The Biography of Henry Ford, the Innovator & Entrepreneur

Early life

Parents

William Ford, Henry Ford's father, was born in Ireland. His father, John Ford, immigrated to the USA in the 1800s. During their initial years in the USA, his family was not financially stable. So, making enough money to sustain himself was difficult for William. Therefore, he started working on a neighboring farm, where he met Mary Litogot. 

Mary's parents, immigrants from Belgium, had died when she was a kid. So, she was taken care of by her neighbors, for whom William worked. Since William worked on the same farm where Mary was growing up, they had ample opportunity to meet. Eventually, they fell in love with each other and got married in 1861.

Meanwhile, William's father rented some land and converted it into a thriving farm. William liked farming and wanted to follow in his father's footsteps. So, he worked very hard. As a result, by 1858, he became wealthy enough to buy his own share of land. Three years later, he even built a big house on the land he had purchased.

Birth

Two years after William built the house, on July 30th, 1863, Mary gave birth to their first child. They named him Henry. Even though four children were born after Henry, Mary always remained more attached to her first son Henry. Henry, too, loved his mother a lot and always looked forward to spending time with her.

Education

As is often the case with children, Henry Ford's initial education came from his immediate family. His mother taught him to read, while his grandfather taught him the names of birds, animals, flowers, and trees in the forest. After the bout of this initial education, Ford started school at the age of seven. He studied in a one-room schoolhouse from the first grade to the eighth grade. 

Experiments as a kid

Ford's curiosity

Since childhood, Ford was always curious and wanted to find out how and why things work. But he did not want to learn these from books. Instead, he wanted to find them out by conducting experiments. 

Steam engine

As a small boy, Ford became fascinated by the power of steam. So, when he was ten years old, he conducted a small experiment to find out how it worked. He took an earthen pot, filled it with water, tied the lid, and started heating it. After a few minutes, due to the pressure generated by the steam, the pot exploded, spilling hot water on him. Learning from his mistake, Ford then built a controlled steam engine using a baking powder can and a watch wheel. Since it was successful, Ford decided to build something better. So, he gathered his classmates and built a bigger steam engine. However, this time, his experiment failed, and the steam engine exploded, burning down the school fence.

The Pocket watch

William and Mary had five children. Like all the other children in their neighborhood, they hoped that their children too would take up farm work after them. But Ford was different. He despised the laborious farm work. Instead, he liked experimenting with machines and understanding the mechanism behind them. He wanted to build machines, which could make farm life easier. Fortunately for Ford, his parents never came in the way of his love for machines. Instead, they even allotted space for him in the kitchen, where he could conduct his experiments. 

Becoming an engineer

The Two important events

The year 1876 was an important year in the life of Henry Ford. This is the year when he decided to become an engineer. His decision was catalyzed by two important events. 

In July 1876, a man called Fred Reden brought a portable steam engine to Dearborn, where Ford lived. Until then, Ford had only seen horse-drawn carriages, which are a slow mode of transportation. So, when he saw this portable steam engine, he was thrilled. Fred even let Ford fire and run the engine. The thrill and joy it gave made little Ford believe that he was meant to be an engineer. The same year, when he saw another portable steam engine on the road while riding a horse-drawn carriage with his father, he immediately jumped off his wagon and started exploring it. After this incident, building a horseless, self-propelled vehicle that could replace horse-drawn carriages became his dream. Years later, he would realize this dream, impacting the entire world in the process.

Learning about steam engines

He found work in Detroit at the Michigan Car Company Works, which built streetcars. But his father, who understood his son's love for machines, wanted him to have a better life. So, he arranged for him to stay with an aunt in Detroit and even found a job for him as an apprentice machinist. 

Since Detroit was a famous industrial city at that time, the rents were high. So, Ford worked two jobs - as a machinist during the day and as a watch mechanic in a jewelry shop at night. He earned $4.5, which was enough to pay his rent. But despite leading a difficult life, Ford loved his job. So, he worked very hard, learning everything about machines, steam engines, and heavy industry. 

Ford returns home

Becoming an expert on steam engines

The portable steam engine was an agricultural invention at that time. These steam engines were pulled to the farm by horses and used to power other machines, like sawmills, which cut wood, and threshers, which separate the seeds from the stalk. In short, it made farmers' lives easier.

