Henry Ford was born on a farm near Detroit, Michigan. He never really enjoyed farming and left the farm at age sixteen, three years after his mother died.
As a child he was fascinated by machines. He always carried around in his pockets nuts and bolts and machinery parts. By the time he was thirteen he could put together a watch that kept time. This interest in machines led him to work for a while as an apprentice machinist, and later he went to work for Westinghouse servicing their steam engines.
Clara Bryant became his wife in 1888. He returned to the farm, built a house, and ran a sawmill. They had one child, a son they named Edsel.
When Henry was twenty-eight he became an engineer at Edison Company which made electrical generating stations. He was made chief engineer two years later and advanced to a salary of $125 a month.
In 1903 he built two race cars to advertise the automobile. One he named the "999" and the other the "Arrow". He hired Barney Oldfield, a professional bicycle rider and race car driver to race for him. In 1904 Ford himself driving the Ford Arrow set a new land speed record in his car - over 91 miles per hour! The event took place on the frozen ice of Lake St. Claire.
When he was forty years old Ford and eleven investors formed the Ford Motor Company. They had a $28,000 investment in it.
Henry Ford's motto was "simplicity" *. By simplifying the process of making cars, he was able to make the car affordable to the common worker in America. Of course, this simplification resulted in only one color choice. He wrote, "A customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants - so long as it is black."
In his book he contrasts the making of axe handles by hand and machine to show how mechanization *reduced the cost of his car.
Ford hired handicapped workers*. He studied the jobs and the requirements and put each man in a place where he could do the job and make a living for his family.
Ford had a heart attack in 1938 and turned the running of the company over to his son, but Edsel died five years later, and Ford had to again assume leadership. He stayed in that position for two years, but due to his ill health, he made his grandson Henry Ford II president of the company in 1945.
Henry Ford died at the age of 83 of a cerebral * hemorrhage *. He was one of many people who helped to make America great. At the end of his book he describes his vision of a great country in which the resources of a country and the skills of its people are developed so that all have a fair share.
As a child he was fascinated by machines. He always carried around in his pockets nuts and bolts and machinery parts. By the time he was thirteen he could put together a watch that kept time. This interest in machines led him to work for a while as an apprentice machinist, and later he went to work for Westinghouse servicing their steam engines.
Clara Bryant became his wife in 1888. He returned to the farm, built a house, and ran a sawmill. They had one child, a son they named Edsel.
When Henry was twenty-eight he became an engineer at Edison Company which made electrical generating stations. He was made chief engineer two years later and advanced to a salary of $125 a month.
When he was forty years old Ford and eleven investors formed the Ford Motor Company. They had a $28,000 investment in it.
In his book he contrasts the making of axe handles by hand and machine to show how mechanization *reduced the cost of his car.
Ford hired handicapped workers*. He studied the jobs and the requirements and put each man in a place where he could do the job and make a living for his family.
Henry Ford died at the age of 83 of a cerebral * hemorrhage *. He was one of many people who helped to make America great. At the end of his book he describes his vision of a great country in which the resources of a country and the skills of its people are developed so that all have a fair share.
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