Charles and Frank Duryea: Brought Us Americas First Gasoline-Powered Car (Titans of Fortune)

---

In , he became secretary to William C. Leland, who in was one of the founders of the Lincoln Motor Car Company. In , he moved to General Motors, where he was secretary to Karl Zimmerschied, the president of Chevrolet. In , he became head of the Detroit-area sales for Cadillac, then purchased a state-wide franchise for Huppmobile.

Henry Ford And The Model T

In , he became general manager of the Detroit Auto Club. He held that position for nearly 25 years, until his death in Hinkley was born in Lima, Ohio, in He began working in a foundry in , then at Cleveland's Peerless Motor Car in In , Hinkley became chief engineer at Chalmers Motor Co. The firm quickly changed its name to Hinkley Motors, and manufactured trucks and truck engines until Hinkley than became chief engineer of Buda Motor Co.

Hinkley married Edith Mann in ; they had two children. Hinkley died in In his boyhood he worked for Thomas Edison as a payroll bicycle courier between Port Huron and Detroit. In , he started the Fred E. Holmes Company, an early supplier of materials and parts to the automobile industry, particularly seat cushions. They had one child, Jean Carroll, born Fred Holmes died in Fred and Mabel Holmes moved into the Boston-Edison neighborhood, at Chicago, and lived there until the early s.

In , Benjamin A. Jeffery and his brother Joseph a dentist filed for a spark-plug patent, based primarily on Joseph's knowledge of porcelain. With that, they started the Reliance Automobile Co. In , the firm moved to Detroit. There, the business rapidly expanded as orders for porcelain insulators exceeded the brothers' expectations. In , Champion Spark Plug Co. Jeffrey continued as a vice president of the firm. He spent some time in mining in Utah, and then began working in companies associated with his father.

He worked for the Peninsular Car Co, becoming assistant treasurer. In , Joy bought a car from James Packard. Impressed with the design, he convinced a group of investors, including his brother-in-law Truman Newberry, to invest in the automobile company. Joy oversaw a steady expansion of Packard, with increasing production and sales. Eventually he became chairman of the board in He served as chairman until Read Joy's bio from the Automotive Hall of Fame. Martin was plant superintendent first at the Piquette Plant and then at the Rouge facility, and in was named Vice-President of Manufacturing.

Martin resigned from Ford in due to ill health. The store soon became one of the largest in the country, and dealt directly with suppliers in England. In , Metzger attended the world's first automobile show in London. He returned to Detroit convinced of the automobile's future, and built the first U. Metzger sold electric, steam, and gasoline brands, including automobiles built by Oldsmobile; in June , Metzger sold the first automobile built by the company. In , Metzger helped organize the Detroit Auto Show, only the second of its kind.

In , with only three cars produced, Metzger took orders for Cadillacs at the New York Auto Show, ensuring the company's fortunes. The company arranged for Studebaker to market their cars. However, although E-M-F was growing it would produce 26, automobiles in , second only to Ford , Metzger was unhappy with the partnership with Studebaker.

Metzger again used his sales skills, and the first year's production of Everitts were pre-sold before the first one rolled off the assembly line. Flanders soon bolted E-M-F to join them, but the unsettled finances of the new company proved its downfall. Metzger took his profits from the sale and left.

He also was appointed to the executive committee of the American Automobile Association, and was elected president of the Detroit Board of Fire Commissioners. He lived there until his death in Nash was born in Windsor April 4 In , he joined the newly-formed Cadillac Motor Car Co. He remained with the company until , when Henry and Wilfred Leland left Cadillac to form a new company: Nash was elected secretary-treasurer of Lincoln the Lelands were president and vice-president.

Nash moved on to become secretary and general manager of the Monarch Bumper Manufacturing Company and was also treasurer of the Atlas Foundry Company, unexpectedly passing away in Truman Newberry was born in in Detroit, the son of a wealthy businessman. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy from , and as Secretary of the Navy in and There were some irregularities in the election, and Newberry wasn't seated in the Senate for some time.

