Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, entrepreneur, and business mogul most famous for revolutionizing the automobile industry. He spent the early part of his career working in a division of Thomas Edison’s Edison Electric before Ford eventually founded the Ford Motor Company in 1903 in Detroit, Michigan. Ford Motor Company was the first company to mass-produce affordable automobiles available to the middle class, thus exponentially expanding automobile adoption by the general populace. The company’s Model T was the first mass-produced automobile and is among the most famous automobiles in history.
Ford prized efficiency and simplicity. He pioneered the use of the assembly line method for mass industrial production, allowing his factories to inexpensively and substantially increase output. His methods were also adopted in other manufacturing industries, thus having a tremendous impact on overall economic output and development. Ford was anti-labor unions, but believed in taking care of his workers, providing them with higher than average pay and implementing a five-day workweek and eight-hour workdays in his factories. He understood that better conditions reduced turnover and believed that well-paid workers would also be customers for his product.
Ford held some controversial and unpleasant personal views, especially concerning antisemitism, but his impact on business and industry is undeniable. Fortune magazine named Henry Ford the Businessman of the Century in 1999. Ford’s contributions to industry, business, manufacturing, and the general development of America are vast and continue to reverberate and be studied today.
Henry Ford Quotes
“The short successes that can be gained in a brief time and without difficulty, are not worth much.”
“When people are ‘stung’ in false investment schemes there are three causes; greed of something for nothing; sheer inability to know their mind; or infantile trustfulness.”
“The most closely organized groups and movements in the world are those which have been the least friendly to the people’s progress and liberty.”
“Profits made out of the distress of the people are always much smaller than profits made out of the most lavish service of the people at the lowest prices that competent management can make possible.”
“We are here for experience, and experience is a preparation to know the Truth when we meet it.”
“The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all but goes on making his own business better all the time.”
“There is safety in small beginnings and there is unlimited capital in the experience gained by growing.”
Henry Ford Books
“Henry Ford: My Life and Work” – by Henry Ford (autobiography)
“I Invented the Modern Age: The Rise of Henry Ford” – by Richard Snow
“American Journey: On the Road with Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and John Burroughs” – by Wes Davis
“The People’s Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century” – by Steven Watts
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