Henry Ford II Dies; Led Auto Firm 35 Years By TED THACKREY Jr Sept. 30, 1987 12 AM PT Times Staff Writer Auto magnate Henry Ford II, who for 35 years ran the automobile company founded by his. He succeeded in building a steam A group of former Air Force officers called the Whiz Kids were brought in to apply military management techniques. Edsel was elected president in January of 1919, and he began negotiations for the purchase of all shares of minority stock in the Company. Why do I smell propane when there is none? When the collapse came the Ford Motor Company had about $32,500,000 on deposit in various banks of the Guardian Detroit Union group, The elder Henry Ford finally agreed, and on Sept. 21, 1945, his grandson became president and chief executive officer. Ford died of pneumonia in Detroit at Henry Ford Hospital on September 29, 1987, at age 70. had been considered for years as its greatest production expert, announced his retirement from the company. in Detroit, it was too heavy to suit Mr. Ford, who sold it in 1896 for $200, to get funds to experiment on a lighter car. would prove impossible. Henry Ford, who had been in charge, and who had been allowing the ex-bodyguard Harry Bennett to take a major role in running the company, finally stepped down. pair of tweezers, fashioned respectively from a knitting needle and an old watch spring. When Henry Ford introduced the mass-produced and gas-powered Model T in 1908, it symbolized a death blow to the electric car. When the stock market collapse of October, 1929, precipitated the great depression, Mr. Ford was one of the business and industrial leaders who were summoned to the White House by President Hoover. Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and the sponsor of the development . of that country, which was to prove of such importance in later years. These policies were made feasible by the revolutionary organization of production devised by Mr. Ford. At the River Rouge plant, for example, iron from the furnace goes directly into the foundries and is poured without reheating. (Neither man suffered greatly. For several years he spent most of his spare time reading about and experimenting with the gasoline engine. When the votes were counted in June, 1941, the UAW was found to have won about 70 per cent of them. He received the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church on Sept. 18. severe criticism on the ground that it was not producing at the rate that had been anticipated, but this was eventually stilled when the gigantic factory began turning out bombers at the rate of While working as an engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit, Henry Ford (1863-1947) built his first gasoline-powered horseless carriage, the Quadricycle, in the shed behind his home. his purpose. He charged that a group of international financiers had gained control of the unions and were utilizing their Never explain.. He was 83 years old. - He was the conservative who resigned from the board of the family-created Ford Foundation because he found it too liberal for his taste. By that time the public had become interested in the speed possibilities He had retired a little more than a year and a half ago from active direction of the great. The company wasn't fully owned by the Ford Family at that time, and it's doubtful that the investors would have handed over control to a 19-year-old Edsel, regardless of his status as Henry's son. car, manufactured by the General Motors Corporation, had become a serious competitor. To Henry Ford II, (born September 4, 1917, Detroit, Michigan, U.S.died September 29, 1987, Detroit), American industrialist and head of Ford Motor Company for 34 years (194579). His wife, Kathleen DuRoss Ford; daughters, Charlotte Ford Downe and Anne Ford Scarborough, and son, Ford Motors executive Edsel Bryant Ford II, moved into the hospital to be with him, but doctors said he never fully regained consciousness. the Government would allow him to do so, Mr. Ford said: "As long as I live I want to pay the highest wages in the automobile industry. - He was the international playboy who did as he liked, starring in the jet set gossip columns and making headlines as master of revels at famous watering holes in the Bahamas, Mexico and the Riviera. Other car makers had decided to stonewall the unions, allowing their plants to be shut down in a test of strength they thought they could win. however, he reverted to his high-wage policy and in 1935 established a minimum of $6 a day. impossible, he cut the overhead cost on each car from $146 to $93. The automobile industry leader dropped completely out of the management of the far-flung Ford Company when he resigned as president late in 1945. Dearborn, Michigan. He often exacted a special rate of He had just been promoted from the grease pit to the dynamometer room at the factory when he enlisted in the Navy. . September 29, 1987 His first act was to fire Harry Bennett. Asked by Iacocca for an explanation, Henry reportedly replied, I just dont like you.. The mission was ridiculed and failed to achieve anything. The companys executive suite remained a problem, however. Thereby he was able to decrease Meanwhile, outside the auto industry, Ford was making himself highly visible as a man who often--and bluntly--spoke his mind on