Ford's neighbor didn't know anything about steam engines, even though he had purchased one. So, he was looking for someone to operate and maintain it. Therefore, Ford, who was now an expert on steam machines, returned home and started maintaining it. However, his neighbor wasn't the only one who had a portable steam engine. Several other farmers in the locality owned such steam engines. So, since Ford was the steam engine expert in the locality, they paid him to repair their steam engines. Eventually, he was even hired by the Westinghouse company, which manufactured these steam engines. 

Marriage

Meanwhile, Ford fell in love with Clara Jane Bryant, who grew up on a nearby farm. Ford's father offered him 80 acres of land as a gift for their marriage. He hoped that Ford would stop obsessing about machines and take up farming instead. But Ford had no intention of becoming a farmer. At the same time, he did not want to work for someone else either. He wanted to work on his own. So, he cut and sold the timber in the land his father gifted him. He then built a house and a machine shop in that land while farming now and then. Additionally, Ford also repaired the steam engines of farmers near him while going to Westinghouse occasionally to service their steam engines. He also studied bookkeeping at a college in Detroit. Thus, Ford started on the journey to becoming an entrepreneur.

Ford's obsession

In those days, gasoline was a relatively new fuel. Only a few people in Europe and the USA were working on building a gasoline-powered vehicle. So, Ford, who thought that gasoline might be a better fuel than steam, started working on a gasoline-powered four-wheeled vehicle. However, working in a workshop on a farm, he couldn't get the sophisticated parts needed to build it. So, he decided to move to a city where he could get better access to technology.

Ford builds his first gasoline vehicle

Edison Illuminating Company

In 1892, Ford got a job at Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit. While the city provided him access to modern technology, the job provided him an opportunity to learn electrical engineering. So, even though he had to leave his comfortable life behind, Ford took the job. 

Initially, when he started working as a night operating engineer at Edison Illuminating Company, his salary was $40/month. But Ford was highly skilled and extremely hard working. So, he was promoted frequently. Thus, in a few months, he took charge of the maintenance of steam engines for a salary of $75/month. In four years, he became the Chief Engineer of the Edison Illuminating company.

Even though Ford was having such a successful career at the Edison Illuminating Company, he was not satisfied. His dream was to build a self-propelled vehicle. So, after working long hours at the company, he came home and started working on the gasoline vehicle. After spending several sleepless nights, he built the first gasoline engine in December 1893. The engine ran only for over a minute. But it proved to Ford the power of gasoline as a fuel. 

In the November 1895 issue of American Machinist magazine, Ford read the report of a wooden vehicle. Built by another engineer from Detroit, Charles King, it could travel at a maximum speed of 8 km/hour. Reading this report, Ford became hopeful. So, motivated by the initial success of building a gasoline engine, he started experimenting more. Finally, six years after he started working on the gasoline vehicle, Ford built his first gasoline vehicle in 1896.

The Quadricycle

The Quadricycle had a two-cylinder, four-horsepower motor with an 11-liter gas tank. It had a steering wheel, a clutch, four bicycle wheels, a seating capacity of two people, and no brakes. The Quadricycle was built in a shed in Ford's house secretly with the help of his friends. Therefore, only when Ford and his friend attempted to get the vehicle out of the shed through the door did they notice it was too wide. So, Ford took an axe, smashed the stone wall of the shed, and took the Quadricycle outside. 

At around 04:00 am on June 4th, 1896, Ford shifted it into gear, and the Quadricycle sprung to life. With his friend cycling ahead to warn passengers on the road, Ford drove the vehicle down the street. The vehicle was very loud and reached a maximum speed of 32 km/hour. Despite a small breakdown, the Quadricycle was a success. It was a remarkable accomplishment. It was way better than the wooden vehicle that Charles King had built. Until now, Henry Ford was considered a lunatic due to the hammering and tinkering sounds he caused at night. But as the news of the Quadricycle spread, he became an overnight sensation in Detroit. The Quadricycle changed Henry Ford's life, who would later become one of the biggest innovators in the automobile industry.

