Titans of Industry: Henry Ford

The final biography I will do regarding this series on Titans of Industry during America's Gilded Age is Henry Ford. His name is synonymous with the Model T that revolutionized the automobile market. His claim to fame is not that he invented the automobile but rather that he was able to mass produce them and make them affordable for the general public.

Throughout the early 1900s he quickly ascended to the top of the automobile market, just as Vanderbilt dominated the railroad market, Rockefeller dominated the oil market, Carnegie dominated the steel market, and JP Morgan dominated the banking market. He amassed a great amount of wealth throughout his lifetime and to this day his name has become an iconic American automobile brand.


Early Life of Henry Ford

He was born in Greenfield, Michigan in 1863 to a farming family. Both his parents were hard working and each of Henry's siblings helped run the farm. However at an early age Henry showed disinterest in the farming business and rather displayed a more technical skill. As a teenager he became a skilled watch repairmen which would inspire him to further mechanical endeavors. Henry was extremely saddened by the early death of his mother in 1876 and decided he wanted to leave the farming business.

In 1879 he left the farm to move to Detroit where he found work as a machinist at various manufacturing companies. He quickly acquired a keen interest in the Westinghouse Farm Engine, which was essentially a steam engine on wheels often pulled by horses, and the earliest version of a tractor. By 1882 Henry Ford was hired on by the Westinghouse Company as a repair mechanic for this machine. During this time he also studied business and bookkeeping at the Detroit Business Institute. 


Ford Motor Company

By 1888 Henry married Clara Jayne Bryant and together they had one child. In 1891 he was hired as an engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company of Detroit and a couple years later he was promoted to become the chief engineer. During this time Henry began experimenting with the gasoline powered automobile on his free time. In 1896 at the age of 32 he was able to manufacture a self-propelled vehicle, in which he named the Ford Quadricycle his first automobile design. His early invention was even admired by his boss and famous inventor Thomas Edison.

In 1899 Ford resigned from the Edison Illuminating Company and founded the Detroit Automobile Company. His goal was to produce affordable and efficient vehicles however the product was expensive and low quality causing Henry to dissolve the company two years later. In 1901 he designed a much improved 26 horsepower automobile. With this design Ford was able to challenge the famous racer Alexander Winton and beat him in a publicized event. With the attention and proceeds from the race, he was able to form the Henry Ford Company with various partners and investors.

However a year after it's establishment, one of Ford's business partners brought on another chief inventor, Henry Leland to contribute. This undermining of his vision frustrated Henry, who quickly decided to leave this company that later became renamed the iconic Cadillac Automobile Company. Ford was able to produce another groundbreaking speed automobile, the Ford 999, which had an 80 horsepower speed and yet again won publicized racing victories. In 1902 Henry Ford partnered with businessman, Alexander Malcomson to fund his 3rd automobile business, Ford & Malcomson Ltd. They later partnered with businessmen John and Horace Dodge for machine parts. With the inclusion of the Dodge Brothers the business was renamed the Ford Motor Company in 1903.


Model T Breakthrough

One of Ford's first major business successes was the production of his Ford 999 race automobile. Notable racers such as Barney Oldfield won many races around the country, such as the newly established Indianapolis 500. The success of the race car brought fame to the name of Ford as the fastest locomotive of the time. However Ford wanted to mass produce a standard and affordable automobile for the general public and this design finally took shape in 1908 with the introduction of his Model T design. It had the wheel on the left, with a four-cylinder engine and transmission fully enclosed. The design was cheap, easy to drive, and easy to repair and soon became the standard design for all automobile companies.

Ford's greatest claim to fame and success during this time was his application of mass production. He created an efficient industry unlike any before him, thru the introduction of the assembly line. This system of a moving belt significantly increased production, far beyond previous railroad, steam, or other manufacturing plants had ever achieved. Through this efficient design Henry was able to quickly mass produce the model and lower the price of his automobile thru various marketing and advertising campaigns. By 1918 half of the cars in America were Ford Model Ts and Henry Ford had established himself as a powerful business titan. 

He remained however fair to his employees, and while he was against labor unions at the time he could always relate with the working class. Ford surpassed all business magnates before him, by considering his workers as a key element to his production. He exemplified this philosophy by introducing the 5 dollar work wage in 1914 which was double that of most other production work. He also introduced the 5 day, 40 hour work week, which would boost productivity yet also give his workers more leisure time. 

Personal Interests and Antisemitism

During World War I and World War II Henry Ford was strongly opposed to intervening however did his part to support the US Army. He created an aviation company during the war, to supply aircraft for the military. His Ford Trimotor became the first successful US passenger airliner and was referred to as the "Tin Goose". However his aviation business did not quite take off as his automobile business did and was discontinued by 1933 during the Great Depression. Ford remained a fervent supporter of Woodrow Wilson and his League of Nations. He even ran for senator of Michigan in 1918 however loss to William Alden Smith. 

During the 1920s, Henry Ford began displaying strong right-wing extremism and religious prejudice against the Jews. He strongly believed in conspiracy theories that the Jews were on a mission to control the world as was stated in the publication of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Henry Ford played a large role in the distribution of this conspiracy pamphlet during the 1920s.

In 1919 he began to publish the Dearborn Independent a weekly newspaper that became a platform for antisemitic fervor. This newsletter, specifically the publication of The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem, became influential in the early rise of Nazi Germany's racist ideology. However by 1927 Henry Ford was forced to dissolve the newsletter after various lawsuits from the Jewish Anti Defamation League. In a business effort to salvage his image, Ford publicly apologized for the content and stated that he was not fully aware of everything that was written.

Before the outbreak of World War II, Ford disapproved of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal policy and especially getting involved in the war. However he yet again played a crucial role in supplying automobiles and aircraft to the US military. In 1942 he established another aviation plant known as Willow Run, which became the largest assembly line in the nation and mass produced the B-24 bomber. During this time however Henry Ford's mental health began to fade perhaps due to the death of his only son Edsel. In 1945 he decided to retire and pass the company over to his grandson Henry Ford II (who managed the company until 1979). Henry Ford died in 1947 at the age of 83 and his automobile industry has continued to flourish to this day. He is the 12th wealthiest man in American history and a defining example of an American industrial business titan.