As a result, Newberry resigned in Impressed with the design, he convinced a group of investors, including Newberry, to invest in the automobile company. In , Truman Newberry and his brother John platted out the Boston Boulevard subdivision, stretching from Hamilton to 14th Street now Rosa Parks , encompassing the middle third of the Boston-Edison neighborhood.

Prentis was born in Kovno, Lithuania in ; his family moved to St. Louis when he was two. Prentis studied accounting in St. Louis and moved to Detroit in at the age of 25 to work for General Motors. He was the chief accountant and auditor for GM, and in was promoted to comptroller. Three years later, Prentis became treasurer of General Motors, a position he held until Prentis was also known for his philanthropy. He endowed the Meyer L. In , Meyer L. Prentis built a home at Chicago Boulevard, where he lived until the early s. Pulcher was born in Pontiac in After completing school, he worked in a buggy factory in Pontiac for eight years.

Sales of the Oakland were immediately successful, and Oakland attracted the attention of William Durant, head of the newly-formed General Motors. By , GM completely acquired Oakland, and Pulcher left the company the next year. Oakland continued to sell well until it was supplanted by the Pontiac nameplate in the early s. The firm produced around , heavy trucks during its operation from to Pulcher lived at Chicago Boulevard in the s and s, which was later occupied by Helene Rother.

Horace Rackham was a Detroit lawyer who opened his own law office in Ford Motor company was, of course, wildly successful, and in Rackham built a new home at 90 Edison in Boston-Edison, and in quit his law practice. In , Ford bought back Rackham's shares for Horace Rackham and his wife Mary devoted the rest of their lives to philanthropy.

In addition to supporting numerous charities, Rackham gave extensively to the University of Michigan, underwriting expeditions and fellowships.

Category Archives: History of Car Making

The University named its graduate college, as well as the building housing it, after Horace H. The results of Rackham's philanthropy can also be seen in and around the city of Detroit. Most significantly, in , Rackham gave property in Huntington Woods to the city of Detroit. Some of this property was used as parking for the new Zoo a memorial fountain at the zoo bears Rackham's name ; the remainder was used to build a public golf course, now known as the Rackham Golf Course. Within the city, the Horace H.

Helene Rother was born in Germany in , and later moved to Paris, where she designed jewelry. When the Nazis invaded France at the beginning of World War II, Rother fled to Casablanca with her then-seven-year-old daughter, living for months in a refugee camp. She eventually made her way to New York City in She was one of the first woman to have such a position. In , she opened her own design studio in the Fisher Building, specializing in automotive interiors, furniture, and stained glass. She was contracted by Nash Automobiles, and designed their interiors from to , helping the brand reinvent itself as stylish and modern.

Her interiors won the prestigious Jackson Medal for outstanding degsign in In the early s, Rother purchased a home in Boston-Edison to use as a home and studio. She continued in automotive design, and designed stained glass for several area churches. She also designed sterling flatware. Helene Rother died in Helene Rothman lived at Chicago Boulevard beginning in the s, in the house formerly occupied by Martin Pulcher. Adam Sarver was born in Pennsylvania in He became a travelling salesman, and in he went into business handling local sales for the Durant-Dort Buggy Company.

Durant began manufacturing automobiles, Sarver began selling them. He continued as president of Scripps-Booth until the division was dissolved in In , Sarver became president and director of the Durant Motor Co. He retired in , and eventually moved to Florida, where he died in In , Sarver moved into a home at Chicago Boulevard, where he lived until the early s.

Seaholm was born in Sweden, but came to the United States as an infant in He grew up in Connecticut, and graduated from a mechanical arts high school in Massachusetts in After graduation, he worked as a draftsman, then joined Cadillac in as a transmission engineer. Seaholm was named the chief engineer at Cadillac in , and remained in that position until he retired in Thompson was born in in Detroit. He started as a travelling salesman, then moved to New York City to work as a broker. He pursued a similar line of work in Chicago, then returned to Detroit in to work as a mechanic in the Cadillac and the Oldsmobile factories.

