Henry Ford A historic moment was marked when young Henry Ford was born. The date was July 30th, 1863. Never had his parents, William and Mary Ford, suspected that their first born child of six would be the father of industry, or one of the developers of mass production and assembly line methods. The Ford family grew up on a farmstead in Dearborn, Michigan. As a child, Henry, like any other child at the time, went to a one-room schoolhouse. Like any typical farm family, Henry had farm chores to do. Soon, it became apparent that Henry showed an interest in mechanics and detested farmwork. In 1879, sixteen-year-old Ford left for the nearby city of Detroit to work as an apprentice machinist, although he sometimes returned to help on the farm. He remained an apprentice for three years and later returned to Dearborn, Michigan. In 1888, he married to Clara Bryant. On November 6, 1893, Edsel Ford came into the world. Henry Ford began to experiment with a horseless carriage about 1890 and completed his first car, the Quadricycle, in 1896. During the following years he tried unsuccessfully to get into production. He launched two businesses, and both failed miserably. However, he had no intentions of giving up. During this period he built racing cars and became a well-known racing driver. On June 16, 1903, he launched the Ford Motor Company with a capital of $100,000, of which $28,000 was in cash. By this time he had formulated his idea of production: "The way to make automobiles is to make one automobile like another automobile, to make them all alike..." During the next five years, young Henry Ford, as chief engineer and later as president, directed a development and production program that started in a converted wagon factory on Mack Avenue in Detroit and later moved to a larger building at Piquette and Beaubien Streets. In the first fifteen months 1,700 Model A cars chugged out of the old wagon factory. Among 1903 and 1908, Henry Ford and his engineers used the first nineteen letters of the alphabet to designate their creations, although some of the cars were experimental and never reached the public. The most successful of the early production cars was the Model N--a small, light, four-cylinder machine that went on the market at $500. A $2,500 six-cylinder luxury car, the Model K, sold poorly. Later, the targeted buyers were the middle class citizens. Affordable cars such as the Model N were built and sold, beating out other competitors' prices. Not unlike any young business, problems arose. A man by the name of George Selden threatened Ford Motors' future. Selden had already patented the idea for an internal combustion engine. To protect his patent, he formed a powerful syndicate to license selected manufacturers and collect royalties for every "horseless carriage" built or sold in America, attempting to monopolize the industry. Ford took on the suit, and fought it to the very end in court. Through complicated proceedings, Ford Motors finally won the battle and freed itself, along with every other car company, from Selden's syndicate. Ford Motors continued through the alphabet, when reaching upon the letter, T. Ford didn't want to be fancy like others. He once turned down a dinner invitation from President Franklin Roosevelt to meet with the king and queen of England in 1929. His reason was that Mrs. Ford was having a meeting of her garden club that day. He really didn't care much about money either. Investors were all over him offering him this and that. Investors even offered him $1 billion to sell the company. He replied, "I'd have the money but no job." He used to stuff checks in his pocket. These weren't just for hundreds of dollars. They were hundreds of thousands of dollars. Ford was an anti-intellectual and didn't care for small talk. He once told the press, "I don't like to read books. They muss up my mind." He later got into trouble for publishing aggressive articles towards Jews. Ford made formal retractions and apologized. Ford Motor Company went through fluctuations and finally, Ford passed along the presidency to his oldest grandson, Henry Ford II. April 7, 1947, was the day one of America's most talented businessmen died. Before Ford died, a private foundation had been formed to avoid estate taxes. The Ford Foundation became one of the richest private foundations in the world. Ford's Accomplishments Ford had many important accomplishments in his lifetime. The very first accomplishment was one for himself. He built his first car with his own bare hands. It was the Quadricycle. The Quadricycle had four wire wheels that looked like heavy bicycle wheels. It only had two forward speeds and a single reverse speed. Too bad Ford wasn't the first to build a self propelled vehicle with a gasoline engine. Actually, it was the sixth American-built gasoline-powered car. Still, this helped this country to become a nation of motorists. Later this invention lead to the Model T which changed America forever. Failure could be seen as an accomplishment, for one gains experience from them. Ford had two mishaps. They were the two car companies he tried to start up. Both lasted for only months. Somehow, Ford did not intend to quit. During the days of his failing companies, he built racing cars. His 999, driven by Barney Oldfield, had set a new American record by crossing a five-mile course in five minutes twenty-eight seconds in October 1902. It was only through his failures and achievements that he finally realized he had the experience to make it work. In 1903, Ford Motor Company started up. Ford had gained enough confidence to try again. This time, he had all the money and knowledge he needed. It was there that he developed one of the most efficient production lines in history. Instead of using hand-crafted parts, he standardized them. In 1913 and 1914, Ford introduced a single continuous moving assembly line. This cut the average time from 728 minutes, to a mere 93 minutes per car. Ford was a man of heart and sympathy. To keep his factories rolling, he needed a dedicated workforce. He introduced his famous $5 a day salary, shocking the world in 1914. Competitors paid $1.80 a day for unskilled labor. Ford became an overnight celebrity and hailed as an enlightened business leader. Soon the Model T was produced and it was an instant success. The Model T Ford The Model T Ford was introduced in 1908. It was also called the "Tin Lizzie" or the "Flivver." It was Henry Ford's "car for the great multitude" and was an immediate success. Designed for durability and economy of operation, it had a four-cylinder, 20-horsepower engine and a planetary transmission operated by foot pedals, not unlike ours, on the floor. In 1908 the cost for a Model T was about $850; by 1925 the cheapest model, the coupe, sold for only $345. Cars made by other companies at the time costed more than $1,000. Model T's came in red, green, black, blue, and two shades of gray, but were eventually eliminated to black. By 1919 three-fifths of America's cars were Model T Fords. Worldwide, it was about half. The car was ideal in its time for farm families because of its ability to operate on rough country roads. Its appearance and extreme simplicity were what made it a very popular car. The Model T finally succumbed to a shift in public taste for more sophisticated and attractively styled cars. Production ceased on May 31, 1927, when No. 15,007,003, the last Model T ever built, rolled off the assembly line.