Henry Ford

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Further information: Ford Motor Company

Time Magazine, January 14, 1935

Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was the founder of the Ford Motor Company. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry. As owner of the Ford Company he became one of two or three richest and best-known people in the world. He is credited with "Fordism" that is, the mass production of large numbers of inexpensive automobiles using the assembly line, coupled with high wages for his workers, and a locally-rooted network of franchise dealers. He had a global vision, with consumerism as the key to peace. He was a leading pacifist in World War I, but turned his company into a major producer of war materials in both world wars. His intense commitment to lowering costs resulted in numerous experiments and innovations, but allowed General Motors to leapfrog Ford in the 1920s by offering consumers more style, variety, and convenient financing plans. He left most of his vast wealth to the Ford Foundation, but arranged for his family to permanently control the company.

Contents

Early life

Henry Ford, 1888

Ford was born on a prosperous farm in Springwells Township (now in the city of Dearborn, Michigan) owned by his parents, William Ford (1826-1905) and Mary Litogot (c1839-1876), immigrants from County Cork, Ireland. The Ford family has its origins in western England - the family was evicted from their land in Somerset and 'planted' in Ireland. His siblings include: Margaret Ford (1867-1868); Jane Ford (c1868-1945); William Ford (1871-1917) and Robert Ford (1873-1934).

During the summer of 1873, Henry saw his first self-propelled road machine, a stationary steam engine that could be used for threshing or to power a saw mill. The operator, Fred Reden, had mounted it on wheels connected with a drive chain. Henry was fascinated with the machine and Reden over the next year taught Henry how to fire and operate the engine. Ford later said, it was this experience "that showed me that I was by instinct an engineer."Ford, My Life and Work, 22; Nevins and Hill, Ford: The Times, the Man, the Company (TMC), 54-55.

Henry took this passion about mechanics into his home. His father had given him a pocket watch in his early teens. By fifteen, he had a reputation as a watch repairman, having dismantled and reassembled timepieces of friends and neighbors dozens of times.Ford, My Life and Work, 22-24; Nevins and Hill, Ford TMC, 58.

His mother died in 1876. It was a blow that devastated poor Henry. His father expected Henry to eventually take over the family farm, but Henry despised farm work. And with his mother dead, little remained to keep him on the farm. He later said, "I never had any particular love for the farm. It was the mother on the farm I loved."Ford, My Life and Work, 24; Edward A. Guest "Henry Ford Talks About His Mother," American Magazine, July, 1923, 11-15, 116-120.

In 1879, he left home for the nearby city of Detroit to work as an apprentice machinist, first with James F. Flower & Bros., and later with the Detroit Dry Dock Co. In 1882, he returned to Dearborn to work on the family farm and became adept at operating the Westinghouse portable steam engine. This led to his being hired by Westinghouse company to service their steam engines.

Upon his marriage to Clara Bryant in 1888, Ford supported himself by farming and running a sawmill. They had a single child: Edsel Bryant Ford (1893-1943).

In 1891, Ford became an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company, and after his promotion to Chief Engineer in 1893, he had enough time and money to devote attention to his personal experiments on gasoline engines. These experiments culminated in 1896 with the completion of his own self-propelled vehicle named the Quadricycle, which he test-drove on June 4 of that year. After various test-drives, Henry Ford brainstormed ways to improve the Quadricycle.

Detroit Automobile Company and The Henry Ford Company

Ford works on engine

After this initial success, Ford came to Edison Illuminating in 1899 with other investors, and then they formed the Detroit Automobile Company. The Detroit Automobile Company went bankrupt soon afterward because Ford continued to improve the design, instead of selling cars. Ford raced his car against those of other manufacturers to show the superiority of his designs. With his interest in race cars, he formed a second company, the Henry Ford Company. During this period, he personally drove one of his cars to victory in a race against Alexander Winton on October 10, 1901. In 1902, Ford continued to work on his race car to the dismay of the investors. They wanted a high-end production model and brought in Henry M. Leland to do it. Ford resigned over this usurpation of his authority. He said later that "I resigned, determined never again to put myself under orders."Ford, My Life and Work, 36 The company was reorganized as Cadillac.