In he took two of his brothers into the business, remaining president. In he began distributing Maxwell and Chalmers automobiles. In the same year, he also organized the Thompson Airplane Company, which distributed Curtiss airplanes. Sidney Waldon was born in , and was one of the first people involved with Packard Motor Co, serving as vice-president and general manager.

During WWI, Waldon was a Colonel involved in preparation of aircraft manufacturing for the war effort, and was instrumental in creating a viable US air force. Waldon was also director of engineering for Cadillac Motor Car Co. The commission developed a plan for a system of superhighways and rapid transit, which Waldon advocated for the rest of his life. Colonel Waldon lived in Boston-Edison in the s and s. However, he desired a quieter life in the country, and purchased a country estate near Clarkston, dubbing it Pine Knob.

Sidney Waldron died in Read about the history of Pine Knob. Albert Wibel was born in in Peru, Indiana. As an adult, he took up teaching as a career, and completer a course of study on the University of Indiana. However, in , a friend purchased a Model T. Wibel, curious how the car was constructed, traveled to Detroit to tour the factory. Lee, the head of purchasing, was impressed with the young man and offered him a job as a machinist. Wibel worked his way through the ranks, becoming head of engineering in and, in , head of Ford's purchasing department.

In , he was promoted to vice-president in charge of purchasing, and helped negotiate wartime contracts with the US government during WWII. During this time, he took night courses in metallurgy and mechanical engineering. His apprenticeship served, he moved on to the Boyer Machine Co. Wills is credited for first grasping the importance of lightweight, strong, nickel-chrome vanadium steel for use in mass-producing automobiles, allowing Ford to build the Model N in Wills also played a major part in designing the Model T, designing the planetary transmission and the script "Ford" logo that survives until this day.

In , Wills left Ford. The parting was not entirely amicable, but Wills did have 5. Wills used the money to start his own automobile manufacturing firm. Wills moved on to found the Wills Sainte Claire Motor Company, which made another cars in the s before eventually shutting its doors. Wills went to work as a consultant to Chrysler in the s until his death in Wills lived in Boston-Edison after purchasing W.

Back to Significant Residents of B-E. The District About Boston-Edison. Things to Know Prior to Buying a Home. Home Preservation Contractor List. About Detroit's Historic Districts. Historic District Commission Guidelines. B-E in the News. In , Avery moved to W. Boston Boulevard, living there until the early s. Bachman William Bachman came to Detroit in to manage a dry goods store.

Bacon lived at Longfellow in the s and s. William Bowman lived at Longfellow beginning in the s. Carl Breer Carl Breer was born in Los Angeles in ; as a youngster, he worked in his father's blacksmith and carriage shop. Carl Breer lived at W. Boston Boulevard in the s.

Coyle lived at Edison in the mids. Ed Davis Edward Davis was born in Shreveport, Louisiana in , and as a youngster fell in love with cars. Ed Davis lived at West Chicago beginning in the early s. Diefendorf lived at Edison in the mids. Dunk Alfred Dunk was born in in Saginaw, Michigan.

Dunk lived at Chicago Boulevard in the s. Fisher Margaret Theisen was born in in Baden, Germany. Fisher Alfred Fisher was born in in Norwalk, Ohio. In , Fisher built a home at W. Boston, where he lived until his death in Fisher Edward Fisher was born in in Norwalk, Ohio. Fisher William Fisher was born in in Norwalk, Ohio. Henry Ford Henry Ford's story is well-known. Grant Charles Grant was born in in Canada; his family moved to Detroit in Grant lived at Longfellow in the late s and early s. Grinnell Ira Grinnell was born in New York in Richard Harfst Richard Harfst was born in Detroit in Richard Harfst lived at Longfellow from the early s through his death in He was born in in Dearborn, Michigan, on the farm operated by his father, an Irishman, and his mother, who was from Dutch stock.