social, industrial and governmental problems. He was 83 years old. William Clay Ford Sr.Benson Ford interest when his balance was to be above a certain amount for a certain time. Henry Ford died at his residence, Fair Lane Estate in Dearborn, at 11:40pm on Monday, April 7, 1947, following a cerebral hemorrhage. American automobile pioneer and industrialist. The editor wrote articles expounding Mr. Ford's economic and social ideas after consulting with him. During the war he produced large quantities of automobiles, trucks, ambulances, Liberty airplane motors, munitions, whippet tanks and Eagle submarine chasers. a railroad of his own, the Detroit, Toledo & Ironton, and by other economies, he cut one-third from the time his raw materials and finished products were in transit. He wrecked any attempt to modernize the industrial giant he had built and relied more and more on the advice and support of a Rasputin-like hoodlum named Harry Bennett, who presided over a secret police force set up to spy on the business and personal activities of everyone in the company from top executives to assembly line workers. of the automobile, which was no longer regarded as a freak. In addition there were hangars with another 1,200,000 feet of floor space, and an adjacent air field larger than La Guardia In April, 1941, the UAW called a strike in the Ford plants and the NLRB held an election under the Wagner Act to determine the But thereafter, Ford spent more and more time away from the plant and traveling in Europe. . Medication and an exercise program helped restore his health. - He was the liberal who spoke in behalf of social causes, led the revitalization of downtown Detroit and supported Democrats for President. amounts on deposit in banks throughout the United States and in other countries. Furthermore, by rigid economies of labor and materials hitherto thought President Wilson persuaded Mr. Ford to become a candidate for United States Senator in 1918, although the manufacturer had never before displayed any particular interest in party politics. Fords personal life also had its peaks and valleys. What year did the Dodge brothers die? Born Sept. 4, 1917, in Detroit, he was the eldest son of Edsel B. and Eleanor Clay Ford, and no one then or later ever doubted that he was the crown prince of the burgeoning Ford empire. He appeased his critics by making a public apology, in which he explained he had discovered the articles were doing harm by the prejudice they created. He was a patron of American folkways and in later years acquired a reputation Far more to the point, he also had his mother and grandmother. holiday when President Roosevelt was inaugurated the next month. He. When he retired Mr. Ford was in excellent health, but turned over the management of the vast empire to his grandson. Ford died of a cerebral hemorrhage at his Fair Lane estate in Dearborn during the River Rouge flood of 1947, said Mason Christensen, an archivist with the Dearborn Historical Museum. question of policy. The opening blow was a sit-down strike in the Ford plant in Kansas City, ended only by the Per his will, Ford's money and assets were to be left to DuRoss Ford, his three children from his first marriage (Edsel, Ann, and Charlotte), and his grandchildren. Clara Ford and Mrs. Edsel Ford had forced the decision, and within minutes after Henry Ford II was in office he got rid of Bennett. Meanwhile, he had become chief engineer of the electric company at $125 a month, but his superiors had no more use for his gas engine experiments than had his father. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-Ford-II, How Stuff Works - Automobiles - How Ford Works. He had retired a little more than a year and a half ago from active direction of the great industrial empire had it that she was dissatisfied with the course of company affairs. Review. But he resigned in 1977, leaving no family member on the board, and issued a statement criticizing the organization for trying to do too many things in too many areas.. He attempted in vain to interest the younger generation in old-fashioned dances and fiddlers. Mr. Ford substituted an arrangement under which each worker performed a single specialized operation, which was simplified to the utmost . He is generally credited with reviving the firm. He compelled the cancellation of a contract made by his son, Edsel, calling Struck a cruel blow shortly before his eightieth birthday by the death of his only son, Edsel Ford, on May 26, 1943, Mr. Ford unfalteringly returned to the presidency of the Ford Motor Company, which But when he returned to Detroit, it was to take a job as a grease monkey at the River Rouge plant--and to make society page headlines with his marriage to Anne McDonnell. Henry Ford died at his residence, Fair Lane Estate in Dearborn, at 11:40pm on Monday, April 7, 1947, following a cerebral hemorrhage. Philip Caldwell, pictured at an Ohio plant in 1982, followed in the footsteps of more famous executives at Ford. Josephine Clay Ford, a philanthropist who was the sole granddaughter of the automotive pioneer Henry Ford, died on Wednesday. Philip Caldwell In the winter of 1915-16 he was convinced by a group of pacifists, of whom Rozika Schwimmer was the best known, that the warring nations in Europe were ready for peace and that Where and when did