Prelims of Kant get Marx 2.0: a general politics quiz
The History Of The Ford Motor Company
1. Dean 1
Brandon Dean
Ms. Bennett
British Literature
16 September 2011
The History of the Ford Motor Company
When people think about the vehicle, they do not think about the person who made it--
anything they just get in and drive. The person who invented the vehicle is Henry Ford, and if it
were not for him we would not have the concept of the car. Henry Ford saved people from
walking everywhere and he made it so people could go places faster and not have to stop in
between. Think about it: wouldpeople want to walk from the house to the mall or to the store to
buy food. People need to realize and be thankful for Henry Ford and his accomplishments and
take time to learn about his life, foreign affairs, and the Model-T Ford.
Henry Ford was born July 30, 1863 and he was the sixth child of Mary and William Ford.
He grew up on his family farm in Dearborn, Michigan. He was a typical nineteenth-century kid.
He spent his days in a one-room school and doing chores around the family farm. At an early age
he strayed away from farm work and showed an interest in mechanical things. When he was
sixteen he left the family farm and went to the nearby city of Detroit. He worked as an apprentice
machinist and from time to time returned to help on the family farm. Over the course of the next
few years Ford spent his time repairing steam engines and finding occasional factory work in
Detroit. When Ford married Clara Bryant in 1888 He supported himself and his wife by running
a saw mill (The Henry Ford: The life of Henry Ford).
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Ford became an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit in 1891.
When he did this, he signified a great decision on his part to dedicate his life to industrial
pursuits. Henry was promoted to Chief Engineer, which gave him enough time and money to
give attention to his personal experiments on internal combustion engines. His experiments came
together in 1896 when he completed his own self-propelled car called the Quadricycle. It had
four wheels and looked like a heavy bicycle. The Quadricycle was steered with a tiller like a boat
and had only two forward speeds and no reverse.Ford was not the first to build a self-propelled
vehicle that ran on gasoline, but was one of the automotive pioneers that helped this country
become a nation of motorists (The Henry Ford: The life of Henry Ford).
Ford tried two times to get his company up and running to manufacture automobiles, but
he was unsuccessful. In 1903 the Ford Motor Company was finally incorporated and he was
vice-president and chief engineer. The Ford factory would only produce a few cars a day and it
was located in Detroit. Groups of two to three men worked on each car. Ford realized that his
dream had come true when he introduced the Model-T in 1908. Half of America owned a Model-
T by 1918. His life was not all about cars, though; in 1918 he lost his bid for U.S. Senate. He
also helped in the World War I effort by sending his “peace ship” which would help the effort to
end the war. By 1919, Henry’s son Edsel B. Fordwas named president of the Ford Motor
Company. The Ford Motor Company focused on air transportation in 1926 and developed the
Tri-Motor airplane (Fascinating Facts about Henry Ford).
In 1927, the production of the Model-T had ended and the Model-A was introduced. By
1932, the Ford Motor Company introduced the first ever V-8 car. Ford resisted the workers
efforts to be unionized, but in the “Battle of the Overpass”, because fights broke out between
Ford security staff and United Auto Workers’ or The Union and the courts ordered Ford to not
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interfere with union activity. In 1943, tragedy struck; at the age 49, Ford’s son Edsel B. Ford
passed away. A few years later in 1947 Ford passed away at the age 83 in fairlane at his
Dearborn home(Fascinating Facts about Henry Ford).
DuringWorld War II, the Ford Motor Company had dealings with Germany and England
until Ford ran into some problems with Germany, because of the war and the third Reich. By the
time nationalism was established in Germany, Ford had problems out of the country.When a new
plant was constructed in Cologne in 1931, the business received a bad name, because its owners
were Ford's American company and England’s company. The Nazi government gave Ford
problems with their nationalist sentiments in Germany. The company became alarmed by the
falling sales and responded by trying to make matters up with the Nazi government (The Ford
Motor Company and the Third Reich).
Even though the company was alarmed, it remained an isolated and marginalized
business, despite Hitler’s personal regard forthe anti-Semitism of Henry Ford, and the mass
production capacity Ford had made famous. Ford’s foreign affairs meant that the company
lacked credibility like other businesses that had credibility. Ford also lacked the size that the
General motors’ subsidiary had or the credibility that the other companies had. The German
government treated Ford as “the producer of the last resort” when it came to government
contracts. Ford’s existence in Nazi Germany was threatened by low sales to the nationalistic
general public and the threat that government would confiscate his place of business(The Ford
Motor Company and the Third Reich).
In the 1930’s the manager of the Ford subsidiary in Germany felt so threatened by the
Third Reich that the company consistently sought to flatter itself with the Nazis in order to keep
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the company operable. In 1936 Ford was denied certification as a national producer, and the
certification was needed to be awarded government contracts for manufacturing. Denial of
certification was a major blow to the German subsidiary of the Ford Motor Company. The
subsidiary knew that the road to economic liberation meant submitting to the Nazi government’s
demands even if that meant limiting the contract of the Dearborn office or taking away from the
Dearborn office. The company also feared for the existence of their own jobs (The Ford Motor
Company and the Third Reich).
The company officials were scared that political appointees did not do their jobbut, the
management in Cologne calmed the Nazis concerns about their company’s loyalties in at least
three ways. The first way was the introduction of a racial criterion for the hiring of new
employees. Foreign and Jewish members were removed from the subsidiaries’ management
board despite the opposition of Henry Ford. In 1936 the first Jewish manager was removed but
Ford himself was able to successfully reverse the decision. In 1940 control of the subsidiary
shifted to Cologne, and Ford was unable hold up further dismissals (The Ford Motor Company
and the Third Reich).
The second way to gain the company loyalties was that the Nazi government, before the
war even started, wanted to increase the import of raw materials that were in short supply. The
short supply also limited Ford’s raw materials by taking away the rubber for his tires. Ford tried
to relieve the Nazi regime and relieve the Nazis own shortages by importing as much raw
material as possible. To end the plan, the Nazis needed currency to fund the purchase of raw
materials. Ford responded by maximizing the export of its finished products. Ford negotiated
with the U.S. and the U.K. in order to secure export markets. The German managers hoped that
these plans would help the company, and the German government would look upon their
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business more gracefully and that the success would help save their jobs(The Ford Motor
Company and the Third Reich).
From 1909 to 1927, the Ford Motor Company produced more than fifteen million Model
T cars. Without a doubt Henry Ford transformed the economic and social fabric of the Twentieth
century. The first assembly of the Model-T Ford in 1909 was at the Piquttee Avenue Plant in
Detroit on October 1, 1908. Over the years few changes were made to the basic design. By 1926
the Model-T design could not compete with competitors like Chevrolet. 1927 was the last year
for Henry Ford’s production of the Model-T (The Model-T Ford).
Henry Ford’s Model T would change the world forever. In 1906, he built a secret spot to
build his cars and the first concept was the Model-N. Ford spent over two years designing the
Model T. In 1909, for $825 a Ford customer could purchase the reliable car and Ford would sell
over ten thousand Model-T cars in the first year. Ford applied the assembly line to his factories
in late 1913. Due to the success of the Model-T he made different versions of the Model-T for
example, the coupe and couplet. The Model T will forever be known as the first reliable and least
expensive car (A Timeline of Ford Motor Company).
Henry Ford’s life was full of excitement from the invention of the Model T to the foreign
affairs over in Germany. He never stopped living his life to the fullest and made himself a name
that will live on forever. People get in their cars in drive, never thinking about who made them or
who came up with the idea well next time; think about where the world would be if Henry Ford
had never existed.