Even as a boy, young Henry had an aptitude for inventing and used it to make machines that reduced the drudgery of farm chores. At the age of thirteen, he saw a coal-fired steam engine lumbering along a long rural road, a sight that galvanized his fascination with machines. At sixteen, against the wishes of his father, he left the farm for Detroit, where he found work as a mechanic's apprentice.

Over the next dozen years he advanced steadily, and became chief engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company. At twenty-four, Ford married Clara Bryant, a friend of his sister's; he called her "The Believer," because she encouraged his plans to build a horseless carriage from their earliest days together.

Frank Duryea

For as Henry Ford oversaw the steam engines and turbines that produced electricity for Detroit Edison, inventors in the U. On January 29, , Karl Benz received a patent for a crude gas-fueled car, which he demonstrated later that year on the streets of Mannhelm, Germany. In the s, any mechanic with tools, a workbench, and a healthy imagination was a potential titan in the infant industry. Even while continuing his career at Edison, Ford devoted himself to making a working automobile. In , he presented Clara with a design for an internal combustion engine, drawn on the back of a piece of sheet music.

Bringing the design to reality was another matter, but on Christmas Eve he made a successful test of one of his engines, in the kitchen sink. The engine was merely the heart of the new machine that Ford hoped to build. On weekends and most nights, he could be found in a shed in the back of the family home, building the rest of the car. So great was his obsession that the neighbors called him Crazy Henry. In the weeks that followed, Ford was often seen driving around the streets of Detroit.

Later that year, Ford attended a national meeting of Edison employees. Edison had been Ford's idol for years. But at the meeting, it was Edison who asked to meet the young inventor, after word got around that the obscure engineer from Detroit had actually built an automobile. Ironically, he was adamant that Ford not waste his time trying to make a car run viably on electricity.

Back in Detroit, Ford showed that he was no mere hobbyist: For three years, he watched the new field of automaking develop, and he progressed along with it. In , thirty American manufacturers -- most of them based in New England -- produced about 2, cars. Still, most Americans in the market for automobiles became accustomed to buying imported ones. In , though, the domestic bicycle industry faced an unusual slump and many manufacturers decided to turn to automaking to keep the factories busy.

Offered a senior position and part ownership of a new company, the Detroit Automobile Co. Across town, the firm that would become Oldsmobile was launched at the same time. The Detroit Automobile Co. The firm survived, emerging from reorganization as the Cadillac Motor Car Company. Building a Car for the Great Multitude. Ford continued to pursue his dream. Early automobile promotion took place largely on the racetrack, where manufacturers sought to prove roadworthiness by putting their cars on public view and pressing them to their very limits.

In , Henry Ford poured his expertise into a pair of big race cars, one of which he entered in a ten-mile match race against a car built by Alexander Winton, a leading automaker from Ohio. The race took place in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and Ford's car won. Because of the victory, the coal merchant Alexander Malcomson agreed to back Ford in a new business venture.

In , they formed the Ford Motor Company, in association with about a dozen other investors. Some investors contributed other types of capital; for example, the Dodge brothers, John and Horace, agreed to supply engines. The company purchased most of the major components for its new models, a common practice of the day. Teams of mechanics built cars individually at workstations, gathering parts as needed until a car was complete. In , Ford's workers made 1, cars in three different models. The cars were comparatively expensive, and their high profit-margins pleased the stockholders.

Malcomson decided to start yet another automobile company. But when it failed, he was forced to sell his other assets, including his shares in Ford. Henry Ford bought enough of them to assume a majority position. The most important stockholder outside of the Ford family was James Couzens, Malcomson's former clerk; as General Manager, then vice president and secretary-treasurer at the Ford Motor Company, he was effectively second-in-command throughout many of the Model T years.

The direction of the company toward even pricier models had bothered Henry Ford. He used his new power to curtail their production, a move that coincided with the Panic of This case of accidental good timing probably saved the company. Ford, insisting that high prices ultimately slowed market expansion, had decided in to introduce a new, cheaper model with a lower profit margin: Many of his backers disagreed.

