"The Remarkable Henry Ford," Feature Article, May 2003

the remarkable Henry Ford

More than a carmaker, more than an innovator, his company's centennial is a reminder of Ford's vast influence.

by Frank Wicks

The years before December 7, 1941, were a period of bitter disagreement in the United States. Nazi Germany under Adolph Hitler had built a massive war machine, to which much of Europe had surrendered. Japan had conquered most of Asia, including China. The aggression was made possible by deadly new war machines that were powered on land and in the air by light internal combustion engines.

Only Great Britain and the Soviet Union were offering significant resistance. They desperately needed help. President Franklin Roosevelt, a Harvard-educated aristocrat, was trying to persuade Americans that the country must provide aid.

A leading spokesman for noninvolvement was the country schoolhouse graduate Henry Ford. His empire was built upon the internal combustion engine. His low-priced Model T had changed the nation. Standardization allowed for moving assembly lines and mass production. The Ford manufacturing techniques were adapted by weapons industries in Germany and Japan.

The Fordson tractor replaced workhorses. The all-metal Ford Tri-Motor pioneered air passenger service and introduced radio-based navigation. Assembly lines had reduced the need for skilled craftsmen. Factory workers could be hired off the street. Henry Ford proclaimed that there were more jobs in his factories that could be done by the blind and the deaf than there were people with those handicaps.

In 1896, Henry Ford designed the Quadricycle, his first practical automobile. He went after the race car market next.

Henry Ford had also invented the middle class. Factory workers in 1914 earned as little as $1 per day. Ford workers were averaging $2.34. He was accused of committing an economic crime by raising the minimum pay to $5 per day. He also shortened the workday and added $10 million of profit sharing for the factory workers. Low-paid workers became middle-class consumers, who could afford to buy the cars they made.

Henry Ford was a populist and folk hero to be taken seriously. He had been a protester of World War I. His understanding of European history was of a ruling nobility willing to sacrifice the sons of the common people for their own selfish purposes.

In 1915, he had commissioned and personally sailed to Europe on a Peace Ship. He was called naive by the media and politicians, but many had admired Henry Ford for his efforts to stop the carnage. Machine guns and poison gas were the newest weapons of mass destruction. In 1917, the United States would join the battle.

Ford reluctantly converted his factories to the war effort, while pledging not to reap any profits from the conflict. After the fighting stopped in 1918, Ford joined President Woodrow Wilson in supporting the League of Nations as a means of preventing future conflicts.

Henry Ford was considered a major presidential candidate in 1924. He was using radio to promote his causes a decade before President Roosevelt mastered the art of fireside radio chats.

In 1941, Ford and other isolationists were suddenly silenced by the Japanese air attack on Pearl Harbor. President Roosevelt took to the airwaves to declare a Day of Infamy. A nearly unanimous Congress declared war on Japan.

Once again, Ford converted his factories to support a war he had passionately tried to prevent. The unprepared nation was in a decade-long depression, with mass unemployment and empty factories. Large numbers of military vehicles and airplanes were necessary. Production of automobiles was halted and replaced by jeeps, armored cars, trucks, tanks, and aircraft engines.

Victory would first require long-range bombers to destroy the enemy infrastructure. Ford was chosen to assemble the four-engine B-24 Liberator. It had 488,193 parts. A mile-long factory was built in Michigan at Willow Run. The wartime workforce comprised largely women and older men. For many, it was their first factory experience. The goal of producing one bomber per hour was achieved and then surpassed.

Factory workers assemble Model Ts in 1910. The company's pay scale and manu-
facturing techniques were revolutionary, as was its product, a car priced so that the men who made it could afford to buy one.

Ground vehicles and airplanes required maintenance. Ford vehicles had provided many owners with the art and science of automobile repair. These skills were transferred to the machines of war.

Henry Ford's name was equated with rapid production. Henry J. Kaiser, whose shipyard built 50 aircraft carriers in one year, would be called "the Henry Ford of shipbuilding." The uranium and plutonium atomic bombs were built in secrecy by 150,000 civilian workers. This was made possible by the separation-of-task methods that had been used in Ford factories.

