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30 chapters
CHAPTER I ONE SUMMER’S DAY
CHAPTER I ONE SUMMER’S DAY
It was a hot, sultry day in the last of July, one of those Eastern summer days when the air presses heavily down on the stifling country fields, and in every farmyard the chickens scratch deep on the shady side of buildings, looking for cool earth to lie upon, panting. “This weather won’t hold long,” William Ford said that morning, giving the big bay a friendly slap and fastening the trace as she stepped over. “We’d better get the hay under cover before night.” There was no sign of a cloud in th
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CHAPTER II MENDING A WATCH
CHAPTER II MENDING A WATCH
This first memorable event of Henry Ford’s childhood occurred on a Sunday in the spring of his eleventh year. In that well-regulated household Sunday, as a matter of course, was a day of stiffly starched, dressed-up propriety for the children, and of custom-enforced idleness for the elders. In the morning the fat driving horses, brushed till their glossy coats shone in the sun, were hitched to the two-seated carriage, and the family drove to church. William and Mary Ford were Episcopalians, and
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CHAPTER III THE FIRST JOB
CHAPTER III THE FIRST JOB
When Mary Ford died the heart of the home went with her. “The house was like a watch without a mainspring,” her son says. William Ford did his best, but it must have been a pathetic attempt, that effort of the big, hardworking farmer to take a mother’s place to the four children. For a time a married aunt came in and managed the household, but she was needed in her own home and soon went back to it. Then Margaret, Henry’s youngest sister, took charge, and tried to keep the house in order and sup
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CHAPTER IV AN EXACTING ROUTINE
CHAPTER IV AN EXACTING ROUTINE
Meantime back in Greenfield there was a flurry of excitement and not a little worry. Henry did not return from school in time to help with the chores. When supper time came and went without his appearing Margaret was sure some terrible accident had occurred. A hired man was sent to make inquiries. He returned with the news that Henry had not been in school. Then William Ford himself hitched up and drove about the neighborhood looking for the boy. With characteristic reserve and independence Henr
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CHAPTER V GETTING THE MACHINE IDEA
CHAPTER V GETTING THE MACHINE IDEA
When Henry had been with the James Flower Company nine months his wages were increased. He received three dollars a week. He was not greatly impressed. He had not been working for the money; he wanted to learn more about machines. As far as he was concerned, the advantages of the iron-works were nearly exhausted. He had had in turn nearly every job in the place, which had been a good education for him, but the methods which had allowed it annoyed him more every day. He began to think the foreman
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CHAPTER VI BACK TO THE FARM
CHAPTER VI BACK TO THE FARM
The letter from home must have come like a dash of cold water on Henry’s enthusiastic plans. He had been thinking in the future, planning, rearranging, adjusting the years just ahead. It has always been his instinct to do just that. “You can’t run anything on precedents if you want to make a success,” he says to-day. “We should be guiding our future by the present, instead of being guided in the present by the past.” Suddenly the past had come into his calculations. Henry spent a dark day or two
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CHAPTER VII THE ROAD TO HYMEN
CHAPTER VII THE ROAD TO HYMEN
With William Ford’s complete recovery and the coming of the long, half-idle winter of the country there was no apparent reason why Henry Ford should not return to his work in the machine shops. The plans for the watch factory, never wholly abandoned, might be carried out. But Henry stayed at home on the farm. Gradually it became apparent to the neighborhood that Ford’s boy had got over his liking for city life. Farmers remarked to each other, while they sat in their granaries husking corn, that
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CHAPTER VIII MAKING A FARM EFFICIENT
CHAPTER VIII MAKING A FARM EFFICIENT
The young couple went first to the Fords’ place, where the big roomy house easily spared rooms for them, and Margaret and her father gave them a hearty welcome. Clara, having brought her belongings from her old home, put on her big work-apron and helped Margaret in the kitchen and dairy. Henry was out in the fields early, working hard to get the crops planted. Driving the plowshare deep into the rich, black loam, holding it steady while the furrow rolled back under his feet, he whistled to himse
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CHAPTER IX THE LURE OF THE MACHINE SHOPS
CHAPTER IX THE LURE OF THE MACHINE SHOPS
It was an unconscious subterfuge, that statement of Henry Ford’s that he was going up to Detroit to get material. He knew what he wanted; sitting by the red-covered table in his own dining and sitting room some evening after Clara had cleared away the supper dishes he could have written out his order, article by article, exactly what he needed, and two days later it would have arrived by express. But Henry wanted to get back to Detroit. He was tired of the farm. Those years of quiet, comfortable
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CHAPTER X “WHY NOT USE GASOLINE?”