While the N was only a tepid success, Ford nonetheless pressed forward with the design of the car he really wanted to build. The car that would be the Model T. Such a notion was revolutionary. Until then the automobile had been a status symbol painstakingly manufactured by craftsmen. But Ford set out to make the car a commodity. This was but the first of several counterintuitive moves that Ford made throughout his unpredictable career.

Prickly, brilliant, willfully eccentric, he relied more on instinct than business plans. As the eminent economist John Kenneth Galbraith later said: With a few colleagues, he devoted two years to the design and planning of the Model T. Early on, they made an extensive study of materials, the most valuable aspect of which began in an offhand way. During a car race in Florida, Ford examined the wreckage of a French car and noticed that many of its parts were of lighter-than-ordinary steel.

The team on Piquette Avenue ascertained that the French steel was a vanadium alloy, but that no one in America knew how to make it. The finest steel alloys then used in American automaking provided 60, pounds of tensile strength. Ford learned that vanadium steel, which was much lighter, provided , pounds of tensile strength. As part of the pre-production for the new model, Ford imported a metallurgist and bankrolled a steel mill.

As a result, the only cars in the world to utilize vanadium steel in the next five years would be French luxury cars and the Ford Model T. A Model T might break down every so often, but it would not break. The car that finally emerged from Ford's secret design section at the factory would change America forever. Simple, sturdy, and versatile, the little car would excite the public imagination.

It certainly fired up its inventor: An assistant had to take the wheel. The car went to the first customers on October 1, In its first year, over ten thousand were sold, a new record for an automobile model. Sales of the "Tin Lizzie," or "flivver," as the T was known, were boosted by promotional activities ranging from a black-tie "Ford Clinic" in New York, where a team of mechanics showcased the car, to Model T rodeos out west, in which cowboys riding in Fords tried to rope calves.

Ford has the solution of the popular automobile," Guggenheim concluded. In the early years, Model Ts were produced at Piquette Avenue in much the same way that all other cars were built. Growing demand for the new Ford overwhelmed the old method, though. Ford realized that he not only had to build a new factory, but a new system within that factory. Throughout his tenure as the head of the company, Henry Ford believed in maintaining enormous cash reserves, a policy that allowed him to plan a new facility for production of the Model T without interference or outside pressure.

The new Highland Park factory, which opened in , was designed by the nation's leading industrial architect, Albert Kahn. It was unparalleled in scale, sprawling over sixty-two acres. Rockefeller, whose Standard Oil refineries had always represented state-of-the-art design, called Highland Park "the industrial miracle of the age. Assembly wound downward, from the fourth floor, where body panels were hammered out, to the third floor, where workers placed tires on wheels and painted auto bodies.

After assembly was completed on the second floor, new automobiles descended a final ramp past the first-floor offices. Production increased by approximately percent in each of the first three years, from 19, in , to 34, in , to a staggering 78, in It was still only a start. Ignoring conventional wisdom, Ford continually sacrificed profit margins to increase sales. But sales exploded, rising to , in At Highland Park, Ford began to implement factory automation in But experimentation would continue every single day for the next seventeen years, under one of Ford's maxims: The boss himself claimed to have found the inspiration for the greatest breakthrough of all, the moving assembly line, on a trip to Chicago: At the stockyards, butchers removed certain cuts as each carcass passed by, until nothing was left.

Ford reversed the process. His use of the moving assembly line was complicated by the fact that parts, often made on sub-assembly lines, had to feed smoothly into the process. The first moving line was tested with assembly of the flywheel magneto, showing a saving of six minutes, fifty seconds over the old method. As similar lines were implemented throughout Highland Park, the assembly time for a Model T chassis dropped from twelve hours, thirty minutes to five hours, fifty minutes. The pace only accelerated, as Ford's production engineers experimented with work slides, rollways, conveyor belts, and hundreds of other ideas.