When World War II ended in 1945, the United States was heralded as the arsenal of democracy. Henry Ford had suffered two strokes and would live for another two years. His son Edsel, who had been a vital partner, had already died, in 1943, of stress-related illness. The grandson Henry II took control at the age of 27 and guided the company through its postwar transition, remaining until 1977. The Ford Motor Co. is now celebrating its centennial, and is headed by a great-grandson, William Clay Ford.

THE PATH TO INFLUENCE

July 1863 was the turning point of the Civil War. Victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg would be crucial to the Union, and also vital for the re-election of Abraham Lincoln. On July 30, Henry Ford was born to William and Mary Ford on the family farm near Dearborn, Mich. The farm was largely self-sufficient, with a sawmill, gristmill, and machinery for spinning the wool from its sheep.

The young Henry was quick to comprehend the workings of gears, cams, and levers. He had the one-room schoolhouse education that was the norm. Throughout his lifetime, he was an atrocious speller and rarely wrote a complete sentence. Character was shaped by McGuffey's Readers. They contained tales about bad behavior leading to tragic results, and good boys becoming rich and famous. Henry Ford treasured those books and had them reprinted in later years.

Henry liked the country, but complained that farm work was never done. At 16, he traveled 15 miles to the growing industrial city of Detroit. He got an apprenticeship in a machine shop that made steam engines. Nights he worked fixing clocks and watches. His next job was operating a mobile Westinghouse steam engine that was contracted to local farmers.

Steam had been powering ships and railroads for much of the century. Steam tractors were used for plowing. Ford tried building a steam road carriage. He was discouraged by the problems of weight, slow starting, dangers of explosion, and the need to continually attend to the fire, water, and pressure.

He returned to the farm and built a sawmill and a house for Clara Jane Bryant, whom he married in 1888. Their only child, Edsel, was born in 1893. Thomas Edison had invented the electric light in 1879, and then started building centralized electric plants. Ford returned to Detroit and soon became chief engineer at the Edison Illuminating Co.

Children of the Model T generation wanted something with a newer look and feel. This 1932 Ford V8 packed more style outside and twice as many cylinders under the hood.

His dream of a powered road vehicle was renewed by the internal combustion engine that was being developed in the United States and Europe. Rather than using steam, the high-pressure combustion products drove the piston. Such an engine would be lighter, safer, and easier to operate, and would start instantly.

Two types of internal combustion engines had been demonstrated. In 1874, a Boston engineer named George Brayton had patented an engine with one cylinder for compression, a combustion chamber, and a separate cylinder in which the products expanded for the power stroke. This engine was displayed in Philadelphia at the United States Centennial Exhibition of 1876.

Meanwhile, Nicholas Otto in Germany invented a four-stroke engine that used a single cylinder and piston for the processes of compression, combustion, power, exhaust, and intake. The Otto engine would power the auto age and flying machines. It is still improving by the continuous implementation of new technologies.

The Duryea brothers of Springfield, Mass., built a gasoline-fueled vehicle in 1892. By 1896, they had made six vehicles of the same design. Henry Ford read about how to make a gas engine out of odds and ends in the November 1895 issue of American Machinist. He teamed up with three electric plant coworkers. They soon built a crude engine using a steam pipe for a cylinder.

Development was transferred to the shed behind the Ford house. Another Detroiter, Charles King, had installed a gas engine on a horse cart. The resulting 1,400-pound vehicle traveled at a speed of 5 mph.

Ford, noting that a thin man can run faster than a fat man, proceeded to build what he called a quadricycle. It was essentially a platform with a bicycle on each side. It had a steering tiller, a two-cylinder engine under the seat, and a chain drive to the back axle. It was started by spinning a flywheel. On a rainy night in June 1896, the 500-pound vehicle was put on the street. It reached the impressive speed of 20 mph.

Motor vehicles were a hobby for rich sportsmen. Henry Ford realized that speed was the best means of getting attention and sponsors. He built a 70-horsepower car that averaged 55 mph over a five-mile course in 1901. Later, it reached a spectacular 100 mph with the daredevil racer Barney Oldfield driving.

