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How Did Henry Ford Change The Automobile Industry

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In 1863, Henry Ford was the first surviving son born to William and Mary Ford, who owned a farm in Dearborn, Michigan. When Henry Ford was growing up his dad gave him a watch to tinker around with. He had taken his father’s watch apart and put it back together so many times that by the time he was only 15 Ford was the unofficial watch repairman in his neighborhood. It was his first curiosity and interest in engineering that led him to designing the first automobile for the common man. Ford grew up on a farm in Dearborn, Michigan and would have kept working on the farm all of his life but when his mother died in 1876, he made up his mind because his love for his mother was the only thing really keeping him at the farm. Then when Ford was only …show more content…

On December 1, 1913, installed the Ford Motor Company’s first assembly line, changing the automotive industry forever. Before; Ford’s workers had to put all of the parts on the floor and assemble them one at a time and workers would have to assemble a lot of separate steps. With Ford’s assembly line each worker did one step over and over again making them get faster and more efficient as they worked at it. The Model T cost eight hundred and fifty dollars. As production rose, Ford lowered prices. By 1916, the price had gone down and the Model T was only three hundred forty-five dollars. The last step in Ford's success was to make sure his workers were being paid well. His workers had always earned about two dollars for ten hours of work which was common at most factories at the time. Because most factories had the same pay workers would switch jobs pretty often. Henry Ford didn’t like this because he was always getting inexperienced workers so he raised his workers’ wages to five dollars a day so that he would have loyal workers who would stay with his company. This made the Henry Ford Company very popular towards people in need of a job. Ford believed that if workers received good wages, they became better buyers, and if manufacturers sold more …show more content…

But he did know what Henry Ford wanted done. And he did it. Bennett's power came from Henry. The only person who might have had the power to stop Bennett was Henry's son, Edsel, who was president of the company. But Edsel himself was fighting Henry and his unwillingness to change. Bennett's power in the company continued to grow. His violence against the union of automobile workers also grew. The Ford Motor Company did not agree to negotiate with the union until 1941. Henry Ford accepted an agreement. If he had not, his company would have lost millions of dollars in government business. In 1943, Edsel Ford died. With Edsel gone, Henry again became president of the Ford Motor Company. It was difficult to know if Henry or Harry Bennett was running the company. America was at war. And Henry was eighty years old, too old to deal with the problems of wartime production. And Bennett knew nothing at all about production. So Henry's grandson, also Henry Ford, was recalled from the Navy to run the company. Young Henry's first act was to dismiss Harry Bennett. Old Henry Ford retired from business. His thoughts were in the past. He died in his sleep in 1947, at the age of eighty-three. Henry Ford was not the first man whose name was given to an automobile. But his name, more than any other, was linked to that machine. And his dream changed the lives of millions of people. Some still wonder if Henry Ford was a simple man who seemed difficult or a

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