Henry Ford die? He was born in 1863 in Michigan and died in 1947. light, was completely restored in the museum. secretly at night, after he had finished his chores on the farm, because his father wanted to discourage his mechanical ambitions. meddling by Government agencies, swing into the production of a thousand airplanes of standard design a day." Henry Ford had laid the foundation of the . popularity with the voters. When it became the voters in the primaries on both the Democratic and Republican tickets, he received the Democratic nomination, but was defeated in the election by Truman H. Newberry, Republican, whose majority His career was one of the most astonishing in industrial history. When did Henry Ford die? "It was brought out that, although a column in the paper was labeled as his, he did not write it nor did he read the publication. During its entire 40-year history, there had never been an audit. Ownership of these collateral industries enabled Mr. Ford to keep down waste in men, time and It was, in many respects, his life theme. He lived to see the Ford Motor Company, which he founded with an initial investment of $28,000 put up by a few friends and neighbors who had faith in him, produce more than 29,000,000 automobiles before Henry Ford once refused to pay $10,000 to General Electric for fixing a generator problem and asked for an itemized bill. On Tuesday, Iacocca issued a statement saying, Henry Ford and I were friends and colleagues for a lot longer than we were adversaries, and my sympathy goes to his family and friends). jeeps and amphibious jeeps, transport gliders, trucks, engines and much other equipment. After a private funeral service at Christ Church Grosse Pointe, his remains were cremated and the ashes scattered. were the indispensable foundation for an Allied military victory in the Second World War. Mr. Ford retired as active head of the Ford Motor Company in 1918, at the age of 55, turning over the presidency to his son, Edsel, and announcing his intention of devoting himself thereafter to the When Henry Ford II died, he left behind an estate worth $350 million. When did Henry Ford II die? What he really wanted, however, was to go to sea. Mr. Ford also built Greenfield Village, a reproduction of the community in which Mrs. Ford, who was Clara Bryant before their marriage in 1887, was born. He ran away from home. In January, 1914, he established a minimum pay rate of $5 a After what amounted to a crash course in industrial management, he succeeded to the presidency of the ailing company in 1945. Born: July 30, 1863. His grandfather, the first Henry Ford, was already an industrial icon when Henry II was born. collective bargaining spokesman for the employes. Is that such a bad thing? Henry Ford 2d, who took over the ailing auto company founded by his grandfather and restored it as one of the world's industrial giants, died yesterday in Detroit of complications arising. Who got Henry Ford's money? In 1919 Mr. Ford sued The Chicago Tribune for $1,000,000 on the ground of libel, because of an editorial which was headed "Ford Is an Anarchist," and which accused him of having been pro- German Despite Mr. Roosevelt's triumphant re-election with the strong support of the Committee for Industrial Organization, then headed by John L. Lewis, Mr. Ford remained outspokenly antagonistic to unions. !. For a time the plant was under the way to greater prosperity than that which the country then enjoyed and which he attributed to the eight-hour day and high wages, because they gave people time and money to consume the goods they Auto magnate Henry Ford II, who for 35 years ran the automobile company founded by his grandfather, managing it from the brink of disaster to the top rank of industrial power, died Tuesday in a Detroit hospital. Mr. Ford startled the country late in 1926 by announcing the permanent adoption of the five-day week for his factories, after trying it out for some time. Not long after that Mr. Ford's personal secretary, Ernest G. Liebold, was dismissed, The Ford Motor Company denied this. Walking all the way to Detroit, almost penniless, he went to work as an apprentice in a machine So I kept badgering people with requests for sea duty, and an approval had finally come through--along with my promotion to lieutenant (jg)--when my father died, and everything was changed.. In March, 1944, Charles E. Sorenson, who In 1936 he supported Gov. The net result was the celebrated Willow Run plant for the construction of four-motored bombers. 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. He remained a member of the board of directors and chairman of the firms finance committee, while younger brother William Clay Ford continued active as a vice chairman of the firm and watchdog of the familys stake in it, and no one ever doubted his continuing interest. He signed a contract with the union which gave them virtually everything for which they had asked, including a union shop and a dues check-off system. . Quickly see who the memorial is for and when they lived and died and where they are buried. He had to do this work Death came to the famed industrialist at his estate in Fairlane, in suburban Dearborn, not far from where he was born in 1863. I had joined the Navy because I wanted to sail on the ocean, he said. After lengthy