work, one of our finest historians reveals the riveting details of Ford Motor Company’s epic achievements, from the outlandish success of the Model T and V-8 to the glory days of the Thunderbird, Mustang, and Taurus. Brilliant innovators, colorful businessmen, and clever eccentrics, as well as the three Ford factories themselves, all become characters in this gripping drama. Douglas Brinkley is a master at crafting compelling historical narratives, and this exemplary history of one of the preeminent American corporations is his finest achievement yet.

The Vagabonds by Jeff Guin

In 1914 Henry Ford and naturalist John Burroughs visited Thomas Edison in Florida and toured the Everglades. The following year Ford, Edison, and tire maker Harvey Firestone joined together on a summer camping trip and decided to call themselves the Vagabonds. They would continue their summer road trips until 1925, when they announced that their fame made it too difficult for them to carry on.

Although the Vagabonds traveled with an entourage of chefs, butlers, and others, this elite fraternity also had a serious purpose: to examine the conditions of America’s roadways and improve the practicality of automobile travel. Cars were unreliable and the roads were even worse. But newspaper coverage of these trips was extensive, and as cars and roads improved, the summer trip by automobile soon became a desired element of American life.

The Vagabonds is “a portrait of America’s burgeoning love affair with the automobile” (NPR) but it also sheds light on the important relationship between the older Edison and the younger Ford, who once worked for the famous inventor. The road trips made the automobile ubiquitous and magnified Ford’s reputation, even as Edison’s diminished.

My Life and Work by Henry Ford

Widely available via Audible audiobook, this is the original autobiography of Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company. It was originally published in 1922. The autobiography details how Henry Ford started out, how he got into business, the strategies he used to become a successful and immensely wealthy businessman, and how he built a company to last.

The book that has inspired entrepreneurs for generations, not only is  My Life and Work  by Henry Ford a memoir of an American icon but it also shows the spirit that built America. Written in 1922, this work provides a unique insight into the observations, ideas, and problem-solving skills of this remarkable man.

The Fords: An American Epic by Peter Collier

In  The Fords: An American Epic , Peter Collier and David Horowitz tell the riveting story of three generations of Fords, a dramatic story of conflict between fathers and sons played out against the backdrop of America’s greatest industrial empire.

The story begins with the first Henry Ford, the mechanical wizard, tinkerer, and “mad genius” who drove the automobile into the heart of American life and conquered the world with it. An American original, by the end of his life he had become an embittered crank who so possessively loved the company he built that when his son, Edsel, tried to change it to suit the changing times, Henry destroyed him. It was left to Edsel’s son Henry II to avenge him and save the Ford Motor Company in the postwar world.

From the details of the first Henry’s illicit affair and illegitimate son, to the life and loves of “Hank the Deuce” and his celebrated feud with Lee Iacocca, this is an engrossing account of a vital chapter in American history. The authors have added new material to this classic work, showing how Henry II’s line lost out to the line of his brother William Clay Ford in the quest to control this most American of companies in the twenty-first century.

Uncommon Friends by James Newton

James Newton’s Uncommon Friends is “a delightful portrayal of five great men who shared special friendships and common visions” (Booklist). Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Alexis Carrel, and Charles Lindbergh were twentieth-century giants known personally by very few. In this compelling memoir, James Newton recalls a lifetime of friendship with all of them – a friendship that began when he was only twenty years old and head of development of Edison Park in Fort Meyers, Florida. Based on Newton’s diaries, recollections, and extensive correspondence, this gem among books on Henry Ford is a unique opportunity to share a view of the personal side of some legendary historical figures.

The Public Image of Henry Ford by David L. Lewis

Skillful journalism and meticulous scholarship are combined in the full-bodied portrait of that enigmatic folk hero, Henry Ford, and of the company he built from scratch. Writing with verve and objectivity, David Lewis focuses on the fame, popularity, and influence of America’s most unconventional businessman and traces the history of public relations and advertising within Ford Motor Company and the automobile industry.

Henry Ford and the Jews by Neil Baldwin

This necessary installment among books on Henry Ford shows how he promoted his anti-Semitic views in The Dearborn Independent and other publications and examines the response of the Jewish community in America as well as Ford’s impact on the spread of anti-Semitism in Europe before World War II.

If you enjoyed this guide to the best books on Henry Ford, be sure to check out our list of 20 Inspirational Books Jeff Bezos recommends reading !