Henry Ford
Henry Ford | |
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Born | |
Died | April 7, 1947 Dearborn, Michigan, U.S. | (aged 83)
Resting place | Ford Cemetery, Detroit, Michigan |
Occupations |
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Years active | 1891–1945 |
Known for |
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Title | President of Ford Motor Company (1906–1919, 1943–1945) |
Political party |
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Spouse |
Clara Jane Bryant (m. 1888) |
Children | Edsel |
Signature | |
Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American
In 1911 he was awarded a patent for the transmission mechanism that would be used in the Model T and other automobiles.Ford was born in a farmhouse in Springwells Township, Michigan, and left home at the age of 16 to find work in Detroit.[3] It was a few years before this time that Ford first experienced automobiles, and throughout the later half of the 1880s, he began repairing and later constructing engines, and through the 1890s worked with a division of Edison Electric. He founded the Ford Motor Company in 1903 after prior failures in business, but success in constructing automobiles.
The introduction of the Ford Model T automobile in 1908 is credited with having revolutionized both transportation and American industry. As the sole owner of the Ford Motor Company, Ford became one of the wealthiest persons in the world.[4] He was also among the pioneers of the five-day work-week. Ford believed that consumerism could help to bring about world peace. His commitment to systematically lowering costs resulted in many technical and business innovations, including a franchise system, which allowed for car dealerships throughout North America and in major cities on six continents.
Ford was known for his pacifism during the first years of
Early life
Henry Ford was born July 30, 1863, on a farm in Springwells Township, Michigan.[5] His father, William Ford (1826–1905), was born in County Cork, Ireland, to a family that had emigrated from Somerset, England in the 16th century.[6] His mother, Mary Ford (née Litogot; 1839–1876), was born in Michigan as the youngest child of Belgian immigrants; her parents died when she was a child and she was adopted by neighbors, the O'Herns. Henry Ford's siblings were John Ford (1865-1927); Margaret Ford (1867–1938); Jane Ford (c. 1868–1945); William Ford (1871–1917) and Robert Ford (1873–1877). Ford finished eighth grade at a one-room school,[7] Springwells Middle School. He never attended high school; he later took a bookkeeping course at a commercial school.[8]
His father gave him a pocket watch when he was 12. At 15, Ford dismantled and reassembled the timepieces of friends and neighbors dozens of times, gaining the reputation of a watch repairman.[9] At twenty, Ford walked four miles to their Episcopal church every Sunday.[10]
Ford said two significant events occurred in 1875 when he was 12: he received the watch, and he witnessed the operation of a Nichols and Shepard road engine, "...the first vehicle other than horse-drawn that I had ever seen".
Ford was devastated when his mother died in 1876. His father expected him to take over the family farm eventually, but he despised farm work. He later wrote, "I never had any particular love for the farm—it was the mother on the farm I loved."[11]
In 1879, Ford left home to work as an apprentice
In his farm workshop, Ford built a "steam wagon or tractor" and a steam car, but thought "steam was not suitable for light vehicles," as "the boiler was dangerous." Ford also said that he "did not see the use of experimenting with electricity, due to the expense of
Ford said, "In 1892, I completed my first motor car, powered by a two-cylinder four
Marriage and family
Ford married
Career
In 1891, Ford became an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company of Detroit. After his promotion to Chief Engineer in 1893, he had enough time and money to devote attention to his experiments on gasoline engines. These experiments culminated in 1896 with the completion of a self-propelled vehicle, which he named the Ford Quadricycle. He test-drove it on June 4. After various test drives, Ford brainstormed ways to improve the Quadricycle.[16]
Also in 1896, Ford attended a meeting of Edison executives, where he was introduced to
With the help of
Teaming up with former racing cyclist
Ford Motor Company
In response, Malcomson brought in another group of investors and convinced the Dodge Brothers to accept a portion of the new company. In 1909, Ford submitted for patent application for his invention for a new transmission mechanism.
It was awarded a patent in 1911.[19]
The Transmission Patent
Model T
Ford created a huge publicity machine in Detroit to ensure every newspaper carried stories and ads about the new product. Ford's network of local dealers made the car ubiquitous in almost every city in North America. As independent dealers, the franchises grew rich and publicized not just the Ford but also the concept of automobiling; local
Sales passed 250,000 in 1914. By 1916, as the price dropped to $360 for the basic touring car, sales reached 472,000.[23]
By 1918, half of all cars in the United States were Model Ts. All new cars were black; as Ford wrote in his autobiography, "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black."[24] Until the development of the assembly line, which mandated black because of its quicker drying time, Model Ts were available in other colors, including red. The design was fervently promoted and defended by Ford, and production continued as late as 1927; the final total production was 15,007,034. This record stood for the next 45 years, and was achieved in 19 years from the introduction of the first Model T (1908).[25]
Henry Ford turned the presidency of Ford Motor Company over to his son Edsel Ford in December 1918. Henry retained final decision authority and sometimes reversed the decisions of his son. Ford started another company, Henry Ford and Son, and made a show of taking himself and his best employees to the new company; the goal was to scare the remaining holdout stockholders of the Ford Motor Company to sell their stakes to him before they lost most of their value. (He was determined to have full control over strategic decisions.) The ruse worked, and Henry and Edsel purchased all remaining stock from the other investors, thus giving the family sole ownership of the company.[26]
In 1922, Ford also purchased
By the mid-1920s,
In addition to its price ladder, GM also quickly established itself at the forefront of automotive styling under Harley Earl's Arts & Color Department, another area of automobile design that Henry Ford did not entirely appreciate or understand. Ford would not have a true equivalent of the GM styling department for many years.[citation needed]
Model A and Ford's later career
By 1926, flagging sales of the Model T finally convinced Ford to make a new model. He pursued the project with a great deal of interest in the design of the engine, chassis, and other mechanical necessities, while leaving the body design to his son. Although Ford fancied himself an engineering genius, he had little formal training in mechanical engineering and could not even read a blueprint. A talented team of engineers performed most of the actual work of designing the Model A (and later the flathead V8) with Ford supervising them closely and giving them overall direction. Edsel also managed to prevail over his father's initial objections in the inclusion of a sliding-shift transmission.[31]
The result was the
Ford did not believe in accountants; he amassed one of the world's largest fortunes without ever having his company audited under his administration. Without an accounting department, Ford had no way of knowing exactly how much money was being taken in and spent each month, and the company's bills and invoices were reportedly guessed at by weighing them on a scale.[citation needed] Not until 1956 would Ford be a publicly-traded company.[33]
Also, at Edsel's insistence, Ford launched Mercury in 1939 as a mid-range make to challenge Dodge and Buick, although Henry also displayed relatively little enthusiasm for it.[28]
Labor philosophy
Five-dollar wage
Ford was a pioneer of "welfare capitalism", designed to improve the lot of his workers and especially to reduce the heavy turnover that had many departments hiring 300 men per year to fill 100 slots. Efficiency meant hiring and keeping the best workers.[34]
Ford astonished the world in 1914 by offering a $5 daily wage ($152 in 2023), which more than doubled the rate of most of his workers.