hearings the National Labor Relations Board found the Ford Motor Company guilty of unfair labor practices. Ford died of a cerebral hemorrhage at his Fair Lane estate in Dearborn during the River Rouge flood of 1947, said Mason Christensen, an archivist with the Dearborn Historical Museum. Ford Motor today is worth $57 billion, up from $4.8 billion less than two years ago. Mother of automobile industrialist Henry Ford I, born Mary Litogot, she was a foster daughter of Patrick Ahern & Margaret Stevens(on) who became an acknowledged child at age 3. He was 83.. Family members later confirmed that Eleanor Clay Ford--with the backing of Clara Bryant Ford--threatened to sell her sizable block of shares in the company, exposing it to possible hostile takeover, if Henry II were not made president and placed in full control. Young Ford, however, invited Reuther and the other union officials to a get-acquainted meeting at which he and his new assistant, industrial relations expert John S. Bugas, suggested a resumption of collective bargaining. At the Ford Company news bureau offices it was said that the exact cause He resigned the post when Richard M. Nixon took office but later was appointed by Nixon to the chairmanship of the National Center for Voluntary Action. Henry Ford's Legacy. Unquestionably, Henry Ford was a great industrialist and a revolutionary businessman. The phenomenal success of the new system of production made Mr. Ford not only fabulously rich, but internationally famous, within a comparatively few years. It was to diversify the foundations holdings that Ford stock was finally sold publicly for the first time in 1956, and the grandson of the founder presided firmly and patiently thereafter over public stockholders meetings, explaining company policies and defending company decisions as the voice of a family that still had an easy working control of the firm. added to his reknown. His mother died when he was 12 years of age. Founder Henry Ford still held more than half the company stock in his own name, and no one else was allowed to make a decision--least of all the founders gentle and unassertive son. As others have noted, if Henry Ford I had died at 49 (in 1912), his son would have been too young to take over the company. He was the In May, 1945, a spokesman for Yet he remained an enigma--and a paradox. to be produced in small quantities at large profits per unit. Every part of the automobile had its own conveyor line, carefully integrated to bring the various parts to completion in the proper ratio. During the calm and increasingly prosperous years of the middle Nineteen Twenties Mr. Ford's business continued to grow, but more and more of his energies were devoted to his outside interests. In a 1916 lawsuit filed by the Dodges, Henry Ford admitted that the Dodges made the entire Ford . tractor with a one-cylinder engine, but was unable to devise a boiler light enough to make the tractor practicable. were set upon and badly beaten. The Ford company asked for and obtained the release of Henry Ford 2d, son of Edsel Ford, from the Navy, in which he had served for two and a half years and had risen to the rank of lieutenant, on the 4 When did Henry Ford retire from Ford Motor Company? As the founder and unchallenged master of an industrial empire with assets of more than a billion dollars, he was one of the richest men in the world. By the mid-1950s Henry II had restored the company to financial health, and subsequently he greatly expanded Fords operations in overseas markets. one an hour, twenty-four hours a day. Henry Ford II died on September 29, 1987 at the age of 70. It had a two-cylinder engine, which developed about four horsepower, and he drove it 1,000 miles. By 1926 the cost of the Model T had been cut to $310, although it was vastly superior to the 1908 model. Knowing where to make mark, $9,999." Ford ended up paying the bill. Bishop Louis Henry Ford. Mr. Ford had many other distinctions. Ford's first car was a simple frame with a gas-powered engine and four bicycle wheels mounted on it. In addition he realized nearly $8,000,000 from the sale of Liberty bonds, nearly $4,000,000 from the sale of by-products and $3,000,000 in collections from Ford agents in foreign countries. Answer: Marta (In 1969, when he returned to Yale to speak, he looked up from his text and said with a grin: I didnt write this either.). Somebody named Ford, ready to deal amicably with someone from the unions? His mechanical bent first showed itself in an intense interest in the mechanism of watches. The union charged that the beatings were administered by Ford company police. John Stephen Bugas September 4, 1917 Detroit Michigan Died: September 29, 1987 (aged 70) Detroit Michigan See all related content Henry Ford II, (born September 4, 1917, Detroit, Michigan, U.S.died September 29, 1987, Detroit), American industrialist and head of Ford Motor Company for 34 years (1945-79). "We learn more from our failures than from our successes," was his comment. How did henry ford die? Mr. Ford was reported to have been in excellent health when he returned only a week ago from his annual winter visit to the Ford estate in Georgia. to own a home, a piece of land and a car.". Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 - April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. How much education did Henry Ford have? How did the Civil War affect westward expansion? Four years later, Henrys marriage to Anne ended in divorce. The United Automobile Workers, a CIO union, began a vigorous drive to organize the workers in the Ford plants. assistance in the development of the automobile industry in the Soviet Union, Mr. Ford sold $30,000,000 worth of products to Russia, and, incidentally, gave added impetus to the industrialization McGuffey, author of the celebrated reader, was born; the court house in which Abraham Lincoln first practiced law, and the home of Stephen Foster's parents, as well as momentos of his own youth. In fact, he became a competitor of the banks, frequently loaning several millions on call in the New York money market. Mr. Ford was an ardent collector of Americana. countries. He made fewer and fewer public appearances, attended fewer parties and stopped making speeches. The Menlo Park Laboratory, in which Mr. Edison perfected the electric To support his contention that the United States was in no danger Mr. Ford, in May, 1940, stated that if it should become necessary the Ford Motor Company could "under our own supervision, and without He made a practice of carrying tremendous He was senile, the company was on the brink of financial collapse and no one could have blamed the young man--who had only two years of junior executive experience behind him--for deciding the situation was hopeless. Then he directed its production of more than 8,000 four-motored Liberator bombers, as well as tanks, tank destroyers, If Henry had died at 59 . In an interview on Feb. 19, 1937, he advised all workers to "stay out of unions." In 1890 he got a job as engineer and machinist with the Detroit Edison Company at $45 a month, and moved to Detroit. On the witness stand Mr. Ford disclaimed animosity toward the Jews. . I thought it had to be a joke, he said. My name is on the building. The group, which included (future Defense Secretary) Robert S. McNamara, Arjay Miller (who would become Ford board chairman) and Charles B. To capitalize on this interest, he built two racing cards, the "999" and the "Arrow," each with a four-cylinder engine Edsel Ford died in 1943 and two year later Henry officially turned over control of the company to Henry II, Edsel's son. The Mustang was largely the creation of Lee A. Iacocca, a previously obscure Ford vice president not yet 40 years old. An Insight into Coupons and a Secret Bonus, Organic Hacks to Tweak Audio Recording for Videos Production, Bring Back Life to Your Graphic Images- Used Best Graphic Design Software, New Google Update and Future of Interstitial Ads. But these were all relatively minor compared with the revolutionary importance of his contribution to modern productive processes. At his bedside were Clara Ford and members of their household staff. In 1964, the company brought out the sporty Mustang, its first car aimed specifically at the youth market and sold 417,811 of them the first year. His tools were home-made and were limited to a screwdriver and a Yet within a dozen years he was internationally famous, and his Model T automobile was effecting changes in the American way of life of profound importance. His own very positive and often unusual opinions produced. He was transferred Sept. 12 to Henry Ford Hospital, the institution founded by his grandfather, where he was placed on a respirator in the intensive care unit. His father became president of the Ford Motor Co. in 1919. Edsel Ford/Sons. His son, Edsel died in 1943 from gastric cancer. Henry Ford died at his home in Dearborn, Michigan on April 7, 1947, after a cerebral hemorrhage. Mr. Ford himself left the party at Christiania, now Oslo, and returned home. He declared that the five-day week would open And that was all, except for the 1980 divorce from Christina and marriage the same year to Kathleen DuRoss. Becomes President of Chrysler in Nov 1978. He leaves a widow, the former Clara Bryant, whom he married in 1887, and two grandsons, Henry 2d and Benson. Miles died in a crash while testing Fords J-Car later that year. . He established two cardinal economic policies during this tremendous expansion: the continued cutting of the cost of the product as improved methods of production made it possible, and the payment of of Detroit, which took over most of the assets and obligations of the Guardian National group. Clara Ford and Mrs. Edsel Ford had forced the decision, and within minutes after Henry Ford II was in office he got rid of Bennett. By Jan. 26, 1946, a new contract had been hammered out, one that gave the union a 15% raise and protected the company against wildcat walkouts that had proved crippling in the past. Nearing the age of 40 he was looked upon as a failure by his acquaintances--as a day-dreaming mechanic who preferred to tinker with odd machines than to work steadily at a responsible job. By agreeing to aid in the construction of an automobile factory at Nizhni-Novgorod, and by providing technological One of the cars introduced during Henry IIs tenure, the Edsel, was a legendary failure, but two others, the Mustang and the Thunderbird, were immensely popular and are widely considered to be classics. He was 83 years old. Henry Ford II was born in Detroit, Michigan on September 4, 1917, the grandson of the automobile pioneer Henry Ford. But the years of his childhood coincided almost precisely with those of the companys decline. 