The first and most effective assembly line in the automobile industry was continually upgraded. Those most affected were, of course, the workers. As early as January , Ford developed an "endless chain-driven" conveyor to move the chassis from one workstation to another; workers remained stationary. Three months later, the company created a "man high" line -- with all the parts and belts at waist level, so that workers could repeat their assigned tasks without having to move their feet.

In , 13, workers at Ford made , cars. By comparison, in the rest of the industry, it took 66, workers to make , Critics charged that the division of the assembly process into mindless, repetitive tasks turned most of Ford's employees into unthinking automatons, and that manipulation of the pace of the line was tantamount to slave driving by remote control.

The men who made cars no longer had to be mechanically inclined, as in the earlier days; they were just day laborers. Ford chose to see the bigger picture of the employment he offered. We have put a higher skill into planning, management, and tool building, and the results of that skill are enjoyed by the man who is not skilled. Indeed, the simplification of the jobs created a treacherous backlash: Over the course of , the company had to hire workers for every it needed to maintain on the payroll. To keep a workforce of 13, employees in the factory, Ford continually spent money on short-term training.

Even though the company introduced a program of bonuses and generous benefits, including a medical clinic, athletic fields, and playgrounds for the families of workers, the problem persisted. The rest of the industry reluctantly accepted high turnover as part of the assembly-line system and passed the increasing labor costs into the prices of their cars. Henry Ford, however, did not want anything in the price of a Model T except good value. His solution was a bold stroke that reverberated through the entire nation. On January 5, , Henry Ford announced a new minimum wage of five dollars per eight-hour day, in addition to a profit-sharing plan.

It was the talk of towns across the country; Ford was hailed as the friend of the worker, as an outright socialist, or as a madman bent on bankrupting his company. Many businessmen -- including most of the remaining stockholders in the Ford Motor Company -- regarded his solution as reckless. But he shrugged off all the criticism: Recognizing the human element in mass production, Ford knew that retaining more employees would lower costs, and that a happier work force would inevitably lead to greater productivity.

The numbers bore him out. There were other ramifications, as well. A budding effort to unionize the Ford factory dissolved in the face of the Five-Dollar Day. Most cunning of all, Ford's new wage scale turned autoworkers into auto customers. The purchases they made returned at least some of those five dollars to Henry Ford, and helped raise production, which invariably helped to lower per-car costs. The central role that the Model T had come to play in America's cultural, social and economic life elevated Henry Ford into a full-fledged folk hero.

But Ford wasn't satisfied. Fancying himself a political pundit and all-around sage, he allowed himself to be drawn into national and even world affairs. Before the United States entered World War I, he despaired with many others over the horrors of the fighting; late in , he chartered a "Peace Ship" and sailed with a private delegation of radicals for France in a native attempt to end the war.

In , he lost a campaign for a U. The following year, he purchased a newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, which was to become the vehicle for his notorious anti-Semitism. The newspaper railed against the International Jew, and reported scurrilous conspiracy theories such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In , James Couzens resigned from the Ford Motor Company, recognizing that it Henry's company, and that no one else's opinion would ever matter as much.

In , Ford antagonized the other shareholders by declaring a paltry dividend, even in the face of record profits. In response, the shareholders sued, and in the Michigan Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that it was unreasonable to withhold fair dividends under the circumstances. In his own response to the escalating feud, Henry threatened publicly to leave the company and form a new one. He even made plans and discussed the next car he would produce. Fearing that the worth of Ford stock would plummet, the minority shareholders suddenly became eager to sell; agents working surreptitiously for Henry Ford quietly bought up lot after lot of shares.

The sellers did not receive all that the shares were worth, because of the rumors, but they each emerged with a fortune. James Couzens, the most wily of the lot, received the highest price per share, and turned to a career in the U. On July 11, , when he signed the last stock transfer agreement, the fifty-five-year-old mogul was so enthused that he danced a jig. The stock was divided up and placed in the names of Henry, Clara, and Edsel Ford.

