Henry Ford Biography :: essays research papers

Henry get acrossBorn July 30, 1863 in Dearborn, Michigan, Henry cross was the number one child of William and Mary cover. As a young changeiery he became an excellent self-taught mechanic and machinist. At age 16 he left the farm and went to nearby Detroit, a city that was becoming an industrial giant. There he worked as an apprentice at a instrument shop, while months later he would begin work with steam engines at the Detroit Dry Dock Co., where he first saw the internal fire engine, the kind of engine he would later use to make his automobiles. When he was 28 Ford took a job with Thomas Edisons Detroit Illuminating Company, where he became chief engineer. In his spare time he began to build his first auto, the Quadricycle. It resembled two bicycles positioned side by side with bicycle-like wheels, a bicycle seat, and a barely visible engine frame. Some said it bore a resemblance to a baby gondola carriage with a two-cylinder engine. In June 1896, Ford took an historic r ide in his first automobile that was observed by many curious Detroit on-lookers. The Quadricycle broke d feature in a humbling scene. By 1899 Ford created a more proper looking elevator car with the help of wealthy businessman William Murphy. It had high wheels, a padded reprise bench, brass lamps, mud guards, and a "racy" look. In the same stratum Ford founded the Detroit Automobile Company. Within 3 years Ford had strengthened an improved, more reliable Quadricycle, using a four-cylinder, 36 horsepower-racing engine. In 1901 his car beat what was then the worlds fastest automobile in a step on it before a crowd of eight thousand people in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. The publicity he received for this victory allowed Ford to finance a practical laboratory for refining his auto ideas. In 1903 Ford launched his own car company, The Ford Motor Car Company, and by January 1904 he had sold 658 vehicles. By 1908 he built the famous Model T, a car that was affordable to the mi ddle class. The automobile was no longer the toy of the rich. Ford was able to make a reliable and inexpensive automobile in the main because of his introduction of the innovative moving assembly line into the process of industrial manufacturing. The assembly line is a system for carrying an item that is being manufacture past a series of stationary workers who each assemble a particular portion of the finished product.