1908, he began the production of Model T, which sold for $850. There he brought the original log cabin in which of death would not be known until Henry Ford 2d, his grandson, could reach the family home, perhaps within an hour. Auto magnate Henry Ford II, who for 35 years ran the automobile company founded by his grandfather, managing it from the brink of disaster to the top rank of industrial power, died Tuesday in a Detroit hospital. Field in this city. On Oct. 1, Ford, 70, who had a history of heart problems, was admitted to Cottage Hospital in suburban Grosse Pointe Farms on Sept. 9 for treatment of pneumonia he contracted while living at his country estate outside London. apostle of an economic philosophy of high wages and short hours that had immense repercussions on American thinking. No one would have been surprised if he had chosen to liquidate, cash in whatever assets remained for what they would bring in order to safeguard his familys financial future without regarding the cost to others whose lives were bound up in the company.. [19] Legacy [ edit] The Henry Ford II World Center, the official title of the Ford World Headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan 1940 United States Federal Census. In 1879, at the age of 16, he took the step that foreshadowed his remarkable career. Unlike Ford was a prolific inventor and developed the assembly line which revolutionized the production of automobiles. foreign countries. He could have opted out, biographer Anton Walczak wrote in 1966. and Edsel Ford personally and the Ford Motor Company had made loans of about $12,000,000 in cash and securities to try to stave off the closing. He did this in order to learn all he could of the making of machinery. In 1903 the Ford Motor Company sold 1,708 two-cylinder, eight horsepower automobiles. He and Christina were married the following year, and he became the darling of the gossip columns, a two-fisted Scotch drinker who on at least one occasion led an entire Dixieland band into the swimming pool during a party at a private club. HIS FAMILY Henry found love in a woman named Clara James Bryant, the daughter of Martha and Melvin Bryant. Declaring his intention of raising the wages of his workers as soon as At its convention in September, 1944, the American Legion awarded In 1928 he established, and endowed with $5,000,000 a museum at Dearborn to commemorate the inventions of his old friend, Thomas A. Edison. for the production of 6,000 Rolls- Royce engines for Great Britain, and 3,000 of the same type for the United States. "horseless carriage" of which he and other automobile inventors had dreamed. the company revealed that it had no plans for the post-war utilization of the gigantic factory, and that it planned to turn it back to the Defense Plant Corporation, the Government agency which had group of companions. From the beginning Mr. Ford held Cliccando su Accetta tutto accetti che Yahoo e i suoi partner possano trattare i tuoi dati personali e utilizzare tecnologie come i cookie per mostrarti annunci e contenuti personalizzati, per la misurazione degli annunci e dei contenuti, per l'analisi del pubblico e per lo sviluppo dei prodotti. Thank God. British-born Ken Miles was a gifted race car engineer and driver. But it wasnt good enough, a former Ford executive recalled, and everyone knew it wasnt. Ford engineering laboratory, where he maintained a private office and workshop, but was rarely seen about the administration building, where affairs of the big company were directed. The board of directors followed his recommendation. (later Bishop) Fulton J. Sheen. The resulting publicity helped Mr. Ford to organize the Ford Motor Company, which was capitalized at $100,000, although actually only $28,000 in stock was subscribed. In seven years he built and sold The jury awarded him a verdict of 6 cents, but only after counsel for the defense had subjected him to a pitiless cross-examination which revealed him to be almost without knowledge Henry I retired to Fair Lane, his estate in Dearborn, where he died on April 7, 1947 at age 83. John Stephen Bugas (April 26, 1908 December 2, 1982), known as Jack Bugas, was the second in command at Ford Motor Company during the presidency and chairmanship reign of Henry Ford II (the oldest grandson of founder Henry Ford). According to his biography published on the Ford website, he died with his wife, Clara Ford, and members of their household staff at his side. In the early days of the second World War, Mr. Ford opposed our entry into it and, true to his pacifist convictions, refused to manufacture airplane motors for Great Britain. The elder Ford was the man who had put America on wheels while turning the Ford Motor Co. into an industrial giant that was in its heyday unrivaled throughout the world. "determine if labor and industry in this country can continue under a system of free enterprise.". As he had to pay $3.50 a week for board and lodging, he took another job, working from 7 to 11 o'clock every night for a jeweler, for $2 more a week. British automobile manufacturer and aviator. He turned his grandfathers faltering automobile company into the second largest industrial corporation in the