Ford Motor Company

Henry Ford, with eleven other investors and $28,000 in capital, incorporated the Ford Motor Company in 1903. In a newly-designed car, Ford drove an exhibition in which the car covered the distance of a mile on the ice of Lake St. Clair in 39.4 seconds, which was a new land speed record. Convinced by this success, the famous race driver Barney Oldfield, who named this new Ford model "999" in honor of a racing locomotive of the day, took the car around the country and thereby made the Ford brand known throughout the United States. Henry Ford was also one of the early backers of the Indianapolis 500. Henry Ford shocked his fellow capitalists by more than doubling the daily wage of most of his workers in 1914, eleven years after he established his first automobile factory. He knew what he was doing. The buying power of his workers was increased, and their raised consumption stimulated buying elsewhere. Ford called it 'wage motive.' The company's use of vertical integration and other business tactics also contributed to its success.

The Model T

Racing was, by 1913, no longer necessary from a publicity standpoint because the Model T was already famous and ubiquitous on American roads. It was in this year that Henry Ford introduced the moving assembly belts into his plants, which enabled an enormous increase in production. Although Ford is often credited with the idea, contemporary sources indicate that the concept and its development came from employees Clarence Avery, Peter E. Martin, Charles E. Sorensen, and C.H. Wills. (See Piquette Plant)

Ford Assembly Line, 1913

By 1918, half of all cars in America were Model Ts. The design, fervently promoted and defended by Henry Ford, would continue through 1927 (well after its popularity had faded), with a final total production of fifteen million vehicles. This was a record which would stand for the next 45 years. As Ford wrote in his autobiography, "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black". Until the development of the assembly line which mandated black because of its quicker drying time, Model Ts were available in other colors including red.

In December 1918, after losing a race for the Senate, Henry Ford turned the presidency of Ford Motor Company over to his son Edsel Ford. Henry, however, retained final decision authority and sometimes reversed his son. Henry and Edsel purchased all remaining stock from other investors, thus giving the family sole ownership of the company.

By the mid 1920s, sales of the Model T began to decline due to rising competition. Other auto makers offered payment plans through which consumers could buy their cars, which usually included more modern mechanical features and styling not available with the Model T. Despite urgings from Edsel, Henry steadfastly refused to incorporate new features into the Model T or to form a customer credit plan.

The \"Model A\" and Ford's Later Career

By 1926, flagging sales of the Model T convinced Henry of what Edsel had been suggesting for some time: a new model was necessary. The elder Ford pursued the project with a great deal of technical expertise in design of the engine, chassis, and other mechanical necessities, while leaving it to his son to develop the body design. Edsel also managed to prevail over his father's initial objections in the inclusion of a sliding-shift transmission. The result was the highly successful Ford Model A, introduced December, 1927 and produced through 1931, with a total output of over four million automobiles. Subsequently, the company adopted an annual model change system similar to that in use by automakers today.

Despite his traditional Midwestern upbringing and being skeptical of new innovations, Henry Ford eventually grew to be an early promoter of aviation. As such, he also heavily sponsored the Stout Metal Airplane Company, which developed the Ford Tri-Motor, an early airliner. During the thirties, Ford also overcame his objection to finance companies, and the Ford-owned Universal Credit Company became a major car financing operation.

Death of Edsel Ford

In May 1943, Edsel Ford died, leaving a vacancy in the company presidency. Henry Ford advocated long-time associate Harry Bennett to take the spot. Edsel's widow Eleanor, who had inherited Edsel's voting stock, wanted her son Henry Ford II to take over the position. The issue was settled for a period when Henry himself, at the age of 79, took over the presidency personally. Henry Ford II was released from the Navy and became an executive vice president, while Harry Bennett had a seat on the board and was responsible for personnel, labor relations, and public relations.

The company saw hard times during the next two years, losing $10 million a month. President Franklin D. Roosevelt considered a federal bailout for Ford Motor Company so that wartime production could continue. By 1945, Henry Ford's senility was quite evident, and his wife and daughter-in-law forced his resignation in favor of his grandson, Henry Ford II.