Detroit was already a high-wage city, but competitors were forced to raise wages or lose their best workers.[41] Ford's policy proved that paying employees more would enable them to afford the cars they were producing and thus boost the local economy. He viewed the increased wages as profit-sharing linked with rewarding those who were most productive and of good character.[42] It may have been Couzens who convinced Ford to adopt the $5-day wage.[43]
Real profit-sharing was offered to employees who had worked at the company for six months or more, and, importantly, conducted their lives in a manner of which Ford's "Social Department" approved. They frowned on heavy drinking, gambling, and on what are now called deadbeat dads. The Social Department used 50 investigators and support staff to maintain employee standards; a large percentage of workers were able to qualify for this "profit-sharing".[44]
Ford's incursion into his employees' private lives was highly controversial, and he soon backed off from the most intrusive aspects. By the time he wrote his 1922 memoir, he had spoken of the Social Department and the private conditions for
Five-day workweek
In addition to raising his workers' wages, Ford also introduced a new, reduced workweek in 1926. The decision was made in 1922, when Ford and Crowther described it as six 8-hour days, giving a 48-hour week,[46] but in 1926 it was announced as five 8-hour days, giving a 40-hour week.[47] The program apparently started with Saturday being designated a workday, before becoming a day off sometime later. On May 1, 1926, the Ford Motor Company's factory workers switched to a five-day, 40-hour workweek, with the company's office workers making the transition the following August.[48]
Ford had decided to boost productivity, as workers were expected to put more effort into their work in exchange for more leisure time. Ford also believed decent leisure time was good for business, giving workers additional time to purchase and consume more goods. However, charitable concerns also played a role. Ford explained, "It is high time to rid ourselves of the notion that leisure for workmen is either 'lost time' or a class privilege."[48]
Labor unions
Ford was adamantly against labor unions. He explained his views on unions in Chapter 18 of My Life and Work.[49] He thought they were too heavily influenced by leaders who would end up doing more harm than good for workers despite their ostensible good motives. Most wanted to restrict productivity as a means to foster employment, but Ford saw this as self-defeating because, in his view, productivity was necessary for economic prosperity to exist.[citation needed]
He believed that productivity gains that obviated certain jobs would nevertheless stimulate the broader economy and grow new jobs elsewhere, whether within the same corporation or in others. Ford also believed that union leaders had a perverse incentive to foment perpetual socio-economic crises to maintain their power. Meanwhile, he believed that smart managers had an incentive to do right by their workers, because doing so would maximize their profits. However, Ford did acknowledge that many managers were basically too bad at managing to understand this fact. But Ford believed that eventually, if good managers such as he could fend off the attacks of misguided people from both left and right (i.e., both socialists and bad-manager reactionaries), the good managers would create a socio-economic system wherein neither bad management nor bad unions could find enough support to continue existing.[citation needed]
To forestall union activity, Ford promoted
In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Edsel—who was president of the company—thought Ford had to come to a collective bargaining agreement with the unions because the violence, work disruptions, and bitter stalemates could not go on forever. But Ford, who still had the final veto in the company on a de facto basis even if not an official one, refused to cooperate. For several years, he kept Bennett in charge of talking to the unions trying to organize the Ford Motor Company. Sorensen's memoir[52] makes clear that Ford's purpose in putting Bennett in charge was to make sure no agreements were ever reached.[citation needed]
The Ford Motor Company was the last Detroit automaker to recognize the UAW, despite pressure from the rest of the U.S. automotive industry and even the U.S. government. A sit-down strike by the UAW union in April 1941 closed the
Ford Airplane Company
Like other automobile companies, Ford entered the aviation business during
Ford's most successful aircraft was the
In 1985, Ford was posthumously inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame for his impact on the industry.[55]
World War I era and peace activism
Ford opposed war, which he viewed as a terrible waste,
According to biographer Steven Watts, Ford's status as a leading industrialist gave him a worldview that warfare was wasteful folly that retarded long-term economic growth. The losing side in the war typically suffered heavy damage. Small business were especially hurt, for it takes years to recuperate. He argued in many newspaper articles that a focus on business efficiency would discourage warfare because, “If every man who manufactures an article would make the very best he can in the very best way at the very lowest possible price the world would be kept out of war, for commercialists would not have to search for outside markets which the other fellow covets.” Ford admitted that munitions makers enjoyed wars, but he argued the most businesses wanted to avoid wars and instead work to manufacture and sell useful goods, hire workers, and generate steady long-term profits.[61]
Ford's British factories produced Fordson tractors to increase the British food supply, as well as trucks and warplane engines. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, Ford went quiet on foreign policy. His company became a major supplier of weapons, especially the Liberty engine for warplanes and anti-submarine boats.[13]: 95–100, 119 [62]
In 1918, with the war on and the
World War II era and controversies
Ford opposed the United States' entry into World War II[51][66] and continued to believe that international business could generate the prosperity that would head off wars. Ford "insisted that war was the product of greedy financiers who sought profit in human destruction". In 1939, he went so far as to claim that the torpedoing of U.S. merchant ships by German submarines was the result of conspiratorial activities undertaken by financier war-makers.[67] The financiers to whom he was referring was Ford's code for Jews; he had also accused Jews of fomenting the First World War.[51][68]
