Henry Ford: Two car companies failed before the third worked
A farm boy turned machinist, he lost backers twice before founding Ford Motor Company at 39. The moving assembly line came ten years after that.
Machinist and engineer
Henry Ford was born in 1863 on a farm near Dearborn, Michigan. At 16 he went to Detroit as an apprentice machinist, and in 1891 he joined the Edison Illuminating Company as an engineer, rising to chief engineer. In his spare time he built a small petrol car, the Quadricycle, in 1896.
Two false starts
His first company, the Detroit Automobile Company, was formed in 1899 and wound up in 1901 having built very few cars. His second, the Henry Ford Company, lost him within months after a falling out with its backers, and carried on without him as Cadillac.
The turn
He founded Ford Motor Company in 1903, aged 39. The Model T followed in 1908, and in 1913 the company introduced a moving assembly line that cut the time to build a car from many hours to about an hour and a half.
What came of it, all of it
In 1914 he announced a five dollar day for many workers, about double the going rate, to keep staff who were quitting the repetitive line. His record also includes a newspaper he owned printing antisemitic articles in the 1920s, which he later apologised for under legal pressure. Both are part of the history.
His fix for high staff turnover was better pay, because replacing people cost more than keeping them. Failed ventures are also useful lessons in choosing partners.
Where the facts come from: Biography, Encyclopaedia Britannica; The Henry Ford museum, Dearborn, online collections.