Ford's labor philosophy

Henry 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 a year to fill 100 slots. Efficiency meant hiring and keeping the best workers. On January 5, 1914 Ford announced his five-dollar a day program. The program called for a reduction in length of the workday from 9 to 8 hours and a raise in minimum daily pay from $2.34 to $5 for qualifying workers. Ford labeled the increased compensation as profit sharing rather than wages. The wage was offered to men over the age of 22, who had worked at the company for 6 months or more, and, importantly, conducted their lives in a manner of which Ford's "Sociological Department" approved. They frowned on heavy drinking and gambling. The Sociological Department used 150 investigators and support staff to maintain employee standards; a large percentage of workers were able to qualify for the profit sharing.

Ford was adamantly against labor unions in his plants. To forestall union activity, he promoted Harry Bennett, a former Navy boxer, to be the head of the Service Department. Bennett employed various intimidation tactics to squash union organizing. The most famous incident, in 1937, was a bloody brawl between company security men and organizers that became known as The Battle of the Overpass.

Ford was the last Detroit automaker to recognize the United Auto Workers union (UAW). A sit-down strike by the UAW union in April 1941 closed the River Rouge Plant. Under pressure from Edsel and his wife, Clara, Henry Ford finally agreed to collective bargaining at Ford plants, and the first contract with the UAW was signed in June 1941.

Ford Airplane Company

Ford, like other automobile companies, had entered the aviation business during World War I, building Liberty engines. After the war, it returned to auto manufacturing until 1925, when Henry Ford acquired the Stout Metal Airplane Company.

Ford 4-AT-F (EC-RRA) de L.A.P.E.

Ford's most successful aircraft was the Ford 4AT Trimotor—called the “Tin Goose” because of its corrugated metal 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.VII-3m, and some say that Ford's engineers surreptitiously measured the Fokker plane and then copied it. The Trimotor first flew on June 11, 1926, and was the first successful U.S. passenger airliner, accommodating about 12 passengers in a rather uncomfortable fashion. Several variants were also used by the U.S. Army. About 200 Trimotors were built before it was discontinued in 1933, when the Ford Airplane Division shut down because of poor sales brought about by the Depression.

Peace ship

In 1915, he funded a trip to Europe, where World War I was raging, for himself and about 170 other prominent peace leaders. He talked to President Wilson about the trip but had no government support. His group went to neutral Sweden and the Netherlands to meet with peace activists there. Ford, the target of much ridicule, left the ship as soon as it reached Sweden.

Anti-Semitism and The Dearborn Independent

The International Jew, the World's Foremost Problem. Articles from The Dearborn Independent, 1920

In 1918 Ford's principal secretary Ernst Liebold was accused by a reporter of speaking German to a reporter from a German-language Chicago newspaper. Military Intelligence investigated and dropped the case as baseless. Liebold was the figure responsible in 1919 for using Ford's name and newspaper to attack the Jews (several years before the Nazi movement began). Liebold used Ford's authority to start a magazine, The Dearborn Independent, in 1919. The paper ran for eight years, during which Liebold republished "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion," which has since been discredited as a forgery. The American Jewish Historical Society describes the ideas presented in the magazine as "anti-immigrant, anti-labor, anti-liquor, and anti-Semitic". In February 1921, the New York World published an interview with Ford, in which he said "The only statement I care to make about the Protocols is that they fit in with what is going on. They are sixteen years old, and they have fitted the world situation up to this time. They fit it now."

The Independent also published, in Ford's name, several anti-Jewish articles which were released in the early 1920s as a set of four bound volumes, cumulatively titled "The International Jew, the World's Foremost Problem." Denounced by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the articles nevertheless explicitly condemned pogroms and violence against Jews (Volume 4, Chapter 80), preferring to blame incidents of mass violence on the Jews themselves. None of this work was actually written by Ford, though they probably had his tacit approval. ^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}

Service Cross of the German Eagle

Libel lawsuits in response to anti-Semitic remarks led Ford to close the Dearborn Independent in December 1927. New reports at the time quoted Henry Ford as being shocked by the content and having been 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 by-line. Cameron said he never discussed the content of the pages or sent them to Ford for his approval.Lewis, The Public Image of Henry Ford, pp. 140-156; Baldwin p 220-221.