The Ford Motor Company

Edison encourages Ford

The same year, Henry Ford's boss invited him to the meeting of the Edison Illuminating company's executives. At this meeting, Ford told Edison about his gasoline vehicle. Edison wanted to build electric vehicles. Even so, after listening to Ford, Edison thought that Ford's design had a huge future. So, he told Ford that he was going in the right direction and that he should keep improving his design. Edison's encouragement served as a huge boost to Ford's morale. It made him think that he should get into the business of manufacturing gasoline vehicles. But there was one big obstacle in his way - He did not have sufficient money. 

Henry Ford was a nobody before he built the Quadricycle. But the Quadricycle changed everything. It made even the most prominent people in Detroit respect Ford and look at him as a genius. One of these prominent people was the Mayor of Detroit. The Mayor came to Ford's aid when he needed the capital to start an automobile business. He arranged for Ford to meet with many influential people in the city. In July 1899, Ford took one of those influential people, a wealthy lumber merchant from Detroit called William H. Murphy, on a ride on the second gasoline vehicle he had built in 1898. After the 96.5 km ride that lasted for 3 hours and 30 minutes, Ford gained his first financial backer. 

The Detroit Automobile Company

One month later, with the funds from Murphy and his friends, the Detroit Automobile Company was set up. Soon, Ford resigned from the Edison Illuminating Company and joined the Detroit Automobile Company as its superintendent. His salary was $150/month.

In the 1890s, automobile manufacturing was in its initial stages. Therefore, due to the cost of manufacturing, automobiles only served as luxurious toys for rich people. But Henry Ford grew up on a farm. He knew how difficult transportation was for farmers and middle-class workers. So, he wanted to build cheap automobiles of the highest quality to change people's lives. But to build cheap reliable cars, he needed to experiment a lot, which needed a lot of time.

However, time was one luxury his investors couldn't afford. After all, the automobile business was quickly becoming competitive. In 1899, when the Detroit Automobile Company was founded, it was one of the first car manufacturing companies in Detroit. However, within two years, a hundred more were founded. Therefore, the shareholders of the Detroit Automobile Company pushed Ford to give them quick results. So, even though Ford was the brain of the company, and until now, he had only built vehicles without a deadline, he was forced to build cars in the shortest time possible, compromising on quality. 

The Detroit Automobile Company shuts down

The first car that their company built looked more like a horse-drawn wagon. It ran only for a few minutes before stopping. Therefore, as expected, it failed in the market. 

It was now obvious to the company's investors that manufacturing cheap and reliable cars would be time-consuming and difficult. It would take several experiments to build a cheaper car, which would cost them both time and money. So, they decided to build a reliable luxury car for the wealthy, which could make huge profits even when sold in small numbers. However, their decision went against Ford's motto of building cheap automobiles to transform people's lives. So, to buy time, Ford decided to fool his investors by making his workers build car parts for cars he was never going to build. Meanwhile, he started experimenting, trying to rectify the design and mechanical problems, so that he could build a better, cheaper automobile the next time. Finally, his investors realized what Ford was doing and shut the company down in 1901.

Building a racing car

After the company shut down, Ford wanted to make his name known in the automobile sector. Then, he could start a new company and make all the crucial decisions. So, since automobile racing was a sport that was becoming increasingly popular, he decided to build a racing car. By mid-1901, funded once again by Murphy, Ford built a 2-cylinder lightweight racing car. 

In October 1901, Ford's 26-horsepower car raced against a 40-horsepower car in a 16 km race. Interest in the race was unprecedented. Many shops shut down, and hundreds, if not thousands of people turned up to watch the race. Ford, who had little experience as a driver, was competing against the most popular driver in America. A defeat was imminent. But Ford had unshakable faith in his engine. 

The race began. For the first 33% of the race, Ford lagged behind. However, his opponent's car overheated soon, and Ford edged past him. Thereafter, his opponent could never overtake him. Finally, when he finished the race, Ford was ahead of his opponent by almost one and a half kilometers. This success, which nobody expected, made Ford hugely popular. He quickly became a hero to the people and a legend to the racing community. 