In , the Model T Ford held 60 percent of the new-car market. Plants around the world turned out flivvers as though they were subway tokens, and Henry Ford's only problem, as he often stated it, was figuring out how to make enough of them. As a concession to diversification, he purchased the Lincoln Motor Car Company in Company plans seemed to be in place for a long, predictable future and Ford was free to embark on a great new project: Arrayed over 2, acres, it would include 90 miles of railroad track and enough space for 75, employees to produce finished cars from raw material in the span of just forty-one hours.

River Rouge had its own power plant, iron forges, and fabricating facilities. No detail was overlooked: River Rouge was built to produce Model T Fords for decades to come, by the time it was capable of full production later in the decade, a factory a tenth its size could have handled the demand for Model Ts.

In response, Malcomson brought in another group of investors and convinced the Dodge Brothers to accept a portion of the new company. Anderson and Horace Rackham. In a newly designed car, Ford gave an exhibition on the ice of Lake St. Convinced by this success, the race driver Barney Oldfield, who named this new Ford model "" in honor of a racing locomotive of the day, took the car around the country, making the Ford brand known throughout the United States.

Ford also was one of the early backers of the Indianapolis The Model T was introduced on October 1, It had the steering wheel on the left, which every other company soon copied. The entire engine and transmission were enclosed; the four cylinders were cast in a solid block; the suspension used two semi-elliptic springs. The car was very simple to drive, and easy and cheap to repair.

Ford created a massive publicity machine in Detroit to ensure every newspaper carried stories and ads about the new product. Ford's network of local dealers made the car ubiquitous in virtually every city in North America. As independent dealers, the franchises grew rich and publicized not just the Ford but the very concept of automobiling; local motor clubs sprang up to help new drivers and to encourage exploring the countryside.

Ford was always eager to sell to farmers, who looked on the vehicle as a commercial device to help their business. Always on the hunt for more efficiency and lower costs, in Ford introduced the moving assembly belts into his plants, which enabled an enormous increase in production. Although Ford is often credited with the idea, contemporary sources indicate that the concept and its development came from employees Clarence Avery, Peter E. Sales passed , in By , half of all cars in America were Model T's. However, it was a monolithic black; as Ford wrote in his autobiography, "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black".

Until the development of the assembly line, which mandated black because of its quicker drying time, Model T's were available in other colors, including red.

Menu de navigation

The design was fervently promoted and defended by Ford, and production continued as late as ; the final total production was 15,, This record stood for the next 45 years. This record was achieved in just 19 years from the introduction of the first Model T Although the nation was at war, Ford ran as a peace candidate and a strong supporter of the proposed League of Nations.

Henry, however, retained final decision authority and sometimes reversed his son. Henry started another company, Henry Ford and Son, and made a show of taking himself and his best employees to the new company; the goal was to scare the remaining holdout stockholders of the Ford Motor Company to sell their stakes to him before they lost most of their value.

He was determined to have full control over strategic decisions. The ruse worked, and Henry and Edsel purchased all remaining stock from the other investors, thus giving the family sole ownership of the company. By the mids, sales of the Model T began to decline due to rising competition. Other auto makers offered payment plans through which consumers could buy their cars, which usually included more modern mechanical features and styling not available with the Model T.

Despite urgings from Edsel, Henry steadfastly refused to incorporate new features into the Model T or to form a customer credit plan. Model A and Ford's later career. By , flagging sales of the Model T finally convinced Henry to make a new model. He pursued the project with a great deal of technical expertise in design of the engine, chassis, and other mechanical necessities, while leaving the body design to his son. Edsel also managed to prevail over his father's initial objections in the inclusion of a sliding-shift transmission. Subsequently, the Ford company adopted an annual model change system similar to that recently pioneered by its competitor General Motors and still in use by automakers today.

Not until the s did Ford overcome his objection to finance companies, and the Ford-owned Universal Credit Corporation became a major car-financing operation. Ford did not believe in accountants; he amassed one of the world's largest fortunes without ever having his company audited under his administration. Ford was a pioneer of "welfare capitalism", designed to improve the lot of his workers and especially to reduce the heavy turnover that had many departments hiring men per year to fill slots.