In the run-up to World War II and when the war erupted in 1939, he reported that he did not want to trade with belligerents. Like many other businessmen of the Great Depression era, he never liked or entirely trusted the Franklin Roosevelt Administration, and thought Roosevelt was inching the U.S. closer to war. Ford continued to do business with Nazi Germany, including the manufacture of war materiel.[51] However, he also agreed to build warplane engines for the British government.[69] In early 1940, he boasted that Ford Motor Company would soon be able to produce 1,000 U.S. warplanes a day, even though it did not have an aircraft production facility at that time.[70]: 430 Ford was a prominent early member of the America First Committee against World War II involvement, but was forced to resign from its executive board when his involvement proved too controversial.[71]
Beginning in 1940, with the requisitioning of between 100 and 200 French POWs to work as slave laborers, Ford-Werke contravened Article 31 of the 1929 Geneva Convention.[51]
When Rolls-Royce sought a U.S. manufacturer as an additional source for the Merlin engine (as fitted to Spitfire and Hurricane fighters), Ford first agreed to do so and then reneged. He "lined up behind the war effort" when the U.S. entered in December 1941.[72]
Willow Run
Before the U.S. entered the war, responding to President Roosevelt's call in December 1940 for the "Great Arsenal of Democracy", Ford directed the Ford Motor Company to construct a vast new purpose-built aircraft factory at Willow Run near Detroit, Michigan. Ford broke ground on Willow Run in the spring of 1941, B-24 component production began in May 1942, and the first complete B-24 came off the line in October 1942. At 3,500,000 sq ft (330,000 m2), it was the largest assembly line in the world at the time. At its peak in 1944, the Willow Run plant produced 650 B-24s per month, and by 1945 Ford was completing each B-24 in eighteen hours, with one rolling off the assembly line every 58 minutes.[73] Ford produced 9,000 B-24s at Willow Run, half of the 18,000 total B-24s produced during the war.[73][70]: 430
Edsel's death
When Edsel Ford died of cancer in 1943, at age 49, Henry Ford nominally resumed control of the company, but a series of strokes in the late 1930s had left him increasingly debilitated, and his mental ability was fading. Ford was increasingly sidelined, and others made decisions in his name.
Forced out
Nothing happened until 1945 when, with bankruptcy a serious risk, Ford's wife Clara and Edsel's widow Eleanor confronted him and demanded he cede control of the company to his grandson
Antisemitism and The Dearborn Independent
Part of a series on |
Antisemitism |
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Category |
Ford was a
In 1918, Ford purchased his hometown newspaper, The Dearborn Independent.[82] A year and a half later, Ford began publishing a series of articles in the paper under his own name, claiming a vast Jewish conspiracy was affecting America.[83] The series ran in 91 issues. Every Ford dealership nationwide was required to carry the paper and distribute it to its customers. Ford later bound the articles into four volumes entitled The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem, which was translated into multiple languages and distributed widely across the US and Europe.[84][85] The International Jew blamed nearly all the troubles it saw in American society on Jews.[83] The Independent ran for eight years, from 1920 until 1927. With around 700,000 readers of his newspaper, Ford emerged as a "spokesman for right-wing extremism and religious prejudice."[86]
In Germany, Ford's The International Jew, the World's Foremost Problem was published by
On February 1, 1924, Ford received
Ford's articles were denounced by the
A libel lawsuit was brought by San Francisco lawyer and Jewish farm cooperative organizer Aaron Sapiro in response to the antisemitic remarks, and led Ford to close the Independent in December 1927. News reports at the time quoted him as saying he was shocked by the content and unaware of its nature. During the trial, the editor of Ford's "Own Page", William Cameron, testified that Ford had nothing to do with the editorials even though they were under his byline. Cameron testified at the libel trial that he never discussed the content of the pages or sent them to Ford for his approval.[99] Investigative journalist Max Wallace noted that "whatever credibility this absurd claim may have had was soon undermined when James M. Miller, a former Dearborn Independent employee, swore under oath that Ford had told him he intended to expose Sapiro."[100]
Michael Barkun observed: "That Cameron would have continued to publish such anti-Semitic material without Ford's explicit instructions seemed unthinkable to those who knew both men. Mrs. Stanley Ruddiman, a Ford family intimate, remarked that "I don't think Mr. Cameron ever wrote anything for publication without Mr. Ford's approval."[101] According to Spencer Blakeslee, "[t]he ADL mobilized prominent Jews and non-Jews to publicly oppose Ford's message. They formed a coalition of Jewish groups for the same purpose and raised constant objections in the Detroit press. Before leaving his presidency early in 1921, Woodrow Wilson joined other leading Americans in a statement that rebuked Ford and others for their antisemitic campaign. A boycott against Ford products by Jews and liberal Christians also had an impact, and Ford shut down the paper in 1927, recanting his views in a public letter to Sigmund Livingston, president of the ADL."[102] Wallace also found that Ford's apology was likely, or at least partly, motivated by a business that was slumping as a result of his antisemitism, repelling potential buyers of Ford cars.[51] Up until the apology, a considerable number of dealers, who had been required to make sure that buyers of Ford cars received the Independent, bought up and destroyed copies of the newspaper rather than alienate customers.[51]
Ford's 1927 apology was well received. "Four-fifths of the hundreds of letters addressed to Ford in July 1927 were from Jews, and almost without exception they praised the industrialist..."