world. As the pressure for re-armament became greater, Mr. Ford was compelled by public Impossible! When, after all, was she supposed to entertain? The key to a turnaround, he was sure, lay in selecting new management for the firm. Knudsen became president of White Motor Co., and Iacocca became an industrial icon in his own right by plucking the Chrysler Corp. back from the brink of bankruptcy. A moving conveyor belt carried the steel from which the leaf was made along the line, at waist-high Mr. Ford was born on July 30, 1863, on a farm near Dearborn, nine miles west of Detroit. In 1919 he and his son, Edsel, became its sole owners, when they bought out the minority stockholders for $70,000,000. Her death was announced in an e-mail message to Ford Motor Company employees by the company chairman, Bill Ford Jr., a nephew. He set up a workshop in his backyard and continued his experiments after hours. The Latest Innovations That Are Driving The Vehicle Industry Forward. Omissions? highest executive down to the ordinary laborer," including a new minimum wage scale of $4 a day, $1 less than that which he had put into effect eighteen years before. some industrialists who favored deflation of wages, Mr. Ford argued that the maintenance of purchasing power was of paramount importance. In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him chairman of the National Alliance of Businessmen to direct a program involving cooperation between industry and government aimed at finding jobs for the hard-core unemployed. a memento of his early days. She was 81 and lived in suburban Grosse Pointe Farms. opinion to agree to build planes for the United States. He reversed its fortunes in the first year of his stewardship while continuing to rule Ford like the family fiefdom it was. Samuel Ford died in 1842, but his grown sons carried on the family work, and along with George Ford had become well established by 1847. When did Henry Ford introduces gasoline powered cars? In 1923 he purchased the Wayside Inn at South Sudbury, Mass., which had been the subject of Longfellow's Ford had been suffering paralytic strokes. day for an eight-hour day, thereby creating a national sensation. tools and performing many different operations in the process. Yet in the same year, another new Ford-built product called the Falcon--the first compact offered by any of the Big Three car makers--set a first-year record of 417,107 sales. Photos. But I didnt. In later years Mr. Ford found it wasteful to assemble the cars He As the depression waned, Never complain, he said. He is generally credited with reviving the firm. Cheap and reliable, the car had a tremendous success. - He was the trend-resister whose Edsel entered the language as a synonym for failure, whose Pinto was denounced as a murderous firetrap and who summed up his attitude toward compact cars in the single sentence: Mini-cars mean mini-profits.. He left school at the age of 15 and then had a number of jobs . he had yielded to his son twenty-four years previously. the wood-working is done at the forest mill, the waste goes to a wood-distillation plant, and there is no waste in shipment. In the Ford sawmills the parts are sawed directly from the logs, instead of converting the logs into lumber first. The old man could not remain in the drivers seat. Labor relations, however, were only one of the problems facing Ford and his company. The car came out in 1957 with first-year sales expected to hit the 200,000 range. However, there was more to this excursion than the road-trip itself. By the spring of 1945, when the War Department announced that the production of Liberator bombers would be discontinued, Willow Run had produced more than 8,000 of them. F; L; . Miles won the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 12 Hours of Sebring in 1966, and placed second at Le Mans. As a result, the Ford Motor Corporation was passed to Henry Ford II, who did his best to repair its reputation throughout the 1950s. But the years of effort had taken a toll. Although the Ford Motor Company lost as much as $68,000,000 in a single depression year, Mr. Ford maintained his wage policy until the autumn of 1932, when it announced a readjustment from "the Alf M. Landon, stating that the election would belligerent countries. But the years of his childhood coincided almost precisely with those of the companys decline. In the mid-1950s, the company decided to bring out a car for the medium-priced market, and Henry, seeking to honor the memory of a loved father, called it the Edsel. Early Life and Education: Henry was educated at the local one-room school for eight years where he demonstrated an early interest in mechanical objects. The brothers died unexpectedly in 1920. . . Breech had the management experience and expertise to implement Fords desire for a decentralized organization with a strong vertical executive structure and to aid him in establishing not only responsible department heads but a competent accounting system as well. With him was Kathleen DuRoss, a widow and former model he had met during a party at his home. When he took office, the company was losing about $10 million a month, and that pace slackened only a little during the first half of 1946. Despite the near-mortal financial hemorrhage of the first six months, the companys fortunes recovered so readily that there was actually a profit--only $2,000, to be sure, but a considerable improvement on the $100-million loss that had been projected--in 1946. . Still, fun-loving Christina complained of his working habits. Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone and John Burroughs went on with the ride of their life in a newly released Model T, the first "people's car". In a characteristic interview in September, 1944, he made known his adherence to his old doctrine of high wages for his employes. treasurer of the Ford Motor Company with full control over its finances. Henry Ford was an entrepreneur who founded the Ford Motor Company. Every man should make enough money during the war. The group called the "Vagabonds" started one of the first road-trips in history that started in 1916. to him its Distinguished Service Medal for his efforts in behalf of disabled veterans of both world wars. Other sporadic strikes occurred in Ford plants in other sections of the country. Its production mounted from 25,000 in January, 1926, to 77,000 in November, while Ford sales dropped. In 1903, he established the Ford Motor Company, and five years later the company rolled out the first Model T. Did Henry Ford have business partners? ATTENTION LE MANS FANS! Was Henry Ford a billionaire? Their son Edsel, who worked for the family business,. Born Sept. 4, 1917, in Detroit, he was the eldest son of Edsel B. and Eleanor Clay Ford, and no one then or later ever doubted that he was the crown prince of the burgeoning Ford empire. Henry Ford died on April 7, 1947 at the age of 83. He was the eldest of six children. at the great River Rouge plant in Dearborn, Mich., which instead was limited to the manufacture of parts. Going before There were many reports that the elder Ford had given up his leadership of the Ford interests at the insistence of other members of his family, particularly the widow of his only son, the late Edsel B. Ford. Aaron Sapiro, a Chicago lawyer, brought suit for $1,000,000 on the ground that his reputation as an organizer of farmers' cooperative marketing organizations had been damaged by articles which When he was 13 he took a watch apart and put it together again so that it would work. He promptly set about modernizing the Ford Motor Company and discharged the all-powerful personnel chief Harry Bennett, whose strong-arm union-busting tactics had earned the company a great deal of opprobrium. He remained at its helm as it reached the peak of its gigantic war production, directing the war-expanded force of 190,000 workers. Henry Ford II (1917-1987) was an American industrialist. To make a single leaf of a spring, for instance, eleven workmen stood in line, each using a single tool. Henry Ford II took over as President and at all levels of decision making. a complete about face. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. They offered to make him general - He was the trend-setter whose Thunderbird, Falcon and Mustang were hailed. Ford had been suffering paralytic strokes. Court, which, in effect, upheld the finding by refusing to review it. When William was three his mother died and he was raised by his grandmother and aunt. At Yale University, where he was enrolled in 1936, he devoted more attention to such extracurricular activities as Zeta Psi fraternity, the Book and Snake Club and management of the Yale crew than to studies. . After founding the Ford Motor Company, the American industrialist Henry Ford developed a system of mass production based on the assembly line and the conveyor belt which produced low-priced cars . 3,200 feet long and 1,280 feet wide, with 2,547,000 feet of floor space. These were shipped to assembly plants scattered throughout the United States and in many When did Henry Ford resign from the presidency? Henry Ford died on April 7, 1947 in the city of Detroit, Michigan (United States). In 1924 the Ford company had manufactured about two-thirds of all the automobiles produced in this country, but by 1926 the Chevrolet Henry Ford Heritage Association's The Ford Story starts with A Young Henry Ford - Henry Ford, son of William and Mary Litogot Ford, was born July 30, 1863. Dearborn, Michigan. The Ford Quadricycle was the first vehicle developed by Henry Ford. In 1946, Henry Ford was lauded at the Automotive Golden Jubilee for his contributions to the automotive industry. . Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Finance Corporation, opened another new bank, the National Bank of Detroit. These cars might not have the Ford GTs cachet, but each is worth remembering. Although never confirmed officially, reports charged that a Jewish conspiracy was seeking to win control of American agriculture. Bill McGraw, the Historian's editor, chronicled how attacks on Jews by the Ford-owned Dearborn Independent newspaper influenced Adolf Hitler and have since found a . One of his lifelong interests was in the training of youth to earn a livelihood, and he established various vocational schools for the purpose. Young Ford persuaded Ernest R. Breech, president of Bendix Aviation, to join the company. after having been one of the company's top executives for many years. At the same time he declared that no group of strikers would ever take over a Ford plant. 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