In July 1938, the Nazis awarded Ford the Service Cross of the German Eagle (Charles Lindbergh would receive his in October).

Ford publicly retracted the International Jew and the Protocols. In January 1942, Ford wrote a public letter to the ADL denouncing hatred against the Jews and expressing his hope that anti-Jewish hatred would cease for all time. However extremist groups often recycled the material--without permission; it still appears on anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi websites.

The Nazis took over day to day control of Ford factories in the spring of 1939. No Ford executive or family member visited Germany or attended any executive meetings with Ford of Germany during the time.

Ford does business with the world

Ford believed that international trade and cooperation led to international peace, and used the assembly line process and production of the Model T to demonstrate it [Watts 236-40]. He opened Ford assembly plants in Britain and Canada in 1911, and soon became the biggest automotive producer in those countries. In 1912 Ford cooperated with Agnelli of Fiat to launch the first Italian automotive assembly plants. The first plants in Germany were built in the 1920s with the encouragement of Herbert Hoover and the Commerce department, which agreed with Ford's theory that international trade was essential to world peace [Wilkins]. In the 1920s Ford also opened plants in Australia, India, and France, and by 1929 he had successful dealerships on six continents. Ford experimented with a commercial rubber plantation in the Amazon jungle called Fordlândia; it was one of the few failures. In 1929 Ford accepted Stalin's invitation to build a model plant at Gorky, and he sent American engineers and technicians to help set it up, including future labor leader Walter Reuther.

Edsel Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and Henry Ford pose in the Ford hangar during Lindbergh's August 1927 visit.

The technical assistance agreement between Ford Motor Company, VSNH and Amtorg (as purchasing agent) was concluded for nine years and signed on May 31, 1929, by Ford, FMC vice-president Peter E. Martin, V. I. Mezhlauk, and the president of Amtorg, Saul G. Bron.  Any nation where the United States had peaceful diplomatic relations, Ford Motor Company worked to conduct business.  By 1932, Ford was manufacturing one third of all the world’s automobiles.

Henry Ford's image transfixed Europeans, especially the Germans, arousing the "fear of some, the infatuation of others, and the fascination among all" [Nolan p 31]. Germans who discussed "Fordism" often believed that it represented something quintessentially American. 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 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" [Nolan p 31]. For many Germans Henry Ford himself embodied the essence of successful Americanism. A Detroit News columnist interviewed Hitler in 1931 (two years before the Nazis took power in Germany) and asked about the portrait of Ford above his desk; Hitler told her, "I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration." Whilst Hilter was imprisoned for treason in 1924 he read only two books, one of which was Henry Ford's.

In 1938 the German consul at Cleveland gave Ford and the senior executive of General Motors the award of the Grand Cross of the German Eagle for building a car for the masses [link]. A picture of Ford receiving the Cross is available here.

Racing

Ford began his career as a racing car driver and maintained his interest. From 1909 to 1913, Ford entered stripped-down Model Ts in races, finishing first (although later disqualified) in an "ocean-to-ocean" (across the United States) race in 1909, and setting a one-mile oval speed record at Detroit Fairgrounds in 1911 with driver Frank Kulick. In 1913, Ford attempted to enter a reworked Model T in the Indianapolis 500, but was told rules required the addition of another 1,000 pounds (450 kg) to the car before it could qualify. Ford dropped out of the race, and soon thereafter dropped out of racing permanently, citing dissatisfaction with the sport's rules and the demands on his time by the now-booming production of the Model Ts.

He was inducted in the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1996.

The Ford Foundation

Henry Ford, with his son Edsel, founded the Ford Foundation in 1936 with a broad charter to promote human welfare. Ford split his stock into a small number of voting shares, which he gave his family, and a large number of nonvoting shares he gave the Foundation. The Foundation grew immensely and, by 1950, had become international in scope. It sold all its shares on the stock market and dropped all connections with the Ford Motor Company and the Ford family.[FAQ], Ford Foundation.