In July 1938, the German consul in Cleveland gave Ford, on his 75th birthday, the award of the
On January 7, 1942, Ford wrote another letter to Sigmund Livingston disclaiming direct or indirect support of "any agitation which would promote antagonism toward my Jewish fellow citizens". He concluded the letter with, "My sincere hope that now in this country and throughout the world when the war is finished, hatred of the Jews and hatred against any other racial or religious groups shall cease for all time."[107]
The distribution of The International Jew was halted in 1942 through legal action by Ford, despite complications from a lack of copyright.
Robert Lacey wrote in Ford: The Men and the Machines that a close Willow Run associate of Ford reported that when he was shown newsreel footage of the Nazi concentration camps, he "was confronted with the atrocities which finally and unanswerably laid bare the bestiality of the prejudice to which he contributed, he collapsed with a stroke – his last and most serious."[109] Ford had suffered previous strokes and his final cerebral hemorrhage occurred in 1947 at age 83.[110]
International business
Ford's philosophy was one of
He opened Ford assembly plants in Britain and Canada in 1911, and soon became the biggest automotive producer in those countries. In 1912, Ford cooperated with
In 1929, Ford made an agreement with the Soviets to provide technical aid over nine years in building the first Soviet automobile plant (GAZ) near Nizhny Novgorod (Gorky)[113] (an additional contract for construction of the plant was signed with The Austin Company on August 23, 1929).[114] The contract involved the purchase of $30,000,000 worth of knocked-down Ford cars and trucks for assembly during the first four years of the plant's operation, after which the plant would gradually switch to Soviet-made components. Ford sent his engineers and technicians to the Soviet Union to help install the equipment and train the workforce, while over a hundred Soviet engineers and technicians were stationed at Ford's plants in Detroit and Dearborn "for the purpose of learning the methods and practice of manufacture and assembly in the Company's plants".[115] Said Ford: "No matter where industry prospers, whether in India or China, or Russia, the more profit there will be for everyone, including us. All the world is bound to catch some good from it."[116]
By 1932, Ford was manufacturing one-third of the world's automobiles. It set up numerous subsidiaries that sold or assembled the Ford cars and trucks:
- Ford of Australia
- Ford of Britain
- Ford of Argentina
- Ford of Brazil
- Ford of Canada
- Ford of Europe
- Ford India
- Ford South Africa
- Ford Philippines
Ford's image transfixed Europeans, especially the Germans, arousing the "fear of some, the infatuation of others, and the fascination among all".[117] Germans who discussed "Fordism" often believed that it represented something quintessentially American. They saw the size, tempo, standardization, and philosophy of production demonstrated at the Ford Works as a national service—an "American thing" that represented the culture of the United States. Both supporters and critics insisted that Fordism epitomized American capitalist development, and that the auto industry was the key to understanding economic and social relations in the United States. As one German explained, "Automobiles have so completely changed the American's mode of life that today one can hardly imagine being without a car. It is difficult to remember what life was like before Mr. Ford began preaching his doctrine of salvation".[118] For many Germans, Ford embodied the essence of successful Americanism.
In My Life and Work, Ford predicted that if greed, racism, and short-sightedness could be overcome, then economic and technological development throughout the world would progress to the point that international trade would no longer be based on (what today would be called) colonial or neocolonial models and would truly benefit all peoples.[119]
Racing
Ford maintained an interest in auto racing from 1901 to 1913 and began his involvement in the sport as both a constructor and a driver, later turning the wheel over to hired drivers. On October 10, 1901, he defeated
In My Life and Work Ford speaks (briefly) of racing in a rather dismissive tone, as something that is not at all a good measure of automobiles in general. He describes himself as someone who raced only because in the 1890s through 1910s, one had to race because prevailing ignorance held that racing was the way to prove the worth of an automobile. Ford did not agree. But he was determined that as long as this was the definition of success (flawed though the definition was), then his cars would be the best that there were at racing.[121] Throughout the book, he continually returns to ideals such as transportation, production efficiency, affordability, reliability, fuel efficiency, economic prosperity, and the automation of drudgery in farming and industry, but rarely mentions, and rather belittles, the idea of merely going fast from point A to point B.
Nevertheless, Ford did make quite an impact on auto racing during his racing years, and he was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1996.[122]
Later career and death
When Edsel Ford, President of Ford Motor Company, died of cancer in May 1943, the elderly and ailing Henry Ford decided to assume the presidency. By this point, Ford, nearing 80, had several cardiovascular events (variously cited as heart attacks or strokes) and was mentally inconsistent, suspicious, and generally no longer fit for such immense responsibilities.[123]
Most of the directors did not want to see him as president. But for the previous 20 years, though he had long been without any official executive title, he had always had de facto control over the company; the board and the management had never seriously defied him, and this time was no different. The directors elected him,
His health failing, Ford ceded the company presidency to his grandson
Personal interests
A compendium of short biographies of famous Freemasons, published by a Freemason lodge, lists Ford as a member.[126] The Grand Lodge of New York confirms that Ford was a Freemason, and was raised in Palestine Lodge No. 357, Detroit, in 1894. When he received the 33rd degree of the Scottish Rite in 1940, he said, "Masonry is the best balance wheel the United States has."[127]
In 1923, Ford's pastor, and head of his sociology department, Episcopal minister Samuel S. Marquis, claimed that Ford believed, or "once believed," in reincarnation.[128]
Ford published an anti-smoking book, circulated to youth in 1914, called The Case Against the Little White Slaver, which documented many dangers of cigarette smoking attested to by many researchers and luminaries.[129] At the time, smoking was ubiquitous and not yet widely associated with health problems, making Ford's opposition to cigarettes unusual.