The Cadillac Automobile Company

Due to this success and newfound motivation, the stockholders of the Detroit Automobile company founded another company. This company, founded just one month after the race, was named the Henry Ford Company. Even though the company planned to build lightweight commercial vehicles, Ford was still hellbent on building race cars. So, the company hired another reputed mechanical engineer as the consultant. Annoyed, Ford left the company. After Ford's exit, the Henry Ford Company became the Cadillac Automobile Company.

Immediately after exiting the company, Ford started building two racing cars. One of these cars, an 80-horsepower car called '999,' won the Manufacturers' Challenge Cup, held in October 1902. It had a maximum speed of 147 km/hour. 

Due to this victory, Ford's popularity surged further. After the race, Alexander Y. Malcomson, a coal dealer from Detroit with whom Ford had been in touch, agreed to support Ford financially. 

The Ford & Malcomson Company

In November 1902, one month after the race, the Ford & Malcomson Company, Ltd was established. To generate revenue, the company issued 15,000 shares at $10 each. But since the company was new, Ford and Malcomson couldn't get people to buy these shares. So the company got into a financial deadlock when their suppliers demanded money for the car parts they delivered. Moreover, the company had to pay salaries to seven workers, despite not having sold any cars yet. Thus, immediately after it was founded, the company fell into a financial crisis. 

To save them from this financial crisis, Malcomson turned to his friends and family for help. Malcomson had some wealthy friends and relatives. Among them, Malcomson's uncle, secretary, and lawyers believed that their company would become a profitable enterprise. So, they decided to help Malcomson by purchasing shares from the company. At the same time, Malcomson and Ford were able to convince their suppliers to become their shareholders. Thus, Malcomson had saved the company, for the time being, bringing in an investment of $28,000. But the company was still not out of trouble, because they haven't sold any cars yet. 

The Ford & Malcomson Company becomes the Ford Motor Company

On June 15th, 1903, at Malcomson's insistence, the company was renamed the 'Ford Motor Company.' But despite bringing in new stockholders and renaming the company, the company's financial condition was still in shambles. By July 11th, the company had used up all of its investments, and its cash balance was down to $223.65. However, the light at the end of the tunnel was not far away. Four days later, the company sold its first car to a doctor in Chicago. After Ford's 40th birthday, which was on July 30th, 1903, the company's financial situation started to improve further. In the three months that followed, the Ford Motor Company sold 195 vehicles, generating $142,481.72 in income and $36,957 in profit.

The car that changed everything

Fordmobile

By 1904, the Ford Motor Company had established itself as a successful automobile manufacturer, producing 1700 cars/year. Its competitor at that time was Oldsmobile, the biggest automobile manufacturer in the USA, which was producing more than 3000 cars/year. To compete with Oldsmobile, the Ford Motor Company purchased land and built its second production plant.

The first car that the Ford Motor Company launched was called Fordmobile, also called Ford Model A. It seated two people and had a reliable eight horsepower engine. Even though it was a remarkable achievement, it was prone to overheating and other problems, typical to cars of that era. But despite its pitfalls, people loved it and paid $700 to purchase it. 

Model T

Even though the Ford Motor Company's reputation and sales were increasing, Henry Ford was not satisfied. He wanted to improve Model A. So, in the following years, Henry Ford launched a new model every few months. Slowly, he worked his way through the English alphabet, releasing models from A to S. In October 1908, Ford released model T. The Model T had a 22-horsepower, four-cylinder engine. It had a maximum speed of 64 km/hour, didn't break down a lot, and was highly durable. It was relatively cheap at $825, and no other car under $2000 from any manufacturer could offer more. So, people from many walks of life could afford it. Therefore, even doctors, salesmen, and farmers, who never dreamed of purchasing a car, ended up buying Model T. After all, now, they could go whenever and wherever they wanted to go.

Henry Ford had found gold, and he wanted to keep it. So, for the next few years, he tried to reduce the manufacturing costs by focusing on building only Model T. He built a system of interchangeable parts, thus reducing waste, assembly time, and the training time of new employees. As a result, the price of Model T went down further. 

Ford was still not satisfied. Now, he had reached a point where he could sell all that he could make. But he wanted to go to a point where he could make all that he could sell. And the way to do that was to produce more cars. So, in December 1913, Ford introduced an assembly line for assembling cars. 

