biography
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1863–1947)
|
| biography:
| Industrialist and innovator, born near Dearborn, Michigan, USA. The son of a farmer, he left school at age 15 and worked at a series of jobs where he enlarged his mechanical skills and knowledge of engines. By 1892 he had built his own ‘gasoline buggy’ and by 1896 was driving an improved model in public. In 1899 he left a secure post as engineer of the Edison Illuminating Co in Detroit to start an automobile company. It went out of business (1900) and he concentrated on making racing cars. Realizing that the future of automobiles lay in making them faster and cheaper, he established the Ford Motor Co (1903) with $100 000 from investors. His firm's early models sold well, but his big breakthrough came with the introduction of the Model T (1908), the first car designed for use by ordinary people. Its low price, in turn, depended on his company's adoption of innovative production methods such as assembly-line operations and standardized parts. A paternalistic employer, he introduced the $5-a-day wage (1914) and generally paid wages above industry standards, but he fiercely resisted unionization (United Auto Workers did not appear in his plants until 1941). He became so widely admired that the term Fordismus was coined to describe his brand of capitalism – efficient production, good pay, and mass distribution. He had also taken to promoting his views in articles and books, including My Life and Work (1922) (which, like most of his writing, was the work of a hired hand). Blinded by his early successes, he tended to isolate himself from new advances in technology and design. For years his cars were available only in black, and his Model A (1927) lagged years behind in its technology. By the mid-1930s his company had slipped behind other American car manufacturers. By then he himself was fabulously rich, and although he continued his autocratic control of the company, he turned over much of the operations to his only son, Edsel. Meanwhile, he had already begun to devote himself to other pursuits. He had strongly opposed World War 1, and after he lost a race for the US Senate in 1918 he blamed the war and his defeat on ‘international bankers’ and ‘the Jews’, revealing a side he would never live down, provincial at best, bigoted at worst. At one stage he even expressed admiration of Hitler and urged Americans not to get involved in World War 2. Meanwhile, he devoted considerable time and money to establishing the historical village and museum in Dearborn. (His oft-quoted remark, ‘History is bunk’ was intended to mean that, as conventionally taught in books, history failed to capture the true story of people in the past.) In 1936 he established the Ford Foundation, and with the bequests of his and his family's stock, it became one of the world's largest philanthropic institutions. Although not universally admired by the time of his death (and later biographies would further chip away at his image), he was undeniably one of the most influential men of the century. |
|
|
