| American industrialist who revolutionized factory production with his assembly-line methods.
Ford spent most of his life making headlines, good, bad, but never indifferent. Celebrated as both a technological genius and a folk hero,
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| Ford showed mechanical aptitude at an early age and left (1879) his father's farm to work as an apprentice in a Detroit machine shop. He soon returned to his home, but after considerable experimentation with power-driven vehicles, he went (1890) to Detroit again and worked as a machinist and engineer with the Edison Company. Ford continued working in his spare time as well, and in 1896 he completed his first automobile. Resigning (1899) from the Edison Company he launched the Detroit Automobile Company. |
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| A disagreement with his associates led Ford to organize (1903) the Ford Motor Company in partnership with Alexander Malcomson, James Couzens (who devised and oversaw the company's successful early business and accounting procedures), the Dodge brothers, and others. In 1907 he purchased the stock owned by most of his associates, and thereafter the Ford family remained in control of the company. By cutting the costs of production, by adapting the conveyor belt and assembly line to automobile production, and by featuring an inexpensive, standardized car, Ford was soon able to outdistance all his competitors and become the largest automobile producer in the world. He came to be regarded as the apostle of mass production. In 1908 he guided his chief engineer Harold Wills in the design of the Model T; nearly 17 million cars were produced worldwide before the model was discontinued (1928) and a new design-the Model A-was created to meet growing competition. Highly publicized for paying wages considerably above the average, Ford began in 1914-the year he created a sensation by announcing that in future his workers would receive $5 for an 8-hr day-a profit-sharing plan that would distribute up to $30 million annually among his employees. |
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