Happy 150th Birthday, Henry Ford!

Happy birthday to the great American innovator! You know him as the man who introduced the car and the industrial line to America. Did you also know that he was not only a perfectionist and a business man, but also a tinker-er, a tyrant, and a good bit paranoid (borderline mental)? That’s right, Henry Ford is much more interesting than you remember from grade school. However, this post is not going to focus on his unknown and less favorable characteristics, but rather his beginnings. It is after all, his birthday. Let’s keep it light.

Henry Ford was born today, in 1863, Greenfield Township Michigan to essentially immigrant parents. His father was born in Ireland to an English family, and his mother was born in Michigan to a family of Belgian immigrants. Ford was born into an America in the midst of the Civil War, and all the while his family maintained their farm. Ford had a tendency to tinker with things. He would mess around with watches and other machinery, often helping neighbors with repairs.

At age 16, Henry’s mother died, and he left. He walked to Detroit, much to his father’s shock. There, Ford worked as a machinist’s apprentice as well as in a dry dock. Later, he went back to his father’s farm to help him, and he continued his interest in machines, but his tinkering went up a level. Ford managed to put together a steam machine that would pull the plough, much like a crude tractor.

After his time spent back on the farm, Ford approached the company Westinghouse and became a serviceman for their steam machine department.

After building this interesting resume, Ford returned to the big city and ended up staying there. He went to work for the Edison Company as a supervisor of their Electrical Service. This job was a bit different from the other skills Ford had in his tool belt. However, this job did not impede his studies of the machine. He was on call, which meant that he spent a lot of time sitting around and waiting. During this time, Ford continued to experiment and dissect machines. By this point in time, the year is 1882. The following year, Ford is named the Chief Engineer of the Edison Illuminating Company.  During his time at this position, he attends a conference in New York and meets the president, Mr. Edison himself. Edison recognizes his potential and encourages Ford to continue developing his inventions. Edison does so not because he sees Ford as a kindred soul, but rather because he sees a profit in him.

In his garage, Ford constructs his quadricycle. It is built with an aluminum single cylinder engine, and in 1896, the quadricylce is on the road and running well. He built several of them. He is 33 years old at this point. Unlike other inventors of his day, Ford did not hang on to his inventions. He sold them as soon as they were functional to fund his next project. In the case of the quadricycle, he sold it to a man for $200. Years later he bought it back and it is today preserved in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

He continues to do this with a few more prototypes, gaining the support and recognition of the community. In 1899 he has enough financial backers to start the Detroit Automobile Company. Six months after the company is formed, Ford is essentially fired by his investors. Henry was still preoccupied with tinkering and not too keen on taking his inventions to market. In a nearly immediate turn around, Ford creates the Henry Ford Company with his same investor, William H. Murphy as the financier. This go-a-round was not much better, and Ford left, taking his name off of the company when he left. Murphy, however, did alright. He renamed the company the Cadillac Automobile Company and the company has survived to this day.

After a few more name changes, and after gathering money from the more common folk of Detroit (including the Dodge brothers), Henry Ford started the Ford Motor company in 1903. He was ready to go to market this time, five years later his Model T car was selling for $895 (about $22,000 today). The Model T went down in price, and its sales increased over 100% most years. His assembly line reduced the time it took to produce a Model T from 12.5 hours to 1.5 hours.

We will leave the history of Henry Ford here, as the “Beginnings” part of his story is now over. However, if you would like to learn more about the development and growth of his company, check out the book, Henry Ford: The Wayward Capitalist, found here in James B. Duke Library.

Sources: 
Chases’ Calendar of Events 2013
Stuff You Missed in History Class The Surprising Life of Henry Ford Part 1