Death

Ford suffered an initial stroke in 1938, after which he turned over the running of his company to Edsel. Edsel's 1943 death brought Henry Ford out of retirement. In ill health, he ceded the presidency to his grandson Henry Ford II in September 1945, and went into retirement. He died in 1947 of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 83 in Fair Lane, his Dearborn estate, and is buried in the Ford Cemetery in Detroit. On the night of his death a nearby stream had flooded the local power station and had left Ford's house without electricity. Before going to sleep Henry and his wife lit candles and oil lamps to light the house. Later that evening, just before dawn, Henry Ford, father of mass production and creator of the modern era, died in the same atmosphere as he had been born 83 years earlier, under the light of candles.

Henry Ford's - Family tree

The following is the family tree of Henry Ford, Founder of Ford Motor Company. It includes those family members that work, or have worked for Ford.

Paternal Great-Grandfather: William Ford
Paternal Great-Grandmother: Rebecca Ford (1776 - 1851)

Paternal Grandfather: John Ford (c 1799 - 1842)

Paternal Grandmother: Thomasina Ford

:Father: William Ford (1826-1905)

:Mother: Mary Litogot (O'Hern) Ford (c1839-1876)

::Himself: Henry Ford (1863-1947) - Founder of Ford Motor Co.

::Wife: Clara (Bryant) Ford () - Married Apr 11, 1888

:::Son: Edsel Bryant Ford (1893-1943) - President of FoMoCo 1919-43

:::Daughter In-Law: Eleanor Lowthian Clay (1896-1976) - Married 1916

::::Grandson: Henry Ford II (1914-1987) - CEO of FoMoCo 1960-79

::::Grand-Daughter In-Law: Anne McDonnell - Married HFII in 1940, divorced 1964

:::::Great-Granddaughter: Charlotte Ford

:::::Great-Granddaughter: Anne Ford

::::::Great-Great-Granddaughter: Elena Anne Ford (1966-) - Director, Marketing

:::::Great-Grandson: Edsel B. Ford II - Board of Directors member, FoMoCo

::::Grandson: Benson Ford (1919-)

::::Granddaughter: Josephine (1923-)

::::Grandson: William Clay Ford, Sr. (1925-) - Former FoMoCo Director

::::Granddaughter In-Law: Martha Parke Firestone - Married 1947. Granddaughter of Harvey Firestone

:::::Great-Grandson: William Clay Ford, Jr. (1957-) - Chairman and CEO of FoMoCo

::Sister: Margaret Ford (1867-1868)

::Sister: Jane Ford (c1868-1945)

::Brother: William Ford (1871-1917)

::Brother: Robert Ford (1873-1934).

Quotations

Ford was quick with a quip, and hired writers to produce aphorisms attributed to him.

"History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history we make today."
"The international financiers are behind all war. They are what is called the International Jew -- German Jews, French Jews, English Jews, American Jews. I believe that in all these countries except our own the Jewish financier is supreme... Here, the Jew is a threat."
"Nothing is particularly hard, as long as you divide it into small jobs."
"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young."
"Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black."
"Most people spend more time and energy in going around problems than in trying to solve them."
"I don't believe in preparedness. It's like a man carrying a gun. Men and nations who carry guns get into trouble. If I had my way, I'd throw every ounce of gunpowder into the sea and strip the soldiers and sailors of their insignias."
"It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages."
"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."
"To do more than the world has done for you, that is success"*

Sidelights

Henry Ford long had an interest in plastics developed from agricultural products, especially soybeans. He cultivated a working relationship with George Washington Carver for this purpose, building him a laboratory specifically for researching alternative uses for agricultural products. Soybean-based plastics were used in Ford automobiles throughout the 1930s in plastic parts such as car horns, in paint, etc. This project culminated in 1942, when Ford patented an automobile made almost entirely of plastic, attached to a tubular welded frame. It weighed 30% less than a steel car, and was said to be able to withstand blows ten times greater than could steel. Furthermore, it ran on grain alcohol (ethanol) instead of gasoline. The design never caught on. [Lewis 1995]

Ford was instrumental in developing charcoal briquets, under the brand name "Kingsford". Along with his brother in law, E.G. Kingsford used wood scraps from the Ford factory to make the briquets, adding backyard grilling as a pastime.

Ford maintained a vacation residence (known as the "Ford Plantation") in Richmond Hill, Georgia. He contributed substantially to the community, building a chapel and schoolhouse and employing a large number of local residents.