Ford divided the assembly of Model T's into 84 small tasks. Instead of teaching every worker the entire assembly of a vehicle, he now trained each worker to do just one of these tasks. Cars were then placed on conveyor belts and moved across the factory through different workstations. In each workstation, the workers performed the same task in each car. Since these small tasks were easy, his workers learned fast and performed individual tasks faster. 

The moving production line was being used in the meat processing industry for a long time. Ford took the concept and implemented it in the automobile industry. By doing so, he was able to bring down the construction time of one Model T car from 12 hours and eight minutes to 1 hour and 33 minutes. Consequently, the sales price of Model T went down from $825 in 1908 to $360 in 1916. As a result, the sales of Model T's rose steadily, and by 1922, half the cars in America were Model T's. 

The downside

Henry Ford had now achieved something nobody else could. But, it came at a cost. In the Ford Motor Company, employees worked two nine-hour shifts every day. Working nine hours a day, six days a week is no ordinary feat. In addition to that, each worker stood at the same place, doing the same tasks again and again, for months. Therefore, for the workers of the Ford Motor Company, the work became monotonous and depressing.

As a result, retaining employees became a very big problem for Ford. In 1913, to keep a workforce of 14,000 men, the company had to hire 52,000 people. Simply put, the company had to hire four employees for every position, hoping that one of them would stay for more than a few months. 

To solve this crisis, Ford came up with an ingenious solution. On January 12th, 1914, the company reduced the workload from nine hours a day to eight hours a day. Moreover, the company also increased the basic pay from $2.34 a day to $5.00 a day. Thus, Ford decided to give away a lot of his profits to his employees. This move startled both his business partners and competitors, who predicted imminent doom for the Ford Motor Company. However, Ford proved everyone wrong the next day, when 10,000 men showed up at his company, looking for a job, eventually improving employee retention and increasing production. 

Since Ford reduced the working hours from nine hours a day to eight hours a day, his company shifted from two nine-hour shifts to three eight-hour shifts, enabling him to produce more cars. The increased salary meant that he could retain his workers longer, and many of them would now be able to purchase his cars. On one side, Ford was losing money due to increased salaries. But on the other side, he was also making money due to an increase in sales and a reduction in training costs. 

The national hero

By now, Ford has become not only an engineer, innovator, and businessman, but also a national hero. His $5 a day salary made headlines in national as well as international newspapers. But Ford was an idealist who expected people to live according to his rules. So, this publicity only boosted his ego. 

Ford's tendency to control

Controlling his employees

Most of the Ford Motor Company's workers came from southern and eastern Europe. However, their supervisors were mostly American. This created a language barrier between the workers. So, Ford took it upon himself to educate and Americanize these people. He created schools where his workers learned English as well as how to live a civilized life. These schools taught them everything, from brushing their teeth to saving money to buy a house. 

Besides these mandatory courses that took six months, workers were also subjected to regular inspections. Inspectors from the Ford Motor Company's sociology department visited employees' houses to ensure that they met the company's standards. These inspectors analyzed everything from the workers' drinking problems to how clean they kept their houses. Those who failed the inspections twice were fired from the company. It was an outrageous intrusion of privacy. Yet, Ford considered himself a national hero and thought it was his duty to teach his workers how to live.

Jeopardizing company's growth

Ford's ego not only made him meddle with his employees' private lives but also affected his company's growth. During the 1910s, Ford was convinced that Model T was the car people wanted. So, he had stopped building new cars. He ignored the fact that the popularity of more expensive and stylish cars like Chevrolet was rising. He paid no heed to his only son and his executives, who suggested that a new model was long overdue.

Once, when Ford was in Europe, his engineers built a prototype for a new Model. However, when Ford noticed the prototype, he became furious. He then went on to demolish the car by hand, starting by ripping the doors off the car. Thus, he showed his employees not only who was in charge of the company but also how big his ego has become. By now, one thing was evident - The curious engineer in him, who tinkered with car parts and toiled through the night to build a better Model, had died. In his place stood a businessman who loved to be in control and play the role of the national hero.

By the time Ford realized that his son and executives were correct, it was too late. In the late 1920s, even Ford couldn't ignore the decline in sales of the Ford Motor Company. Other companies were slowly starting to catch up.