Interest in materials science and engineering
Henry Ford had a long-held interest in materials science and engineering. He enthusiastically described his company's adoption of vanadium steel alloys and subsequent metallurgic R&D work.[130]
Ford also had a long-standing interest in plastics developed from agricultural products, particularly
Ford was interested in engineered woods ("Better wood can be made than is grown"[135]) (at this time plywood and particle board were little more than experimental ideas); corn as a fuel source, via both corn oil and ethanol;[136] and the potential uses of cotton.[135] Ford was instrumental in developing charcoal briquets, under the brand name "Kingsford". His brother-in-law, Edward G. Kingsford, used wood scraps from the Ford factory to make the briquets.
In 1927, Ford partnered with
Ford was a prolific inventor and was awarded 161 U.S. patents.
Florida and Georgia residences and community
Ford had a vacation residence in Fort Myers, Florida, next to that of Thomas Edison, which he bought in 1915 and used until c. 1930. It still stands today as a museum.[137]
He also had a vacation home (known today as the "Ford Plantation") in
Preserving Americana
Ford had an interest in
In popular culture
- In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932), society is organized on "Fordist" lines, the years are dated A.F. or Anno Ford ("In the Year of Ford"), and the expression "My Ford" is used instead of "My Lord". The Christian cross is replaced with a capital "T" for Model-T.
- Upton Sinclair created a fictional description of Ford in the 1937 novel The Flivver King.
- Symphonic composer tone poemin Henry Ford's honor (1938).
- "Lord, Mr. Ford", a 1973 song written by Deena Kaye Rose and recorded by Jerry Reed for his album of the same name, describes the impact of the automobile on modern American life and has the narrator addressing Ford in the chorus.
- Ford appears as a character in several historical novels, notably E. L. Doctorow's Ragtime (1975), and Richard Powers' Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance (1985).[140][141]
- Ford, his family, and his company are the subjects of the 1987 television film Ford: The Man and the Machine, based on the 1986 biography Ford: The Men and the Machine by Robert Lacey and starring Cliff Robertson in the title role.
- In the 2004 alternative history novel The Plot Against America, Philip Roth features Ford as Secretary of the Interior in a fictional Charles Lindbergh presidential administration after Lindbergh's victory over Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election. The novel draws heavily on the administration's antisemitism and isolationism as a catalyst for its plot.
- In the 2020 HBO adapted miniseries of the same name, Ford is portrayed by actor Ed Moran.
- Ford appears as a Great Builder in the 2008 strategy video game Civilization Revolution.[142]
- In the fictional history of the
- Ford is featured as an ally of Thomas Edison in the YouTube series Super Science Friends.
- In 2023, Ford was featured in an episode of the Youtube comedic series Epic Rap Battles of History, rapping against Karl Marx.
Honors and recognition
- In December 1999, Ford was among 18 included in Gallup's List of Widely Admired People of the 20th Century, from a poll conducted of the American people.
- In 1928, Ford was awarded the Franklin Institute's Elliott Cresson Medal.
- In 1938, Ford was awarded Nazi Germany's Grand Cross of the German Eagle, a medal given to foreigners sympathetic to Nazism.[145]
- The United States Postal Service honored Ford with a Prominent Americans series (1965–1978) 12¢ postage stamp.
- He was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 1946.[146][147]
- In 1975, Ford was posthumously inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame.[148]
- In 1985, he was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame.[55]
- He was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1996.[149]
See also
- Capitalist peace
- Detroit, Toledo and Ironton Railroad
- Dodge v. Ford Motor Company
- Edison and Ford Winter Estates
- Arthur Constantin Krebs
- Ferdinand Porsche
- Ferdinand Verbiest
- Ford family tree
- John Burroughs
- List of covers of Time magazine (1920s)
- List of richest Americans in history
- Outline of Henry Ford
- Preston Tucker
- Ransom Olds
- William Benson Mayo
References
- National Public Radio. Retrieved February 11, 2024.
- ^ Goodman, Peter (June 10, 2024). "Lessons From Henry Ford About Today's Supply Chain Mess". The New York Times. Retrieved February 11, 2024.
- ^ "Ford Home - The Henry Ford". www.thehenryford.org. Retrieved February 11, 2024.
- ^ Chiodini, Melanie (January 18, 2013). "Vision and innovation: Lessons from Henry Ford". MSU Extension. Retrieved February 11, 2024.
- ^ www.hfmgv.org The Henry Ford Museum: The Life of Henry Ford Archived October 24, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "The history of Ford in Ireland". Archived from the original on November 19, 2017.
- ^ Henry Ford—Biography, Education, Inventions, & Facts. Retrieved February 6, 2022.
- ^ Nevins and Hill (1954), 1:90.
- ^ Ford, My Life and Work, 22–24; Nevins and Hill, Ford TMC, 58.
- ^ Evans, Harold "They Made America" Little, Brown and Company. New York
- ^ Ford, My Life and Work, 24; Edward A. Guest "Henry Ford Talks About His Mother," American Magazine, July 1923, 11–15, 116–20.
- ISBN 978-0307558978.
- ^ ISBN 9781545549117.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - ^ "Widow of Automobile Pioneer, Victim of Coronary Occlusion, Survived Him Three Years". Associated Press. September 29, 1950.
- ^ "Edsel Ford Dies in Detroit at 49. Motor Company President, the Only Son of Its Founder, Had Long Been Ill". Associated Press. May 26, 1943.