Efficiency meant hiring and keeping the best workers. A Cleveland, Ohio newspaper editorialized that the announcement "shot like a blinding rocket through the dark clouds of the present industrial depression. It also set a new, reduced workweek, although the details vary in different accounts.

Ford and Crowther in described it as six 8-hour days, giving a hour week, while in they described it as five 8-hour days, giving a hour week. Apparently the program started with Saturdays as workdays and sometime later it was changed to a day off.

Detroit was already a high-wage city, but competitors were forced to raise wages or lose their best workers. Ford's policy proved, however, that paying people more would enable Ford workers to afford the cars they were producing and be good for the economy. Ford explained the policy as profit-sharing rather than wages. The profit-sharing was offered to employees who had worked at the company for six months or more, and, importantly, conducted their lives in a manner of which Ford's "Social Department" approved.

They frowned on heavy drinking, gambling, and what might today be called "deadbeat dads". The Social Department used 50 investigators, plus support staff, to maintain employee standards; a large percentage of workers were able to qualify for this "profit-sharing. Ford's incursion into his employees' private lives was highly controversial, and he soon backed off from the most intrusive aspects. By the time he wrote his memoir, he spoke of the Social Department and of the private conditions for profit-sharing in the past tense, and admitted that "paternalism has no place in industry.

Welfare work that consists in prying into employees' private concerns is out of date. Men need counsel and men need help, oftentimes special help; and all this ought to be rendered for decency's sake. But the broad workable plan of investment and participation will do more to solidify industry and strengthen organization than will any social work on the outside. Without changing the principle we have changed the method of payment. Ford was adamantly against labor unions. He explained his views on unions in Chapter 18 of My Life and Work.

He thought they were too heavily influenced by some leaders who, despite their ostensible good motives, would end up doing more harm than good for workers. Most wanted to restrict productivity as a means to foster employment, but Ford saw this as self-defeating because, in his view, productivity was necessary for any economic prosperity to exist.

He believed that productivity gains that obviated certain jobs would nevertheless stimulate the larger economy and thus grow new jobs elsewhere, whether within the same corporation or in others. Ford also believed that union leaders particularly Leninist-leaning ones had a perverse incentive to foment perpetual socio-economic crisis as a way to maintain their own power. Meanwhile, he believed that smart managers had an incentive to do right by their workers, because doing so would maximize their own profits.

Ford did acknowledge, however, that many managers were basically too bad at managing to understand this fact. But Ford believed that eventually, if good managers such as he could fend off the attacks of misguided people from both left and right i.

Publisher's Summary

Bennett employed various intimidation tactics to squash union organizing. The most famous incident, in , was a bloody brawl between company security men and organizers that became known as The Battle of the Overpass. In the late s and early s, Edsel who was president of the company thought Ford had to come to some sort of collective bargaining agreement with the unions, because the violence, work disruptions, and bitter stalemates could not go on forever. But Henry who still had the final veto in the company on a de facto basis even if not an official one refused to cooperate.

For several years, he kept Bennett in charge of talking to the unions that were trying to organize the Ford company. Sorensen's memoir makes clear that Henry's purpose in putting Bennett in charge was to make sure no agreements were ever reached. Sorensen recounted that a distraught Henry Ford was very close to following through with a threat to break up the company rather than cooperate but that his wife Clara told him she would leave him if he destroyed the family business.

She wanted to see their son and grandsons lead it into the future. Henry complied with his wife's ultimatum. Overnight, the Ford Motor Co. The contract was signed in June Ford, like other automobile companies, entered the aviation business during World War I, building Liberty engines. After the war, it returned to auto manufacturing until , when Ford acquired the Stout Metal Airplane Company.

• Follow The Night (Bewitch The Dark Book 1)
• Rock Brands: Selling Sound in a Media Saturated Culture
• Entrepreneur
• Double Cross
• Not My Problem
• The Vampire Sagas, 1911, The Road.
• On the Internet (Thinking in Action)