The end of Model T

In 1922, the Ford Motor Company acquired the Lincoln Motor Company, which was founded by Cadillac's founder. The Lincoln Motor Company focussed on making high-end cars. Sometime later, the Ford Motor Company established the Mercury division. It produced cars to serve the mid-price automobile market, between the Lincoln and the Ford brands. However, despite being equipped to serve all markets now, Henry Ford's interest still lied in the low-end market. On the other hand, General Motors started releasing cars for every market at all prices. So, in the mid-1920s, General Motors started rising rapidly as the USA's leading automobile manufacturer. Finally, in 1927, Henry Ford realized that model-T's days were over. So, after selling 15 million Model T's in 19 years, Ford shut down the assembly lines of Model T.

Model A

After closing down the assembly lines of Model T, the Ford Motor Company launched its next Model. Since it had been such a long time since they released a new model, they went back to the beginning of the alphabet once again and named it Model A. Model A had a four-cylinder, 40-horsepower engine, and reached a maximum speed of 104 km/hour. Even though it cost $500, it was competitive in the market because it was more economical in the long run. In the next five years, the Ford Motor Company sold more than 4.3 million Model A's.

In 1932, the Ford Motor Company launched Ford V8, the first inexpensive 8-cylinder engine. For the next 20 years, these engines were used in many vehicles all over the world. 

Henry Ford tried hard to keep his Company in the lead. But despite Henry Ford's best efforts, the fall of the Ford Motor Company couldn't be stopped. By 1936, it fell to third place in the US automobile market, behind General Motors and Chrysler Corporation. Even though the Ford Motor Company remained one of the Big Three (the three biggest important car manufacturers) in the USA for the rest of the twentieth century, it could never return to the glorious days of Model-T.

But the problems the Ford Motor Company faced were not limited just to the marketplace. There were also problems in the workplace. Henry Ford had always hated labor unions. He believed that labor unions headed by bad leaders could hurt workers more than benefit them. 

The first attempt to create a labor union in the Ford Motor Company occurred in 1913. Workers became agitated because Ford used the profits from the sales of Model T's to fund his personal projects, instead of sharing it with his employees. Therefore, they wanted to create a labor union that would represent them. But Ford was able to ward it off by increasing his employees' salaries and reducing their working hours. 

UAW

In 1913, the Ford Motor Company was the leader in the automobile market. So, Ford was able to take alternate measures when his workers demanded a labor union. In 1937, however, the scenario was very different. Due to the Great Depression, Ford had to reduce the salaries of his employees and even layoff many of them.

Moreover, an organization called the UAW (United Auto Workers of America) had recently succeeded in establishing labor unions in two of the Big Three companies - General Motors and Chrysler Corporation. The Ford Motor Company was the only Big Three company that was still holding out against the UAW. The UAW was promising to fight for an eight-dollar, 6-hour workday. In exchange, it asked the workers to support them. It was appealing to Ford workers, who had a six-dollar, 8-hour workday. Therefore, Ford's employees felt the need for a labor union much stronger than ever before. 

On May 26th, 1937, henchmen of Henry Ford attacked UAW organizers who tried to distribute leaflets to Ford's employees. Several of these attacks were captured on camera and appeared in newspapers the next day. As a result, Henry Ford's reputation nosedived across the entire world, and he came under pressure from the US government. However, unyielding, Ford threatened to shut down his factories. When it appeared that a full-scale war between Ford and his employees was inevitable, in 1941, under pressure from his wife, Ford suddenly gave up and signed a contract with UAW. If his wife had not intervened at the last minute, Ford's ego would have led to so many deaths. It could have also destroyed the Ford Motor Company, which he tried so hard to create.

By now, it should be obvious how Henry Ford's beliefs, stubbornness, and tendency to control people affected his workers and his company's growth. But it did not stop there. Ford's beliefs and his tendency to control people also affected his only son Edsel Ford. 

Edsel shared his father's interest in cars. Every day, after school, instead of going home, he would go to his father's factory and help out. While Henry was interested in the mechanical aspect of cars, Edsel was interested in its design. In December 1918, when he was just 25 years old, Edsel took up the presidency of the Ford Motor Company, which was a huge responsibility. Both Henry and Edsel shared a mutual respect for each other. However, there were also times when they didn't see eye to eye. 