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- ^ a b c d e f g h i Ford R. Bryan, "The Birth of Ford Motor Company" Archived August 29, 2012, at the Wayback Machine, Henry Ford Heritage Association, retrieved August 20, 2012.
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- ^ "Beetle overtakes Model T as world's best-selling car". HISTORY. Retrieved June 26, 2022.
- ^ Nevins and Hill (1957) vol. 2
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- ^ a b King 2003
- ^ "Edsel Ford and the Lincoln DNA". Ford Corporate. Retrieved October 19, 2023.
- ^ Nevins and Hill (1957) 2:409–36
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- ^ Nevins and Hill (1957) 2:459–78
- ^ "Ford Motor Company – Investors – Information".
- ^ Nevins and Hill (1957) 2:508–40
- ^ Using the consumer price index, this was equivalent to $111.10 per day in 2008 dollars.
- ^ Lewis, Public Image p. 71
- ^ Nevins, Ford 1:528–41
- ^ Watts, People's Tycoon, pp. 178–94
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- ^ Ford & Crowther 1922, pp. 126–30.
- ^ Lewis, Public Image, 69–70
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- ^ ISBN 978-0-312-29022-1.
- ^ Sorensen 1956, p. 261.
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- ^ Steven Watts, The people's tycoon: Henry Ford and the American century (Vintage, 2009). pp. 236–237.
- ^ Allan Nevins and Frank Ernest Hill, Ford: Expansion and Challenge, 1915–1933 (1957) 2:55–85
- ISBN 188765688X, p. 44.
- ISBN 9780375407352.
- ^ John Milton Cooper Jr, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography (2009) p. 521
- ^ Baldwin, Neil (2001). Henry Ford and the Jews: The Mass Production of Hate. New York: Public Affairs.
- ^ Stephen Watts, The People's Tycoon (2005) p. 505
- ^ Baldwin
- ^ "WWII and Ford Motor Company – Michigan History".
- ^ a b Sward, Keith (1948). The Legend of Henry Ford. Rinehart & Company Inc. Retrieved April 26, 2020.
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- ^ a b Nolan, Jenny. "Michigan History: Willow Run and the Arsenal of Democracy." The Detroit News, January 28, 1997. Retrieved: August 7, 2010.
- ^ Watts, The People's Tycoon (2005) p. 503
- ^ Watts, The People's Tycoon (2005) pp. 522–25
- ^ a b Sorensen 1956, pp. 324–333.
- ^ Yates, Brock. "10 Best Moguls", in Car and Driver, 1/88, p. 45.
- ^ Watts, The People's Tycoon (2005) pp. 522–27
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- ^ Pennacchia, Robyn (December 12, 2017). "America's wholesome square dancing tradition is a tool of white supremacy". Quartz. Retrieved June 16, 2019.
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- ^ "The Dearborn Independent, February 20, 1926 – Henry Ford". www.thehenryford.org. Retrieved November 19, 2022.
- ^ a b "Ford's Anti-Semitism | American Experience | PBS". www.pbs.org. Retrieved November 19, 2022.
- ^ a b "Henry Ford and the Jews, the story Dearborn didn't want told | Bridge Michigan". www.bridgemi.com. Retrieved November 19, 2022.
- ^ "The International Jew: 1920s Antisemitism Revived Online | ADL". www.adl.org. Retrieved November 19, 2022.
- ISBN 0-87855-940-X, p. 168.
- ISBN 978-0807826775. See also, Pfal-Traughber, Armin (1993). Der antisemitisch-antifreimaurerische Verschwörungsmythos in der Weimarer Republik und im NS-Staat. Vienna: Braumüller. p. 39.. See also: Eliten-Antisemitismus in Nazi-Kontinuität. Archived July 30, 2017, at the Wayback Machine In: Graswurzelrevolution. December 2003. Pfal-Traughber and Allen both cite Ackermann. Heinrich Himmler als Ideologe. p. 37.
- ^ Mein Kampf pp. 929, 930
- ^ a b c d "Ford and GM Scrutinized for Alleged Nazi Collaboration". The Washington Post. November 30, 1998. pp. A01. Retrieved March 5, 2008.
- ^ Watts, p. xi.
- ^ Wallace, Max. The American Axis: Henry Ford, Charles Lindberg and the Rise of the Third Reich, St. Martin's Griffin, New York, p. 52
- ^ Rudin, A. James (October 10, 2014). "The dark legacy of Henry Ford's anti-Semitism". The Washington Post. Retrieved January 14, 2018.
- ^ a b Eisenstein, Paul A. (February 4, 2019). "Mayor's attempt to censor local article about Henry Ford's anti-Semitism draws national attention". CNBC. Retrieved November 19, 2022.
- ^ "Long before Elon Musk, Henry Ford went to war with Jewish groups". Washington Post.
- ISBN 1-58648-163-0.
- ^ Hitler's Vienna: A Dictator's Apprenticeship by Brigitte Hamann New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. pp347-59.
- ISBN 0766178293, p. 61.
- ^ Watts pp. x, 376–87; Lewis (1976) pp. 135–59.
- ^ Lewis, (1976) pp. 140–56; Baldwin pp. 220–21.
- ^ Wallace, Max. (2003). The American Axis: Ford, Lindbergh, and the Rise of the Third Reich. New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 30.
- ISBN 0-8078-4638-4, p. 35.
- ISBN 0275965082, p. 83.
- ^ ISBN 978-0814315538., pp. 146–154.
- ^ Pool & Pool 1978
- ^ Kampeas, Ron (February 8, 2020). "At Ford-sponsored Auschwitz exhibit, no sign of founder's role in Nazi machine". Times of Israel. Retrieved February 5, 2022.
- ISBN 0226238040, p. 228.