CHAPTER X “WHY NOT USE GASOLINE?”
One sympathizes with young Mrs. Ford during the weeks that followed. In two years of marriage she had learned to understand her husband’s interests and moods fairly well; she had adjusted herself with fewer domestic discords than usual to the simple demands of his good-humored, methodical temperament. She had begun to settle into a pleasant, accustomed routine of managing her house and poultry yard, preparing the meals, washing the dishes, spending the evenings sewing, while Henry read his mecha
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CHAPTER XI BACK TO DETROIT
CHAPTER XI BACK TO DETROIT
Mrs. Ford’s opinion was now shared by the whole Greenfield neighborhood as soon as it learned Ford’s intention of leaving his fine, paying farm and moving to Detroit to work in a machine shop. “You had this notion once before, you know, when you were a youngster,” his father reminded him. “I thought you’d made up your mind to stay here, where you can make a good living and have some peace and comfort.” He listened to his son’s explanation of the possibilities in a self-propelling gasoline engine
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CHAPTER XII LEARNING ABOUT ELECTRICITY
CHAPTER XII LEARNING ABOUT ELECTRICITY
Forty-five dollars a month and a twelve-hour-a-day job—for these Henry Ford had traded his big, pleasant home, with its assured comfort and plenty, and his place as one of the most prosperous and respected men in Greenfield. The change would have been a calamity to most men. Henry Ford was happy. The new job gave him a chance to work with machinery, an opportunity to learn all about electricity. His contentment, as he went whistling about his work after Gilbert left, would have seemed pure insan
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CHAPTER XIII EIGHT HOURS, BUT NOT FOR HIMSELF
CHAPTER XIII EIGHT HOURS, BUT NOT FOR HIMSELF
When Henry Ford became manager of the mechanical department the workmen in the Edison plants were working twelve-hour shifts as a matter of course. In those days the theory of practically all employers was that men, like the rest of their equipment, should be worked to the limit of their strength. “We had about forty men on the regular list and four or five substitutes who were kept busy filling in for the regular men who were sick or tired out,” he said. “I hadn’t been in charge long before it
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CHAPTER XIV STRUGGLING WITH THE FIRST CAR
CHAPTER XIV STRUGGLING WITH THE FIRST CAR
Ford was now a man of nearly 30, an insignificant, unimportant unit in the business world of Detroit, merely one of the subordinate managers in the Edison plant. Seeing him on his way home from work, a slender, stooping, poorly dressed man, the firm set of his lips hidden by the sandy mustache he wore then, and his blue eyes already surrounded by a network of tired wrinkles, men probably looked at him half-pityingly, and said: “There’s a man who will never get anywhere.” He had his farm, unprofi
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CHAPTER XV A RIDE IN THE RAIN
CHAPTER XV A RIDE IN THE RAIN
Tears, almost hysterics, from the woman who for seven years had been the quiet, cheerful little wife, humming to herself while she did the housework—it was more than startling, it was terrifying. Ford realized then, probably for the first time, how much the making of the automobile had cost her. He quieted her as well as he could, and promised that he would take her back to Greenfield. He would give up his job at the Edison plant and move to the farm to live, since she cared so much about it, he
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CHAPTER XVI ENTER COFFEE JIM
CHAPTER XVI ENTER COFFEE JIM
Probably the disposition to rest on our laurels is more than anything else responsible for the mediocrity of the individual and the slow progress of the race. Having accomplished something, most of us spend some time in admiring it and ourselves. It is characteristic of big men that past achievements do not hold their interest; they are concerned only with their efforts to accomplish still more in the future. Henry Ford had built an automobile. His four years’ work had been successful, and that
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CHAPTER XVII ANOTHER EIGHT YEARS
CHAPTER XVII ANOTHER EIGHT YEARS
