Henry Ford

Henry Ford
File:Henry ford 1919.jpg Photo by Fred Hartsook, c. 1919
Born	July 30, 1863(1863-07-30) Springwells Township, Michigan, U.S.
Died	April 7, 1947 (aged 83) Dearborn, Michigan, U.S.
Resting place	St. Martha's Episcopal Church Cemetery, Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Occupation	Engineer, industrialist, philanthropist
Years active	1891–1945
Known for	Founding and leading the Ford Motor Company; Pioneering a system that launched the mass production and sale of affordable automotives to the public
Title	President of Ford Motor Company (1906–1919, 1943–1945)
Political party	Republican (before 1918) Democratic (after 1918)
Spouse	∞ 11 April 1888 Clara Jane Bryant
Children	Edsel Bryant Ford

Henry Ford (30 July 1863 – 7 April 1947) was American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, who revolutionized factory production with his assembly-line methods.

Life

File:Oskar von Miller with Henry Ford in front of the diesel engine in the German Museum in Munich on 26 September 1930.jpg

Oskar von Miller with Henry Ford in front of the diesel engine in the German Museum in Munich on 26 September 1930

File:Henry Ford erhält das Großkreuz des Verdienstordens des Deutschen Adlerordens, Juli 1938.png

Germanophilist Henry Ford receiving the Grand Cross of the Order of the German Eagle on 30 July 1938 in Ford's main office at the Dearborn Engineering Laboratory in recognition of his "pioneering in making motor cars available for the masses." Ford was the first American and the fourth person (Benito Mussolini was another) to receive the award created by Hitler in 1937, the highest honor the Reich could bestow upon a foreigner; On the right is Karl Kapp, German Consul General in Cleveland, Ohio, and on the left Fritz Hailer (an American citizen of German heritage), German consular representative in Detroit, Michigan (Honorary Consul as of 1935).

Ford was born on a farm near Dearborn, Michigan and later there established an estate, his largest factory, the world headquarters of the Ford Motor Company, and various other facilities.

Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company, was born in Springwells Township, Wayne County, Michigan, on July 30, 1863, to Mary (Litogot) and William Ford. He was the eldest of six children in a family of four boys and two girls. His father was a native of County Cork, Ireland, who came to America in 1847 and settled on a farm in Wayne County. Young Henry Ford showed an early interest in mechanics. By the time he was 12, he was spending most of his spare time in a small machine shop he had equipped himself. There, at 15, he constructed his first steam engine. Later, he became a machinist’s apprentice in Detroit in the shops of James F. Flower and Brothers, and in the plant of the Detroit Dry Dock Company. After completing his apprenticeship in 1882, he spent a year setting up and repairing Westinghouse steam engines in southern Michigan. In July 1891, he was employed as an engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company of Detroit. He became chief engineer on November 6, 1893. Thomas Edison would become a lifelong mentor and friend to Henry Ford. On April 11, 1888, Henry married Clara Jane Bryant of Greenfield, Michigan, the daughter of Martha (Bench) and Melvin Bryant, a Wayne County farmer. Clara lived to the age of 84 and died on September 29, 1950. They had one child, son Edsel Bryant Ford was born on November 6, 1893.

Henry Ford’s career as a builder of automobiles dated from the winter of 1893 when his interest in internal combustion engines led him to construct a small one-cylinder gasoline model. The first Ford engine sputtered its way to life on a wooden table in the kitchen of the Ford home at 58 Bagley Avenue in Detroit. A later version of that engine powered his first automobile, which was essentially a frame fitted with four bicycle wheels. This first Ford car, the Quadricycle, was completed in June 1896. On August 19, 1899, he resigned from the Edison Illuminating Company and, with others, organized the Detroit Automobile Company, which went into bankruptcy about 18 months later. Meanwhile, Henry Ford designed and built several racing cars. In one of them, called Sweepstakes, he defeated Alexander Winton on a track in Grosse Pointe, Michigan on October 10, 1901. One month later, Henry Ford founded his second automobile venture, the Henry Ford Company. He would leave that enterprise, which would become the Cadillac Motor Car Company, in early 1902. In another of his racing cars, the 999, he established a world record for the mile, covering the distance in 39.4 seconds on January 12, 1904 on the winter ice of Lake St. Clair. On June 16, 1903, Henry and 12 others invested $28,000 and created Ford Motor Company. The first car built by the Company was sold July 15, 1903. Henry owned 25.5% of the stock in the new organization. He became president and controlling owner in 1906. In 1919, Henry, Clara, and Edsel Ford acquired the interest of all minority stockholders for $105,820,894 and became the sole owners of the Company. Edsel, who succeeded his father as president in 1919, occupied that position until his death in 1943, when Henry Ford returned to the post. In September, 1945, when he resigned the presidency for a second time, Henry Ford recommended that his grandson, Henry Ford II, be elected to the position. The board of directors followed his recommendation. In 1946, Henry Ford was lauded at the Automotive Golden Jubilee for his contributions to the automotive industry. In July of that same year, 50,000 people cheered for him in Dearborn at a giant 83rd birthday party. Later that year, the American Petroleum Institute awarded him its first Gold Medal annual award for outstanding contributions to the welfare of humanity. The United States government honored him in 1965 by featuring his likeness with a Model T on a postage stamp as part of their Prominent Americans series. In 1999, Fortune magazine named Henry Ford the Businessman of the Century.