- ^ "Arnstein & Lehr, The First 120 Years" (Louis A. Lehr, Jr.)(Amazon), p. 32
- ^ Baldur von Schirach before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. May 23, 1946.
- ^ Lacey, Robert (1986). Ford. pp. 218–219.; which in turn cites:
- "The Poor Mr Ford". Josephine Fellows Gomon Papers. draft manuscript. Vol. Box 10. Bentley Historical Library.
- ^ a b "Leader in Production Founded Vast Empire in Motors in 1903. He had Retired in 1945. Began Company With Capital of $28,000 Invested by His Friends and Neighbors. Henry Ford Is Dead. Founder of Vast Automotive Empire and Leader in Mass Production". The New York Times. Associated Press. April 4, 1947. Archived from the original on January 26, 2020. Retrieved January 1, 2020.
- ^ Watts 236–40
- ^ Wilkins
- JSTOR 23757906.
- OCLC 819325601.
- ^ Agreement Between the Ford Motor Company, the Supreme Council of National Economy, and the Amtorg Trading Corporation, May 31, 1929, Amtorg Records 1929–1930, Acc. 199, box 1a, Benson Ford Research Center, The Henry Ford, Dearborn, Mich.
- ^ The New York Times, May 5 and 7, 1929.
- ^ Nolan p. 31.
- ^ Nolan, p. 31.
- ^ Ford & Crowther 1922, pp. 242–244.
- ^ Sturniolo, Zach (October 10, 2022). "Leonard Wood gifts Edsel Ford half-scale replica of historic Sweepstakes". NASCAR.com. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. Retrieved October 11, 2022.
- ^ Ford & Crowther 1922, p. 50.
- ISBN 978-1605297934.
- ^ Sorensen 1956, pp. 100, 266, 271–72, 310–14
- ^ Sorensen 1956, pp. 325–26.
- ^ Don Lochbeiler (July 22, 1997). "I think Mr. Ford is Leaving Us". The Detroit News Michigan History. detnews.com. Archived from the original on July 15, 2012. Retrieved October 29, 2010.
- ^ Denslow 2004, p. 62.
- ^ "Famous Masons". MWGLNY. January 2014. Archived from the original on November 10, 2013.
- ^ Marquis, Samuel S. ([1923]/2007). Henry Ford: An Interpretation. Wayne State University Press.
- ^ The Case Against the Little White Slaver
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- ^ "George Washington Carver – Visionaries on Innovation". www.thehenryford.org. Retrieved October 22, 2017.
- ^ "George Washington Carver begins experimental project with Henry Ford – July 19, 1942". HISTORY.com. Retrieved October 22, 2017.
- ^ "George Washington Carver Examining Soy Fiber, Soybean Laboratory at Greenfield Village, 1939". www.thehenryford.org. Retrieved October 22, 2017.
- ^ Lewis 1995.
- ^ a b Ford & Crowther 1922, p. 281.
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- ^ Civilization Revolution: Great People Archived March 17, 2011, at the Wayback Machine "CivFanatics" Retrieved on September 4, 2009
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- ^ "Henry Ford". Hall of Fame Inductees. Automotive Hall of Fame. 1946. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
- ^ Francomano, Joe; Lavitt, Darryl; Lavitt, Wayne (1988). Junior Achievement: A History. Junior Achievement, Inc. p. 89.
- ^ Henry Ford at the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America
Sources
- Denslow, William R. (2004) [1957]. 10,000 Famous Freemasons. Part. Vol. One, Volume 1, from A to J. Foreword by Harry S. Truman. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 978-1417975785.
- Ford, Henry; ISBN 9781406500189. Original is public domain in U.S. Also available at Google Books.
- Higham, Charles, Trading with the Enemy The Nazi–American Money Plot 1933–1949; Delacorte Press 1983
- Kandel, Alan D. "Ford and Israel" Michigan Jewish History 1999 39: 13–17. covers business and philanthropy
- King, Jenny (June 16, 2003). "Lincoln Mercury: Stumbling stepchild". Automotive News. Detroit. ProQuest 219377741. Retrieved June 30, 2021 – via ProQuest.
- Lee, Albert; Henry Ford and the Jews; Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1980; ISBN 0812827015
- Lewis, David L. (1995). "Henry Ford and His Magic Beanstalk". Michigan History. 79 (3): 10–17. Ford's interest in soybeans and plastics
- Pool, James; Pool, Suzanne (1978), "'Chapter: Ford and Hitler'", Who Financed Hitler: The Secret Funding of Hitler's Rise to Power, 1919–1933, Dial Press, ISBN 978-0708817568.
- Reich, Simon (1999) "The Ford Motor Company and the Third Reich" Dimensions, 13(2):15–17 online
- ISBN 9780814332795.
Further reading
Memoirs by Ford Motor Company principals
- Ford, Henry; ISBN 0915299364.
- Ford, Henry; Crowther, Samuel (1930). Moving Forward. Garden City, New York City: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc. Co-edition, 1931, London, William Heinemann.
- Ford, Henry; Crowther, Samuel (1930). Edison as I Know Him. New York: Cosmopolitan Book Corporation. Apparent co-edition, 1930, as My Friend Mr. Edison, London, Ernest Benn. Republished as Edison as I Knew Him by American Thought and Action, San Diego, 1966, ISBN 978-1432561581.
- ).
Biographies
- Bak, Richard (2003). Henry and Edsel: The Creation of the Ford Empire. Wiley ISBN 0471234877
- Brinkley, Douglas G. Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company, and a Century of Progress (2003)
- Halberstam, David. "Citizen Ford" American Heritage 1986 37(6): 49–64. interpretive essay
- Jardim, Anne. The First Henry Ford: A Study in Personality and Business Leadership Massachusetts Inst. of Technology Press 1970.
