Henry ford timeline birth to death

Henry devotes himself to the business of automobiles Henry quit his position with the Edison Illuminating Company to work with Detroit Automobile Company. He soon became chief engineer. His first car company is founded Ford opened his first car company inbut he quickly resigned when there was a dispute among the bankers. In it became the Cadillac Motor Car Co.

The first car produced was the Model A. It quickly became famous. He received a watch, which he took apart and reassembled. He started his first business, which he was the town watch fixer. Lastly, his father went to the Centennial Exbition, where he saw all the mechanical wonders on display, which he told Henry. This is significance because these are the events that started Henry's thought of possiblities of a self-propelled.

December 7th, Henry left to Detroit to learn and work for the machinery business. He came here to prosper his dream. He keep changing job after job, because after a while in each of his jobs, he already knew what he had to know for the future. This is significance because this was the building blocks of Henry's knowledge of automobiles and economics.

She was the eldest of 10 children. Clara was bright and popular, but also thoughtful and sober. They were engaged by Henry's father offered him 40 acres of uncut timber for building a house for his family if he gave up being a machinist. He agreed so he could get the land, but he his machinery work in secret. Henry and Clara were married on April 11th, But first he had to learn more about electricity.

This is significance because he got to know what pay was and he learned about economy from a worker's point of view. November 6th, Edsel Ford, the Ford's only child was born. He would later work for his father and be a major part of the Ford Motor Company. He called it the Quadricycle. When he was about to take it out of his shed, the door was too small, so Henry smashed the it.

The landlord was so impressed by Henry's invention, that he paid and put in a swinging door, thus creating the first garage door. He sold his Queadricycle to his idol, Thomas Edison. This is significance because this is what sparked his automobile industry. He got the money for his vehicle from the mayor of Detroit, William C. William also issued the first American Driver's License, for the purpose of preventing complaints of his machine.

Went into the motor-racing business to increase and ensure his reputation. It had an 8-horsepower engine that could go 30mph. This is significance because the Model A showed Ford what he could do, and what he had to improve on. Got rid of Malcomson for his ideas of the car, people followed Malcomson. Ford created a new company, the Ford Manufacturing Company, which he owned Oct 1, The car was inovated with a stering wheel on the left an idea that other car companies would copy.

The Model-T was proved highly liked and succesful as it was not only cheap and easy to drive but it was also cheap to repair. The ModelT significance was it allowed common middle class Americans to drive due to the affordable price of the car thefamouspeople. Aug 11, The world war 1 happened In and eneded in June 29th, Oct 11, In October Henry Ford sponsored the developement of the henry ford timeline birth to death assembly line.

The assembly line was a technique of massive production. This event is important because the assembly line is factortored in American day life everyday and is a big part of it biography. Aug 3, Communism played a big part in the USSR in Vladimir Lenin used Communism throughout his ruling in Russia. This is a signifigent part in history because communism led to the ruling and thinking of the Halocaust and Hitler Routledge.

Henry ford timeline birth to death

Dec 11, Ford complied with his wife's ultimatum and even agreed with her in retrospect. Overnight, the Ford Motor Company went from the most stubborn holdout among automakers to the one with the most favorable UAW contract terms. The contract was signed in June Now you're in here and we've given you a union shop and more than you got out of them.

That puts you on our side, doesn't it? We can fight General Motors and Wall Street together, eh? Like other automobile companies, Ford entered the aviation business during World War Ibuilding Liberty engines. After the war, it returned to auto manufacturing untilwhen Ford acquired the Stout Metal Airplane Company. Ford's most successful aircraft was the Ford 4AT Trimotoroften called the "Tin Goose" because of its corrugated henry ford timeline birth to death construction.

It used a new alloy called Alclad that combined the corrosion resistance of aluminum with the strength of duralumin. The plane was similar to Fokker 's V. The Trimotor first flew on June 11,and was the first successful U. Several variants were also used by the U. The Smithsonian Institution has honored Ford for changing the aviation industry.

InFord was posthumously inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame for his impact on the industry. Ford opposed war, which he viewed as a terrible waste, [ 56 ] [ 57 ] and supported causes that opposed military intervention. He led other peace activists. Ford's Episcopalian pastor, Reverend Samuel S. Marquis, accompanied him on the mission.