Ford had become famous as a race car builder. With
11 investors, including a wealthy coal dealer, he formed the Ford Motor Co. in June 1903. Over the next five years, it struggled with a variety of customized models that cost about $2,500. The competition was 500 other companies that had begun during the decade.

SUITED TO A T

Ford needed a niche. In 1907, he announced that there would be only one Ford car. It would be built for the multitudes, large enough to carry a family, but simple enough, and small enough, for the average family to maintain. Any man with a good salary could afford one, and enjoy with his family the hours of pleasure in God's open spaces. The basic Model T was the car that transformed civilization. It cost $280 and was manufactured until 1927.

The original Highland Park Model T plant was replaced by the enormous River Rouge complex. Raw materials were imported by rail and ship, and rapidly transformed into the finished products.

Jokes define the beginning and end of the era. An early one was about the man who was going to be buried with his Model T, because they were never in a hole they couldn't get out of. At the end, a Model T was like a bathtub: You were embarrassed to be seen in one.

The 1896 Quad-
ricycle was an answer to Charles King's demonstra-
tion of a gasoline engine accelerating a horse cart to 5 mph. At about a third the weight, Ford's two-cylinder vehicle hit a top speed of 20.

People had cherished how the Model T had provided them with an undreamed-of mobility. It helped the country become prosperous. Rutted country roads became paved highways.

By the 1920s, the children of those people wanted style and status. Henry Ford had offered the Model T in any shade of black. He surrendered to a variety of colors, but that was too little and too late.

From 1927 through the early '30s, Ford produced the Model A, an updated four-cylinder car.

The Ford car of the long-range future, though, would have to go faster and be more fashionable. A high-performance V8 engine was developed. It powered a variety of stylish, low-cost cars for two decades.

The 1934 models gained notoriety as favored getaway cars for the gangster John Dillinger and the bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. The Mercury and Lincoln were introduced for upscale customers.

BRAYTON POWER PLAY

In 1876, a Rochester, N.Y., lawyer and engineer named George Selden saw a stationary Brayton engine and recognized its potential to power a vehicle. He applied for a patent. He also recognized that the technology was immature. A patent is good for only 17 years. Selden used various tactics to delay issue until 1895.

The Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers procured rights to the Selden patent and required all manufacturers to become members and pay royalties. Ford refused. He claimed the patent was too broad. The association sued and ran newspaper notices saying that any buyer of a Ford car would be buying a lawsuit.

In a 1927 photo opportunity for a manufacturing milestone, Edsel Ford is at the wheel, next to his father.

Ford lost the first round of litigation, but stubbornly persisted. The case was finally closed by the Circuit Appeals Court in New York in 1911. It ruled that the Selden patent was valid, but only for cars with Brayton engines. Gasoline cars were using Otto engines. His risky defiance further enhanced Ford's fame and fortune.

The next challenge came from the original investors, who wanted dividends. Henry Ford considered them non-producers. He preferred to reinvest the profits and do his own banking. The shareholders sued successfully. In 1919, Ford was ordered to pay $19 million in dividends.

Ford wanted to buy out shareholders at the lowest possible price. He released the sensational news that he was considering starting a new company to make a car that would be even cheaper than the Model T. The effect was to lower the value of Ford company stock, which he bought cheap and anonymously through agents. To cover the funds he borrowed to buy the stock, he flooded his dealers with inventories to obtain an infusion of cash. The company would not be publicly traded until 1956.

He was now free of troublesome shareholders and in total control. In 1918, he had made his 25-year-old son, Edsel, president. For the next 25 years, the gifted son would handle the daily management and respond to new challenges and opportunities.

Edsel commissioned and directed the Mexican artist Diego Rivera in the creation of murals at the Detroit Institute of Arts. These paintings of car parts, factories, and workers remain an American treasure. Unfortunately, the name Edsel is now associated with the 1957 car that was named after his death to honor him, but became an embarrassing marketing failure.