Ford had an interest in "Americana". In the 1920s, Ford began work to turn Sudbury, Massachusetts into a themed historical village. He moved the schoolhouse (supposedly) referred to in the nursery rhyme, Mary had a little lamb from Sterling, Massachusetts and purchased the historical Wayside Inn. This plan never saw fruition, but Ford repeated it with the creation of Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. It may have inspired the creation of Old Sturbridge Village as well. About the same time, he began collecting materials for his museum, which had a theme of practical technology. It was opened in 1929 as the Edison Institute and, although greatly modernized, remains open today.

Henry Ford is sometimes credited with the invention of the automobile, generally attributed to Karl Benz, and the assembly line, invented by Ransom E. Olds. Ford's employees did develop the first moving assembly line based on conveyor belts.

Ford was the winner of the award of Car Entrepreneur of the Century in 1999.

Notes

References

Primary sources

Ford, Henry and Crowther, Samuel; [My Life and Work], 1922
Ford, Henry and Crowther, Samuel; Today and Tomorrow, 1926
Ford, Henry and Crowther, Samuel; Moving Forward, 1930
Bennett, Harry, as told to Paul Marcus. Ford: We Never Called Him Henry, 1951
Sorensen, Charles E., with Samuel T. Williamson. My Forty Years with Ford, 1956; ISBN 0915299364

Biographies

Bak, Richard. Henry and Edsel: The Creation of the Ford Empire (2003)
Brinkley, Douglas G. Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company, and a Century of Progress (2003)
Halberstam, David. "Citizen Ford" American Heritage 1986 37(6): 49-64. interpretive essay
Jardim, Anne. The First Henry Ford: A Study in Personality and Business Leadership Massachusetts Inst. of Technology Press 1970.
Lacey, Robert. Ford: The Men and the Machine Little, Brown, 1986. popular biography
Lewis, David I. The Public Image of Henry Ford: An American Folk Hero and His Company Wayne State U Press (1976),
Nye, David E. Henry Ford: "Ignorant Idealist." Kennikat, 1979.
Watts, Steven. The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century (2005)

Specialized studies

Batchelor, Ray. Henry Ford: Mass Production, Modernism and Design Manchester U. Press, 1994.
Bonin, Huber et al. Ford, 1902-2003: The European History 2 vol Paris 2003. ISBN 2914 369 069 scholarly essays in English; reviewed in * Holden, Len. "Fording the Atlantic: Ford and Fordism in Europe" in Business History Volume 47, #1 Jan 2005 pp 122-127
Brinkley, Douglas. "Prime Mover". American Heritage 2003 54(3): 44-53. on Model T
Bryan, Ford R. Henry's Lieutenants, 1993; ISBN 0-8143-2428-2
Bryan, Ford R. Beyond the Model T: The Other Ventures of Henry Ford Wayne State Press 1990.
Dempsey, Mary A. "Fordlandia," Michigan History 1994 78(4): 24-33. Ford's rubber plantation in Brazil
Jacobson, D. S. "The Political Economy of Industrial Location: the Ford Motor Company at Cork 1912-26." Irish Economic and Social History 1977 4: 36-55. Ford and Irish politics
Kraft, Barbara S. The Peace Ship: Henry Ford's Pacifist Adventure in the First World War Macmillan, 1978
Levinson, William A. Henry Ford's Lean Vision: Enduring Principles from the First Ford Motor Plant, 2002; ISBN 1-56327-260-1
Lewis, David L. "Ford and Kahn" Michigan History 1980 64(5): 17-28. Ford commissioned architect Albert Kahn to design factories
Lewis, David L. "Henry Ford and His Magic Beanstalk" . Michigan History 1995 79(3): 10-17. Ford's interest in soybeans and plastics
Lewis, David L. "Working Side by Side" Michigan History 1993 77(1): 24-30. Why Ford hired large numbers of black workers
McIntyre, Stephen L. "The Failure of Fordism: Reform of the Automobile Repair Industry, 1913-1940: Technology and Culture 2000 41(2): 269-299. repair shops rejected flat rates
Meyer, Stephen. The Five Dollar Day: Labor Management and Social Control in the Ford Motor Company, 1908-1921 (1981)
Nolan; Mary. Visions of Modernity: American Business and the Modernization of Germany (1994)
Pietrykowski, Bruce. "Fordism at Ford: Spatial Decentralization and Labor Segmentation at the Ford Motor Company, 1920-1950" Economic Geography 1995 71(4): 383-401.
Roediger, David, ed "Americanism and Fordism - American Style: Kate Richards O'hare's 'Has Henry Ford Made Good?'" Labor History 1988 29(2): 241-252. Socialist praise for Ford in 1916
Segal, Howard P. "'Little Plants in the Country': Henry Ford's Village Industries and the Beginning of Decentralized Technology in Modern America" Prospects 1988 13: 181-223. Ford created 19 rural workplaces as pastoral retreats
Tedlow, Richard S. "The Struggle for Dominance in the Automobile Market: the Early Years of Ford and General Motors" Business and Economic History 1988 17: 49-62. Ford stressed low price based on efficient factories but GM did better in oligopolistic competition by including investment in manufacturing, marketing, and management.
Thomas, Robert Paul. "The Automobile Industry and its Tycoon" Explorations in Entrepreneurial History 1969 6(2): 139-157. argues Ford did NOT have much influence on US industry,
Valdés, Dennis Nodin. "Perspiring Capitalists: Latinos and the Henry Ford Service School, 1918-1928" Aztlán 1981 12(2): 227-239. Ford brought hundreds of Mexicans in for training as managers
Wilkins, Mira and Frank Ernest Hill, American Business Abroad: Ford on Six Continents Wayne State University Press, 1964
Williams, Karel, Colin Haslam and John Williams, "Ford versus `Fordism': The Beginning of Mass Production?" Work, Employment & Society, Vol. 6, No. 4, 517-555 (1992), stress on Ford's flexibility and commitment to continuous improvements