If Ford had been unduly elated over his success in making an automobile the years that followed that night ride in the rain would have been one succession of heart-breaking disappointments. Men with money enough to build a factory were not seeking business ventures in the nineties. Money was scarce, and growing more so. The few financiers who might have taken up Ford’s invention, floated a big issue of common stock, and sold the cars at a profit of two or three hundred per cent, saw no advantage
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CHAPTER XVIII WINNING A RACE
CHAPTER XVIII WINNING A RACE
Coffee Jim pondered the situation. He knew Ford thoroughly; he believed in the car. To win the Grosse Point races would give Ford his chance—a chance he was missing for lack of money. Coffee Jim thought of his own bank account, which had been growing for years, nickel by nickel, dime by dime, from the profits on fried-ham sandwiches and hamburger and onions. “See here, Ford,” he said suddenly: “I’ll take a chance. I’ll back you. You go on, quit your job, build that car and race her. I’ll put up
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CHAPTER XIX RAISING CAPITAL
CHAPTER XIX RAISING CAPITAL
Ford sat in his little car, white, shaken, dusty—the track champion of this country. He was surrounded by a small crowd of automobile enthusiasts, promoters, bicycle champions, all eager to meet and talk with the unknown man who had taken the honors away from Winton. Among them was Tom Cooper. Grasping Ford’s hand, he looked with interest at the slightly built, thin-cheeked man who had won the race, and said: “Bully work, the way you handled her on that last turn. Whose car is it?” “Mine,” said
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CHAPTER XX CLINGING TO A PRINCIPLE
CHAPTER XX CLINGING TO A PRINCIPLE
Ford and Cooper regarded the juggernaut car for some time in meditative silence. “Well, I guess you’ve built a real racer there, all right,” Cooper said admiringly. “Yes, it looks as if I had,” Ford answered. “The question is, what good is it? Is there a man on earth who’d try to drive it?” “Well, I’ve got some nerve myself, and I don’t want to,” Cooper admitted. He walked around the car and then looked again at the engine. “How fast would the darn thing go, I wonder?” he said. “Get in and try h
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CHAPTER XXI EARLY MANUFACTURING TRIALS
CHAPTER XXI EARLY MANUFACTURING TRIALS
Again Henry Ford’s talent for friendliness helped him. Wills, who had been working with Ford as a draughtsman, came with him into the new company. He had a few hundred dollars, which he was willing to stake on Ford’s ability. Couzens, who had helped organize the first company, came also, and turned his business talents to the task of raising capital to start the new concern. While he was struggling with the problems of organization, Henry Ford rented an old shack on Mack avenue, moved his tools
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CHAPTER XXII AUTOMOBILES FOR THE MASSES
CHAPTER XXII AUTOMOBILES FOR THE MASSES
In a short time Couzens returned from Chicago, bringing not only the delayed check, but several orders as well, which he had obtained largely because of the astounding record made by the Ford car in its race over the ice on Lake St. Clair. The Ford company was not yet firmly established, but prospects were bright. America was awaking to the possibilities of the automobile, not merely as a machine for spectacular exhibitions of daring and skill at track meetings, or as the plaything of wealthy me
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CHAPTER XXIII FIGHTING THE SELDON PATENT
CHAPTER XXIII FIGHTING THE SELDON PATENT
By sheer force of an idea, backed only by hard work, Henry Ford had established a new principle in mechanics; he had created new methods in the manufacturing world—methods substantially those which prevail in manufacturing to-day; now he entered the legal field. His fight on the Seldon patent—a fight that lasted nearly ten years—was a sensation not only in the automobile world, but among lawyers everywhere. The intricacies of the case baffled the jurists before whom it was tried. Time and again
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CHAPTER XXIV “THE GREATEST GOOD TO THE GREATEST NUMBER”
CHAPTER XXIV “THE GREATEST GOOD TO THE GREATEST NUMBER”