FREE TO ROAM, WITH CASH

With Edsel running the company, Henry Ford had the freedom and money to pursue his unlimited causes and enthusiasms. He would crusade against alcohol and smoking. He would support projects in agriculture, health, technical education, synthetic materials, shipping, hydroelectric power, and the revival of square dancing.

Flight had great possibilities, but was dangerous because of unreliable engines, structural failures, lack of airfields, and limited experience. Henry Ford understood that safety was to be the priority. Reliable engines were vital. The Ford Tri-Motor demonstrated the reliability of the 225-hp, air-cooled radial Wright Whirlwind engine.

Charles Lindbergh would select this engine in 1927 for his daring flight from New York to Paris. He considered the beats of his heart and of the engine to be indistinguishable. His life depended upon both.

The Ford Tri-Motor from 1925 delivered mail, pioneered passenger service, and proved the Wright engine that would take Lindbergh to Paris two years later.

When the 25-year-old Lindbergh returned for a flying tour of the 48 states, he flew into Ford Field in Dearborn. Henry Ford was a rare aviation pioneer because he had no personal passion for flight. His only airborne experience was a flight with Lindbergh during the flyer's visit to Michigan.

Henry Ford would take highly publicized traveling and camping vacations with his friends, Thomas Edison, John Burroughs, and Harvey Firestone. Sometimes a U.S. president would join the adventure. Ford idolized Edison, who was 16 years older. He had met Edison in 1895 and described his plans for a gas engine vehicle. He had feared that Edison would advise him to use electricity. Edison assured him that an engine was more promising.

The nature writer John Burroughs had condemned the impact of the car. Ford responded by sending him a Model T. The white-bearded Burroughs concluded the car was an ideal means for him to travel and enjoy the beauty of the Catskill Mountains.

HISTORY IN THREE DIMENSIONS

Henry Ford was contemptuous of written history. Too much was left to the author's interpretation. His passion was to preserve the past that industrialization had destroyed. The way to do it was to show how people had lived and worked, and the tools and machines they had used.

Introduced in 1927, the Model A was an updated four-cylinder successor to the Model T. Ford's 20 millionth car was a Model A made in 1931.

Ford started browsing antique stores and sometimes bought out the entire stock. In 1923, he purchased and restored Longfellow's Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Mass., to colonial authenticity. The site was supplemented by a historic schoolhouse, church, and gristmill. They continue to operate for guests and visitors. The complex also once included an industrial trade school for homeless boys.

LEARNING BY DOING

This project was only a preview of the magnificent museum and village Ford would build at his birthplace in Dearborn, and dedicate to Thomas Edison. The museum would display an amazing variety of Americana in the form of machines and artifacts. A school at the museum ran from kindergarten through eighth grade. Because Henry Ford believed in learning by doing, students would make working models of machines.

Using techniques developed to produce automobiles, Ford's mile-long Willow Run bomber plant turned out the four-engine Liberator at a rate of one an hour with a largely inexperienced workforce during World War II.

The centerpiece of the adjacent Greenfield Village would be Edison's Menlo Park laboratory from New Jersey. It is surrounded by an array of restored structures. There is the Wright brothers' bicycle shop and the modest Mohawk River cottage of Charles Steinmetz, the electrical wizard of Schenectady General Electric and Union College.

Leaders and celebrities from around the world traveled to Dearborn for the dedication on Oct. 21, 1929. It was the 50th anniversary of the light bulb. Thomas Edison was there to re-enact his invention. President Herbert Hoover, an engineer himself and a historian of technology, was joined by luminaries like Madame Curie, Orville Wright, George Eastman, Walter Chrysler, John Rockefeller, and Will Rogers.

The ceremony was broadcast to millions by 600 radio stations. None had existed a decade earlier. Albert Einstein broadcast a message from Germany. Thomas Edison threw the switch. Then there was light. It was a glorious event for the nation and for the remarkable life of Henry Ford.

Frank Wicks is a professor of mechanical engineering at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., and is a frequent contributor to Mechanical Engineering.