- Lacey, Robert. Ford: The Men and the Machine Little, Brown, 1986. popular biography
- Lewis, David I. (1976). The Public Image of Henry Ford: An American Folk Hero and His Company. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 978-0814315538.
- Nevins, Allan; Frank Ernest Hill (1954). Ford: The Times, The Man, The Company. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. ACLS e-book; also online free
- Nevins, Allan; Frank Ernest Hill (1957). Ford: Expansion and Challenge, 1915–1933. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. ACLS e-book
- Nevins, Allan; Frank Ernest Hill (1962). Ford: Decline and Rebirth, 1933–1962. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. ACLS e-book
- Nye, David E. Henry Ford: "Ignorant Idealist." Kennikat, 1979.
- Watts, Steven. The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century (2005)
Specialized studies
- Baime, A.J. The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War (2014)
- Barrow, Heather B. Henry Ford's Plan for the American Suburb: Dearborn and Detroit. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2015.
- Batchelor, Ray. Henry Ford: Mass Production, Modernism and Design Manchester U. Press, 1994.
- Bonin, Huber et al. Ford, 1902–2003: The European History 2 vol Paris 2003. ISBN 2914369069scholarly essays in English; reviewed in Holden, Len. "Fording the Atlantic: Ford and Fordism in Europe" in Business History Volume 47, #January 1, 2005 pp. 122–27
- Brinkley, Douglas. "Prime Mover". American Heritage 2003 54(3): 44–53. on Model T
- Bryan, Ford R. Henry's Lieutenants, 1993; ISBN 0814324282
- Bryan, Ford R. Beyond the Model T: The Other Ventures of Henry Ford Wayne State Press 1990.
- Dempsey, Mary A. "Fordlandia," Michigan History 1994 78(4): 24–33. Ford's rubber plantation in Brazil
- Galbraith, John Kenneth. "The Mystery of Henry Ford" The Atlantic (March 1958) online famous debunking essay.
- Grandin, Greg. Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City. London, Icon, 2010. ISBN 978-1848311473
- OCLC 1104810110
- Jacobson, D.S. "The Political Economy of Industrial Location: the Ford Motor Company at Cork 1912–26." Irish Economic and Social History 1977 4: 36–55. Ford and Irish politics
- Kraft, Barbara S. The Peace Ship: Henry Ford's Pacifist Adventure in the First World War Macmillan, 1978
- Levinson, William A. Henry Ford's Lean Vision: Enduring Principles from the First Ford Motor Plant, 2002; ISBN 1563272601
- Lewis, David L. "Ford and Kahn" Michigan History 1980 64(5): 17–28. Ford commissioned architect Albert Kahn to design factories
- Lewis, David L. "Working Side by Side" Michigan History 1993 77(1): 24–30. Why Ford hired large numbers of black workers
- Link, Stefan J. Forging Global Fordism: Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and the Contest over the Industrial Order (2020) excerpt
- McIntyre, Stephen L. "The Failure of Fordism: Reform of the Automobile Repair Industry, 1913–1940: Technology and Culture 2000 41(2): 269–99. repair shops rejected flat rates
- Meyer, Stephen. The Five Dollar Day: Labor Management and Social Control in the Ford Motor Company, 1908–1921 (1981)
- Nevins, Allan, and Frank Ernest Hill. Ford: the Times the Man the Company (1954); Ford: Expansion and Challenge, 1915–1933 (1957); Ford: Decline and Rebirth, 1933–1962 (1963) comprehensive scholarly history
- Nolan; Mary. Visions of Modernity: American Business and the Modernization of Germany (1994)
- Pietrykowski, Bruce. (1995). "Fordism at Ford: Spatial Decentralization and Labor Segmentation at the Ford Motor Company, 1920–1950". Economic Geography. 71 (4): 383–401. JSTOR 144424.
- Raff, Daniel M. G. and Lawrence H. Summers (October 1987). "Did Henry Ford Pay Efficiency Wages?" (PDF). Journal of Labor Economics. 5 (4): S57–S86. S2CID 158557619.
- Roediger, David, ed "Americanism and Fordism—American Style: Kate Richards O'hare's 'Has Henry Ford Made Good?'" Labor History 1988 29(2): 241–52. Socialist praise for Ford in 1916
- Segal, Howard P. "'Little Plants in the Country': Henry Ford's Village Industries and the Beginning of Decentralized Technology in Modern America" Prospects 1988 13: 181–223. Ford created 19 rural workplaces as pastoral retreats
- Tedlow, Richard S. "The Struggle for Dominance in the Automobile Market: the Early Years of Ford and General Motors" Business and Economic History 1988 17: 49–62. Ford stressed low price based on efficient factories but GM did better in oligopolistic competition by including investment in manufacturing, marketing, and management.
- Thomas, Robert Paul. "The Automobile Industry and its Tycoon" Explorations in Entrepreneurial History 1969 6(2): 139–57. argues Ford did NOT have much influence on US industry,
- Valdés, Dennis Nodin. "Perspiring Capitalists: Latinos and the Henry Ford Service School, 1918–1928" Aztlán 1981 12(2): 227–39. Ford brought hundreds of Mexicans in for training as managers
- Wilkins, Mira and Frank Ernest Hill, American Business Abroad: Ford on Six Continents Wayne State University Press, 1964
- Williams, Karel, Colin Haslam and John Williams, "Ford versus 'Fordism': The Beginning of Mass Production?" Work, Employment & Society, Vol. 6, No. 4, 517–55 (1992), stress on Ford's flexibility and commitment to continuous improvements
External links
- Full text of My Life and Work from Project Gutenberg
- Timeline
- The Henry Ford Heritage Association
- Henry Ford – an American Experience documentary
- Works by Henry Ford at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Henry Ford at Internet Archive
- Works by Henry Ford at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Newspaper clippings about Henry Ford in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW