An Examination of Henry Ford

Henry Ford, born 30 July 1863, was a prominent American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and pioneer of the assembly line technique of mass production. He was also a celebrity pacifist and a major promoted of anti-Semitism in the early 20th century USA, credited with having a major influence on the 1920s Nazi movement. Hitler regarded him as "the leader of the growing Fascist movement in America".

Background

Born on a farm in Greenfield Township near Detroit, Henry came from a humble background and took an early interest in repairing timepieces. His father expected him to eventually take over the family farm, but he despised farm work and would later say that "[he] never had any particular love for the farm - it was the mother on the farm [he] loved".

After his mother died in 1876, he left home to work as an apprentice machinist, and after a brief return to his family farm he was hired by Westinghouse Company to service their steam engines. In 1891, Ford became an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company and was quickly promoted to Chief Engineer. Now with more time and money to devote attention to his personal experiments on gasoline engines, he produced a self-propelled vehicle in 1896 which he named the Ford Quadricycle. In the same year, Ford attended a meeting of Edison executives where he was introduced to Thomas Edison. Edison warmed to Ford and approved of his automobile experimentation, encouraging him to build a second vehicle. With backing from the lumber baron William H. Murphy, Ford resigned from Edison and founded the Detroit Automobile Company in August 1899. The automobiles the company produced were of a lower quality and higher price than Ford had hoped, and the company dissolved in January 1901.

Then in October 1901, Ford successfully raced a 26-horsepower automobile which he had designed and built with the help of C. Harold Wills. With this success, Ford became chief engineer at the Henry Ford Company, formed by stockholders in the Detroit Automobile Company. Ford left the company bearing his name in 1902 after Murphy brought in Henry M. Leland as a consultant. After teaming up with Tom Cooper to produce an 80+ horsepower racer '999' which Barney Oldfield drove to victory in a race in October 1902, Ford received the backing of Alexander Y. Malcomson, a Detroit-area coal dealer. They formed a partnership, 'Ford & Malcomson, Ltd' to manufacture automobiles.

Was he a fair employer?

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 300 men per year to fill 100 slots. Efficiency meant hiring and keeping the best workers.

Ford astonished the world in 1914 by offering a $5 per day wage, which more than doubled the rate of most of his workers.