Ford's guilt

Henry wanted his son to be a carbon copy of himself.

Henry grew up on a farm and worked his way up gradually. But Edsel did not have to do that. Even though he shared his father's love for cars and took up the presidency of the company in 1918 when he was just 25 years old, he did not have to work his way up the ranks, as his father did.

Even after Henry became famous, he did not become friends with the high-class society. He was still a farmer's son, who loved to work on his own farm and repair machines. Henry woke up early, exercised every day, and never drank. He believed that his discipline was the secret of his success and expected his son to follow in his footsteps. Edsel, on the other hand, was not as disciplined as his father. He hung out with rich people and drank often.

This caused disagreements between the father and the son. There were times when these disagreements blew up, and Henry humiliated Edsel publicly.

Expecting Edsel to rise to Henry's idealistic standards was unfair, and even Henry's associates noticed that. Maybe Henry himself was aware of that as well. Therefore, when his son died in 1943 due to terminal stomach cancer, Henry was devastated due to sorrow and guilt. He believed that his unfair treatment of Edsel had caused his death. 

After his son's death, Henry Ford was never the same. Even though he took up the presidency of his company after his son's death, he wasn't mentally capable of holding that post. After all, a series of strokes in the 1930s had affected his mental ability. It was only worsened by his son's death. So, just two years after he took up the presidency, he handed it over to his grandson. Then, he retired to his estate in Dearborn, where he died in 1947, aged 83.

Facts you probably didn't know

1. In 1926, Ford introduced the five-day, 40-hour workweek concept. But he did not do it out of charity. Ford was, first and foremost, a businessman. He knew that if he gave his workers two days of recreation, they would spend more time traveling and shopping. Thus, a car would become necessary for many people, and this would lead to more sales. Moreover, giving them two days of recreation would also make them more productive at work. So, he introduced the five-day workweek in his company. 
2. Throughout his life, Henry Ford was a strong advocate of peace. He hated wars. So, when World War II began in 1939, he tried to keep the USA from entering the war. But when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the Ford Motor Company started making jeeps, tanks, and airplanes for the USA. 
3. Henry Ford was America's second billionaire. The first billionaire was John D Rockefeller.
4. Ford purchased a weekly newspaper called 'The Dearborn Independent' in 1918. Ford published articles regularly from 1919 to 1927 in the newspaper. Under Ford's publication, the newspaper reached a readership of 900,000 in 1925.
5. Henry Ford had always been anti-semitic, a hater of Jews. He published articles in his newspaper condemning Jews, which were read by many people around the world. 
6. Henry Ford's Model T was similar to the Volkswagen of Germany. Volkswagen was also meant to be an automobile for everyone, not just the rich. The term Volkswagen literally translates to 'People's car.' Hitler and Ford also shared the same opinion about Jews - that they were responsible for all the evil in the world. Moreover, Ford was a famous American who advocated anti-semitism. Ford was a huge blow to people who thought that Antisemitism could not exist in a democratic nation like the USA. In addition to that, Hitler also liked Ford's writing. So, Adolf Hitler had great admiration for Henry Ford. Therefore, in 1938, the Nazi regime awarded Ford the 'Grand Cross of the German Eagle,' the highest honor Hitler could give to any foreigner.
   

Conclusion

We hope that this biography of Henry Ford helped you understand how Henry Ford became a world-renowned innovator and businessman. Henry Ford's journey is an extraordinary one. Even though he was born to a farmer, he gave up his comfort zone, worked hard, and rose through the ranks to become one of the most influential men in the USA. He might have made some bad decisions in the latter part of his life. But the changes he brought upon this world are hard to ignore. It is thanks to Henry Ford that cars became affordable to middle-class people. The increase in the number of cars created other businesses like gas stations, which employ a lot of people. Moreover, it also helped hotels and restaurants to flourish, thereby improving the economy as a whole.

Henry Ford proves that we can achieve what we dream of if we are committed to seeing it through to the end. Ironically, sticking to your dream, even when failure seems imminent, can eventually lead you to success. Remember what Henry Ford said:

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