Henry Ford

Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist and business magnate who founded the Ford Motor Company. He is recognized for making cars affordable for middle-class Americans through a production approach later called Fordism. In 1911, he received a patent for a transmission mechanism used in the Model T and other vehicles.

Ford was born in a farmhouse in Greenfield Township, Michigan. He left home at 16 to work in Detroit. He first encountered automobiles a few years earlier, and during the late 1880s began repairing and building engines. In the 1890s, he worked for a division of Edison Electric. After earlier business failures, he founded the Ford Motor Company in 1903 and succeeded in manufacturing cars.

The 1908 introduction of the Model T is seen as a revolution in transportation and American industry. As the company’s sole owner, Ford became one of the world’s wealthiest people. He was also an early advocate of the five-day workweek. He believed consumerism could promote world peace. His focus on lowering costs led to innovations like a franchise system that established dealerships across North America and on six continents.

During the early years of World War I, Ford was known for pacifism, though his company later became a major weapons supplier. He supported the League of Nations. In the 1920s, he promoted antisemitism through his newspaper *The Dearborn Independent* and the book *The International Jew*. He opposed U.S. entry into World War II and briefly served on the board of the America First Committee. After his son Edsel died in 1943, Ford resumed control of the company but was too frail to make decisions and soon fell under the influence of subordinates. He handed the company to his grandson Henry Ford II in 1945. At his death in 1947, he left most of his wealth to the Ford Foundation and company control to his family.

Ford was born on July 30, 1863, on a farm in Greenfield Township, Michigan, at the intersection of Ford and Greenfield Roads in what is now Dearborn. His father, William Ford (1826–1905), was from County Cork, Ireland, descended from a family that emigrated from Somerset, England in the 16th century. His mother, Mary Ford (née Litogot; c. 1839–1876), was born in Michigan to Belgian immigrants; orphaned young, she was adopted by the O’Herns. Ford’s siblings were John (1865–1927), Margaret (1867–1960), Jane (1869–1906), William (1871–1959), and Robert (1873–1877). He finished eighth grade at Springwells Middle School, never attended high school, and later took a bookkeeping course at a commercial school.

At age 12, his father gave him a pocket watch. By 15, he had dismantled and reassembled friends’ and neighbors’ timepieces many times, earning a reputation as a watch repairman. At 20, he walked four miles each Sunday to his Episcopal church. Ford noted two key events in 1875: receiving the watch and seeing a Nichols and Shepard road engine—the first non-horse-drawn vehicle he had ever seen. His mother’s death in 1876 devastated him. His father expected him to take over the farm, but Ford despised farm work, later writing, “I never had any particular love for the farm—it was the mother on the farm I loved.”

In 1879, Ford left home to apprentice as a machinist in Detroit, first with James F. Flower & Brothers, then with the Detroit Dry Dock Company. He returned to the family farm in 1882, becoming skilled at operating a Westinghouse portable steam engine, and was later hired by Westinghouse to service their engines. In his farm workshop, he built a “steam wagon or tractor” and a steam car, but concluded steam was unsafe for light vehicles because the boiler was dangerous. He saw no point in experimenting with electricity due to the cost of trolley wires and the lack of a practical storage battery. In 1885, he repaired an Otto engine, and in 1887 built a four-cycle model with a one-inch bore and three-inch stroke. In 1890, he began work on a two-cylinder engine. He said he completed his first motor car in 1892, powered by a two-cylinder, four-horsepower motor, with a two-and-a-half-inch bore and six-inch stroke, connected by a belt to a countershaft and then a chain to the rear wheel. A clutch lever shifted the belt to control speeds of 10 or 20 miles per hour, with a throttle. It had 28-inch wire bicycle wheels with rubber tires, a foot brake, a three-gallon gasoline tank, and later a water jacket for cooling. By spring 1893, the machine ran to his partial satisfaction, allowing further testing. Between 1895 and 1896, he drove it about 1,000 miles. He started a second car in 1896 and eventually built three in his home workshop.

Ford married Clara Jane Bryant (1866–1950) on April 11, 1888, supporting himself by farming and running a sawmill. They had one child, Edsel Ford (1893–1943).

In 1891, Ford became an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company of Detroit. After promotion to Chief Engineer in 1893, he had enough time and money to focus on his experiments.