Jews, anti-semitism and Nazis

Baldwin, Neil; Henry Ford and the Jews: The Mass Production of Hate; PublicAffairs, 2000; ISBN 1-58-648163-0
Foust, James C. "Mass-produced Reform: Henry Ford's Dearborn Independent" American Journalism 1997 14(3-4): 411-424.
Higham, Charles, Trading With The Enemy 1983
Kandel, Alan D. "Ford and Israel" Michigan Jewish History 1999 39: 13-17. covers business and philanthropy
Lee, Albert; Henry Ford and the Jews; Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1980; ISBN 0-81-282701-5
Lewis, David L. "Henry Ford's Anti-semitism and its Repercussions" Michigan Jewish History 1984 24(1): 3-10.
Reich, Simon (1999) "The Ford Motor Company and the Third Reich" Dimensions, 13(2): 15 - 17 [online]
Ribuffo, Leo P. "Henry Ford and the International Jew" American Jewish History 1980 69(4): 437-477.
Sapiro, Aaron L. "A Retrospective View of the Aaron Sapiro-Henry Ford Case" Western States Jewish Historical Quarterly 1982 15(1): 79-84.
Silverstein, K. (2000) "Ford and the Fuhrer" The Nation 270(3): 11 - 16
Wallace, Max The American Axis: Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, and the Rise of the Third Reich; ISBN 0312335318
Woeste, Victoria Saker. "Insecure Equality: Louis Marshall, Henry Ford, and the Problem of Defamatory Antisemitism, 1920-1929" Journal of American History 2004 91(3): 877-905.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

[Special]

Full text of [My Life and Work] from Project Gutenberg
* [My Life and Work], adapted from the Gutenberg Project version, with contextual links to Wikipedia.
[Notable quotations and speech excerpts]
[Timeline][and Quotes by Henry Ford]
[Nevins and Hill tell story of Peace Ship in American Heritage]
[College student reports on the 1915 Peace Ship expedition]
[The Henry Ford Heritage Association]
[Review of] Henry Ford and the Jews
[American Corporate Support for Nazis]
[The Washington Post reports on Ford and General Motors possible collaboration with Nazi Germany]
[http://www.identityindependence.com/fordlindbergh.html Recent criticism of Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh as part of a struggle to define American identity

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