He converted the automobile from an expensive curiosity into a practical conveyance that would profoundly impact the landscape of the 20th century. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and industry. He is also credited with "Fordism" mass production of inexpensive goods coupled with high wages for workers. Ford had a global vision, with consumerism as the key to peace. His intense commitment to systematically lowering costs resulted in many technical and business innovations, including a franchise system that put dealerships throughout most of North America and in major cities on six continents. Ford was also widely known for his pacifism during the first years of World War I.

Claimed anti-Semitism

Ford had a reputation as one of the few major corporations actively hiring Black workers, and was not accused of discrimination against Jewish workers or suppliers. He also hired women and handicapped men at a time when doing so was uncommon. Ford also promoted the melting pot idea among his immigrant work force.

However, Ford also acquired the already existing newspaper the Dearborn Independent, which sometimes printed anti-Semitic articles, including The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Every Ford franchise nationwide had to carry the paper and distribute it to its customers. Some of the articles were reprinted into four volumes called The International Jew.

Regarding The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, in 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."

A Jewish lawyer sued Ford for libel, claiming the newspaper hurt his reputation. Ford's defense was that he had not written articles signed by him and even claimed that he did not read the newspaper. During the trial, the editor of Ford's "Own Page", William Cameron (a British Israelite), testified that Ford had nothing to do with the editorials even though they were under his byline. Cameron testified that he never discussed the content of the pages with Ford, or sent them to Ford for his approval. Friends and business associates said they warned Ford about the contents and that Ford probably never read the articles (he claimed he only read the headlines). The trial prompted the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to begin a campaign against Ford. An ADL-led coalition of Jewish groups led the charge, and raised objections to Ford's writings in the Detroit press. The ADL also organized a boycott of Ford products. Ford reached a secret settlement, publicly apologized for any harm he might have caused, and stopped publishing the paper. News reports at the time quoted him as saying he was shocked by the paper's content and unaware of its nature. Ford also wrote a public apology letter to the ADL president Sigmund Livingstone.

That the material claimed to be written by Ford actually criticized all Jews, rather than only some influential Jews ("International Jewry"), argued to have been involved in the start of WWI, may be unclear. Some have viewed Ford's personal secretary Ernest Liebold and/or the British Israelite editor William Cameron as the origin of the published views. Another view is that

"Ford’s own attitudes towards Jews were the major reason for the publication of “The International Jew.” His anti-Semitic beliefs formed along several strands from his upbringing, attitudes, and personal beliefs. They were also influenced by current populist political sensibilities that advocated a distrust of financiers, bankers and institutions of economic power. A common stereotype at the time led some people to assume that Jews controlled the international banking system; that belief may have fed his anti-Jewish feelings. Ford’s pacifism probably formed a second strand. His crusade against World War I convinced him that international Jewish bankers were fomenting the war. Here again, the stereotype noted above may have convinced him that international Jewish bankers supported the war for personal gain. Lastly, Ford’s growing cultural conservatism, anti-urbanism, and nostalgia for the rural past formed an important third strand. Ford saw Jews present in everything that he viewed as modern and distasteful—contemporary music, movies, theater, new dress styles, and loosening social mores."

Order of the German Eagle

On 30 July 1938, on his seventy-fifth birthday, Ford accepted the Grand Cross of the Order of the German Eagle, the highest medal that National Socialist Germany could bestow on a foreigner. The following ceremony and birthday dinner was held in the evening in Dearborn, Michigan. German Consul General in Cleveland (1936-1941) Karl Kapp (1889–1947) delivered the laudatory speech in front of 1,500 prominent guests of honor, written on a roll of parchment and signed by Adolf Hitler, an enthusiastic admirer of the entrepreneur. Hitler's personal congratulations were simultaneously extended to the magnat. Ford was the first American to receive National Socialist Germany's highest decoration for foreigners. It was only one of many awards from other countries that Ford accepted, but it became later widely used to criticize Ford. Henry Ford's German American private secretary, Ernest Gustav Liebold (1884–1956), who had purchased on Ford's behalf The Dearborn Independent in 1918, was awarded Order of the German Eagle 1st Class in September 1938.

External links

• Defaming America’s past: Henry Ford and the Eugenics Movement
• Henry Ford: Would-Be Champion of the “Good Jews”
• Part II: Henry Ford and the Jewish Question
• The International Jew
• The International Jew

Encyclopedias

• Encyclopedia Britannica: Henry Ford
• Britannica 1911 Edition: Henry Ford
• Encyclopedia.com: Henry Ford; also here

References

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