Marquis headed Ford's Sociology Department from to Ford talked to President Woodrow Wilson about the mission but had no government support. His group went to neutral Sweden and the Netherlands to meet with peace activists. A target of much ridicule, Ford left the ship as soon as it reached Sweden. According to biographer Steven Watts, Ford's status as a leading industrialist gave him a worldview that warfare was wasteful folly that retarded long-term economic growth.

The losing side in the war typically suffered heavy damage. Small business were especially hurt, for it takes years to recuperate. He argued in many newspaper articles that a focus on business efficiency would discourage warfare because, "If every man who manufactures an article would make the very best he can in the very best way at the very lowest possible price the world would be kept out of war, for commercialists would not have to search for outside markets which the other fellow covets.

Ford's British factories produced Fordson tractors to increase the British food supply, as well as trucks and warplane engines. When the U. His company became a major supplier of weapons, especially the Liberty engine for warplanes and anti-submarine boats. Inwith the war on and the League of Nations a growing issue in global politics, President Woodrow Wilsona Democrat, encouraged Ford to run for a Michigan seat in the U.

Wilson believed that Ford could tip the scales in Congress in favor of Wilson's proposed League. Ford wrote back: "If they want to elect me let them do so, but I won't make a penny's investment. Ford remained a staunch Wilsonian and supporter of the League. When Wilson made a major speaking tour in the summer of to promote the League, Ford helped fund the attendant publicity.

Ford opposed the United States' entry into World War II [ 51 ] [ 66 ] and continued to believe that international business could generate the prosperity that would head off wars. Ford "insisted that war was the product of greedy financiers who sought profit in human destruction". Inhe went so far as to claim that the torpedoing of U. In the run-up to World War II and when the war erupted inhe reported that he did not want to trade with belligerents.

Like many other businessmen of the Great Depression era, he never liked or entirely trusted the Franklin Roosevelt Administration, and thought Roosevelt was inching the U. Ford continued to do business with Nazi Germanyincluding the manufacture of war materiel. Beginning inwith the requisitioning of between and French POWs to work as slave laborers, Ford-Werke contravened Article 31 of the Geneva Convention.

When Rolls-Royce sought a U. He "lined up behind the war effort" when the U. Before the U. Ford broke ground on Willow Run in the spring ofB component production began in Mayand the first complete B came off the assembly line in October At 3, sq ftm 2it was the largest assembly line in the world at the time. At its peak inthe Willow Run plant produced Bs per month, and by Ford was completing each B in eighteen hours, with one rolling off the assembly line every 58 minutes.

When Edsel Ford died of cancer inat age 49, Henry Ford nominally resumed control of the company, but a series of strokes in the late s had left him increasingly debilitated, and his mental ability was fading. Ford was increasingly sidelined, and others made decisions in his name. Ford grew jealous of the publicity Sorensen received and forced Sorensen out in Nothing happened until when, with bankruptcy a serious risk, Ford's wife Clara and Edsel's widow Eleanor confronted him and demanded he cede control of the company to his grandson Henry Ford II.

They threatened to sell off their stock, which amounted to three quarters of the company's total shares, if he refused. Ford was reportedly infuriated, but he had no choice but to give in. Ford was a conspiracy theorist who drew on a long tradition of false allegations against Jews. Ford claimed that Jewish internationalism posed a threat to traditional American values, which he deeply believed were at risk in the modern world.

InFord purchased his hometown newspaper, The Dearborn Independent. Every Ford dealership nationwide was required to carry the paper and distribute it to its customers. Ford later bound the articles into four volumes entitled The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problemwhich was translated into multiple languages and distributed widely across the US and Europe.

With aroundreaders of his newspaper, Ford emerged as a "spokesman for right-wing extremism and religious prejudice. In a letter written inHeinrich Himmler described Ford as "one of our most valuable, important, and witty fighters". Adolf Hitler wrote, "only Ford, [who], to [the Jews'] fury, still maintains full independence Max Wallace has stated, "History records that Ludecke asked Ford for a contribution to the Nazi cause, but was apparently refused.

Ford did, however, give considerable sums of money to Boris Brasola member of the Aufbau Vereinigungan organization linking German Nazis and White Russian emigrants which also financed the Nazi Party. While these articles explicitly condemned pogroms and violence against Jews, they blamed the Jews themselves for provoking them. Friends and business associates said they warned Ford about the contents of the Independent and that he probably never read the articles he claimed he only read the headlines.

A libel lawsuit was brought by San Francisco lawyer and Jewish farm cooperative organizer Aaron Sapiro in response to the antisemitic remarks, and led Ford to close the Independent in December News reports at the time quoted him as saying he was shocked by the content and unaware of its nature. During the trial, the editor of Ford's "Own Page", William Cameron, testified that Ford had nothing to do with the editorials even though they were under his byline.

Cameron testified at the libel trial that he never discussed the content of the pages or sent them to Ford for his approval. Miller, a former Dearborn Independent employee, swore under oath that Ford had told him he intended to expose Sapiro. Michael Barkun observed: "That Cameron would have continued to publish such anti-Semitic material without Ford's explicit instructions seemed unthinkable to those who knew both men.

Stanley Ruddiman, a Ford family intimate, remarked that "I don't think Mr. Cameron ever wrote anything for henry ford timeline birth to death without Mr. Ford's approval. They formed a coalition of Jewish groups for the same purpose and raised constant objections in the Detroit press. Before leaving his presidency early inWoodrow Wilson joined other leading Americans in a statement that rebuked Ford and others for their antisemitic campaign.

A boycott against Ford products by Jews and liberal Christians also had an impact, and Ford shut down the paper inrecanting his views in a public letter to Sigmund Livingstonpresident of the ADL. Ford's apology was well received. In Julythe German consul in Cleveland gave Ford, on his 75th birthday, the award of the Grand Cross of the German Eaglethe highest medal Nazi Germany could bestow on a foreigner.

On January 7,Ford wrote another letter to Sigmund Livingston disclaiming direct or indirect support of "any agitation which would promote antagonism toward my Jewish fellow citizens". He concluded the letter with, "My sincere hope that now in this country and throughout the world when the war is finished, hatred of the Jews and hatred against any other racial or religious groups shall cease for all time.

The distribution of The International Jew was halted in through legal action by Ford, despite complications from a lack of copyright. Extremist groups often recycle the material; it still appears on antisemitic and neo-Nazi websites. Testifying at Nurembergconvicted Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach who, in his role as Gauleiter of Viennadeported 65, Jews to camps in Poland, stated: "The decisive anti-Semitic book I was reading and the book that influenced my comrades was I read it and became anti-Semitic.

The book made a great influence on myself and my friends because we saw in Henry Ford the representative of success and also the representative of a progressive social policy. Robert Lacey wrote in Ford: The Men and the Machines that a close Willow Run associate of Ford reported that when he was shown newsreel footage of the Nazi concentration campshe "was confronted with the atrocities which finally and unanswerably laid bare the bestiality of the prejudice to which he contributed, he collapsed with a stroke — his last and most serious.

Ford's philosophy was one of economic independence for the United States. His River Rouge Plant became the world's largest industrial complex, pursuing vertical integration to such an extent that it could produce its own steel. Ford's goal was to produce a vehicle from scratch without reliance on foreign trade. He believed in the global expansion of his company.

He believed that international trade and cooperation led to international peace, and he used the assembly line process and production of the Model T to demonstrate it. He opened Ford assembly plants in Britain and Canada inand soon became the biggest automotive producer in those countries. InFord cooperated with Giovanni Agnelli of Fiat to launch the first Italian automotive assembly plants.

The first plants in Germany were built in the s with the encouragement of Herbert Hoover and the Commerce Department, which agreed with Ford's theory that international trade was essential to world peace and reduced the chance of war. InFord made an agreement with the Soviets to provide technical aid over nine years in building the first Soviet automobile plant GAZ near Nizhny Novgorod Gorky [ ] an additional contract for construction of the plant was signed with The Austin Company on August 23, Ford sent his engineers and technicians to the Soviet Union to help install the equipment and train the workforce, while over a hundred Soviet engineers and technicians were stationed at Ford's plants in Detroit and Dearborn "for the purpose of learning the methods and practice of manufacture and assembly in the Company's plants".