The response to that first Christmas gift from the Ford company to its employees was another proof of Ford’s theory that friendliness pays. In the following month the production of cars broke all January records. Salesmen, with a new feeling of loyalty to the firm, increased their efforts, worked with greater enthusiasm and their orders jumped. The fight with the association still raged in the courts and in the newspapers, but the factory wheels were turning faster than ever before. More cars we
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CHAPTER XXV FIVE DOLLARS A DAY MINIMUM
CHAPTER XXV FIVE DOLLARS A DAY MINIMUM
The Seldon patent fight had continued through all the early years of Ford’s struggle to establish himself in business. At last it was settled. Ford won it. The whole industry was freed from an oppressive tax and his long fight was over. Immediately, of course, other cars came into the low-priced field. Other manufacturers, tardily following Ford, began the downward pressure in prices which now makes it possible for thousands of persons with only moderate means to own automobiles. For the first t
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CHAPTER XXVI MAKING IT PAY
CHAPTER XXVI MAKING IT PAY
“When I saw thousands of men in Detroit alone fighting like wild animals for a chance at a decent living wage it brought home to me the tremendous economic waste in our system of doing business,” Ford said. “Every man in those crowds must go back to a job—if he found one at all—that did not give him a chance to do his best work because it did not pay him enough to keep him healthy and happy. “I made up my mind to put my project through, to prove to the men who are running big industries that my
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CHAPTER XXVII THE IMPORTANCE OF A JOB
CHAPTER XXVII THE IMPORTANCE OF A JOB
That surging mob of men outside this factory during the week following the announcement of his profit-sharing plan had impressed indelibly on Ford’s mind the tremendous importance of a job. “A workingman’s job is his life,” he says. “No one man should have the right ever to send another man home to his family out of work. Think what it means to that man, sitting there at the supper table, looking at his wife and children, and not knowing whether or not he will be able to keep them fed and clothe
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CHAPTER XXVIII A GREAT EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION
CHAPTER XXVIII A GREAT EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION
It happened that on Ford’s fifty-second birthday a commission from the French Chamber of Commerce arrived in Detroit, having crossed the Atlantic to inspect the Ford factories. They viewed 276 acres of manufacturing activity; the largest power plant in the world, developing 45,000 horse-power from gas-steam engines designed by Ford engineers; the enormous forty-ton cranes; 6,000 machines in operation in one great room, using fifty miles of leather belting; nine mono-rail cars, each with two-ton
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CHAPTER XXIX THE EUROPEAN WAR
CHAPTER XXIX THE EUROPEAN WAR
War! The news caught at the heart of the world, and stopped it. For a time the whole business structure of every nation on earth trembled, threatened to crumble into ruin, under this weight, to which it had been building from the beginning. Greed, grasping selfishness, a policy of “each man for himself, against other men,” these are the foundations on which nations have built up their commercial, social, industrial success. These are the things which always have led, and always will lead, to war
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CHAPTER XXX THE BEST PREPAREDNESS
CHAPTER XXX THE BEST PREPAREDNESS
Henry Ford saw that the meaning of his work was about to be lost. He was in for the greatest fight of his life. He counted his resources. The mammoth factory was still running to capacity, the farm tractors, which would mean so much in increased production of food, in greater comforts for millions of farmers, were almost ready to be put on the market. His plan for profit-sharing with the buyers of his cars had recently been announced. Three hundred thousand men in this country would have, during
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