Ford, Henry
(b. July 30, 1863; d. April 7, 1947) American industrialist, creator of the first mass-produced automobile.
Technological genius and headline maker, Henry Ford was the creative force behind an industry that changed the culture of the United States. His Model T automobile put Americans on the road. People were no longer isolated on remote farms or in small villages. It was Ford's belief that the car was intended for ordinary people, not exclusively for the wealthy. This most rapid change ever in the lives of average citizens was completed in less than two decades.
Ford was born on a farm himself, near Dearborn, Michigan, on July 30, 1863, one of eight children. By 1893, he had completed his first gasoline engine model. Six years later, with backers, he formed the Detroit Automobile Company, which became the Ford Motor Company. That became the Cadillac Motor Car Company after he left in 1902 to start another Ford Motor Company. Incorporated in 1903, the company produced only a few cars until it introduced the famous Model T in 1909.
Almost as revolutionary as his famous car was the advanced production technology that Ford had in operation by 1913. Automobiles were put together on a moving assembly line, with different parts installed as they moved down the line. The result was a completed chassis every ninety-three minutes. Ford changed the way America manufactured its products.
A man of genius and prejudice, Ford was immovable when convinced he was right. A pacifist, he was totally against U.S. involvement in World War I. He cast himself as the country's leading peace advocate, and because of his widespread influence with the average citizen, many Americans opposed U.S. entry into the war.
In what is known as the Peace Ship episode, Ford even chartered an ocean liner to sail to Europe on a stop-the-fight mission. The effort was loudly ridiculed by government officials. When the British liner Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine in 1915, killing 1,198 passengers, Ford remarked that they were fools to get on the boat in the first place. Known as an anti-Semite, he blamed
Assembly line at the Ford plant in Willow Run, Michigan, where B-24 bombers were constructed during World War II. THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESSthe Jews for starting the war, although he never explained just how that could have been managed. During the 1920s, he was behind many anti-Semitic publications.
During the 1930s, Ford favored the U.S. neutrality legislation that tried to keep the United States out of World War II. He went a step further and opposed the Roosevelt administration's lend-lease policy of aid to Great Britain. Ford testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and opposed cooperating with Britain and the Soviet Union to fight Hitler. In 1940, influenced by famed aviator Charles Lindbergh, he joined the America First committee, dedicated to keeping the country out of war. Ford, Lindbergh, and other top U.S. industrialists were accused of pro-Nazi attitudes. These isolationist sentiments, shared by many in America at the time, were complicated by the fact that Ford had investments in Germany, including a large plant near Cologne. However, when the Nazi government took control of all foreign business in the country, Ford decided not to invest any more money in the Cologne plant. It was taken over by the Nazis just before they invaded Poland in 1939.
Despite his isolationist-pacifist leanings, Ford played a major role in World War II. After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, he immediately threw the might of his production lines into the war effort. His plant at River Rouge, Michigan, was already the country's most important factory, a monument to maximum operations without wasted time. He changed military transportation as well with the production of the Jeep, the all-everything vehicle, produced along with aircraft engines at River Rouge. Ford's Willow Run plant in Michigan began to build B-24 bombers immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the first aircraft came off the assembly line on May 1, 1942. The factory eventually produced one bomber per hour for a total of more than 86,000 by the end of the war.
Henry Ford died on April 7, 1947, at the age of eighty-four. He had many detractors because of his authoritative, racist attitudes, but no one could deny his contribution to U.S. military might during World War II.
Economy, World War I; Economy, World War II; Labor, World War I; Labor, World War II; Peace Movements.
Bibliography
Bennett, Harry, as told to Paul Marcus. We Never Called Him Henry. New York: Fawcett, 1951.
Brinkley, Douglas. Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company, and a Century of Progress, 1903–2003. New York: Viking, 2003.
Bryan, Ford R. Beyond the Model T: the Other Ventures of Henry Ford. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1990.
Jardim, Anne. The First Henry Ford: A Study in Personality and Business Leadership. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1970.
Wallace, Max. The American Axis: Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and the Rise of the Third Reich. New York: St. Martin's, 2003.
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