ChildhoodHenry Ford, born July 30, 1863, enjoyed a childhood spending days in a one-room school and doing farm chores. At an early age, he showed an interest in mechanical things and a dislike for farm work.
In 1879, sixteen-year-old Ford left home for Detroit to work as an apprentice machinist. He remained an apprentice for three years and then returned to Dearborn. During the next few years, Henry operated and repaired steam engines, found occasional work in a Detroit factory and dealt with his father's farm implements. Upon his marriage to Clara Bryant in 1888, Henry supported himself and his wife by running a sawmill.
The Engineer
In 1891, Ford became an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit. After that Ford started to dedicate his life to industrial pursuits. His promotion to Chief Engineer in 1893 gave him enough time and money for his experiments on internal combustion engines.
These experiments resulted in 1896 with the completion of his own self-propelled vehicle, the Quadricycle. The Quadricycle had four wire wheels that looked like heavy bicycle wheels, was steered with a tiller like a boat and had only two forward speeds with no reverse.
Ford was not the first to build a self-propelled vehicle with a gasoline engine, but he was one of the pioneers who helped his country become a nation of motorists.
Ford Motor Company
After two unsuccessful attempts to establish a company to manufacture automobiles, the Ford Motor Company was incorporated in 1903 with Henry Ford as vice-president and chief engineer. The company produced only a few cars a day at the Ford factory on Mack Avenue in Detroit. Groups of two or three men worked on each car.
Henry Ford dreamed of producing an automobile that was reasonably priced, reliable and efficient. Model T initiated a new era in personal transportation. It was easy to operate, maintain and handle on rough roads, immediately becoming a huge success.
By 1918, half of all cars in America were Model Ts. To meet the growing demand for the Model T, the company opened a large factory at Highland Park, Michigan, in 1910. Henry Ford combined precision manufacturing, interchangeable and standardized parts, a division of labor, and in 1913, a continuous moving assembly line. Workers remained in place, adding one component to each automobile as it moved past them on the line. Delivery of parts by conveyor belt to the workers was carefully timed to keep the assembly line moving smoothly and efficiently. The introduction of the moving assembly line revolutionized automobile production by significantly reducing assembly time per vehicle and lowering costs. Ford's production of Model Ts made his company the largest automobile manufacturer in the world.
The company began construction of the world's largest industrial complex along the banks of the Rouge River in Dearborn, Michigan, during the late 1910s and early 1920s. The massive Rouge Plant included all the elements needed for automobile production: a steel mill, glass factory, and automobile assembly line. Iron ore and coal were brought in on Great Lakes steamers and by railroad, and were used to produce both iron and steel. Rolling mills, forges, and assembly shops transformed the steel into springs, axles and car bodies. Foundries converted iron into engine blocks and cylinder heads that were assembled with other components into engines. By September 1927, all steps in the manufacturing process from refining raw materials to final assembly of the automobile took place at the vast Rouge Plant, characterizing Henry Ford's idea of mass production.
References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford, http://www.hfmgv.org/exhibits/hf/, http://www.incwell.com/Biographies/Ford.html
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