All the world is bound to catch some good from it. ByFord was manufacturing one-third of the world's automobiles. It set up numerous subsidiaries that sold or assembled the Ford cars and trucks:. Ford's image transfixed Europeans, especially the Germans, arousing the "fear of some, the infatuation of others, and the fascination among all".

They saw the size, tempo, standardization, and philosophy of production demonstrated at the Ford Works as a national service—an "American thing" that represented the culture of the United States. Both supporters and critics insisted that Fordism epitomized American capitalist development, and that the auto industry was the key to understanding economic and social relations in the United States.

As one German explained, "Automobiles have so completely changed the American's mode of life that today one can hardly imagine being without a car. It is difficult to remember what life was like before Mr. Ford began preaching his doctrine of salvation". In My Life and WorkFord predicted that if greed, racism, and short-sightedness could be overcome, then economic and technological development throughout the world would progress to the point that international trade would no longer be based on what today would be called colonial or neocolonial models and would truly benefit all peoples.

Ford maintained an interest in auto racing from to and began his involvement in the sport as both a constructor and a driver, later turning the wheel over to hired drivers. On October 10,he defeated Alexander Winton in a race car named "Sweepstakes"; it was through the wins of this car that Ford created the Henry Ford Company. Inhe attempted to enter a reworked Model T in the Indianapolis but was told rules required the addition of another 1, pounds kg to the car before it could qualify.

Ford dropped out of the race and soon thereafter exited racing permanently, citing dissatisfaction with the sport's rules, demands on his time by the booming production of the Model T, and his low opinion of racing as a worthwhile activity. In My Life and Work Ford speaks briefly of racing in a rather dismissive tone, as something that is not at all a good measure of automobiles in general.

He describes himself as someone who raced only because in the s through s, one had to henry ford timeline birth to death because prevailing ignorance held that racing was the way to prove the worth of an automobile. Ford did not agree. But he was determined that as long as this was the definition of success flawed though the definition wasthen his cars would be the best that there were at racing.

Nevertheless, Ford did make an impact on auto racing during his racing years, and he was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in By this point, Ford, nearing 80, had experienced several cardiovascular events variously cited as heart attacks or strokes and was mentally inconsistent, suspicious, and generally no longer fit for such immense responsibilities.

Most of the directors did not want to see him as president. But for the previous 20 years, though he had long been without any official executive title, he had always had de facto control over the company; the board and the management had never seriously defied him, and this time was no different. The directors elected him, [ ] and he served until the end of the war.

The administration of President Franklin Roosevelt had been considering a government takeover of the company in order to ensure continued war production, [ 76 ] but the idea never progressed. He died on April 7,of a cerebral hemorrhage at Fair Lanehis estate in Dearborn, at the age of A public viewing was held at Greenfield Village where up to 5, people per hour filed past the casket.

Funeral services were held in Detroit's Cathedral Church of St. Paul and he was buried in the Ford Cemetery in Detroit. A compendium of short biographies of famous Freemasonspublished by a Freemason lodge, lists Ford as a member. When he received the 33rd degree of the Scottish Rite inhe said, "Masonry is the best balance wheel the United States has.

InFord's pastor, and head of his sociology department, Episcopal minister Samuel S. Marquis, claimed that Ford believed, or "once believed," in reincarnation. Ford published an anti-smoking book, circulated to youth incalled The Case Against the Little White Slaverwhich documented many dangers of cigarette smoking attested to by many researchers and luminaries.

Henry Ford had a long-held interest in materials science and engineering. Ford also had a long-standing interest in plastics developed from agricultural products, particularly soybeans. He cultivated a relationship with George Washington Carver for this purpose. The project culminated inwhen Ford patented an automobile made almost entirely of plasticattached to a tubular welded frame.

It ran on grain alcohol ethanol instead of gasoline. The design never caught on. Ford was interested in engineered woods "Better wood can be made than is grown" [ ] at this time plywood and particle board were little more than experimental ideas ; corn as a fuel sourcevia both corn oil and ethanol; [ ] and the potential uses of cotton.