Henry Ford -> Ford Motor Co. -> Model T -> Assembly Line
Who is Henry Ford? The man who invented the automobile is the response received by 7 out of 10 college students when proposed with this question. The other 3 responded with the man who invented the Model T and when asked further how he developed that they went blank. So why the misconception on a man who without we would not have roughly 600 million passenger cars today around the world, which averages to about 1 per ever 11 individuals. (Brinkley 243) That fact alone puts Henry Ford in a category in history of individuals whom without the world would be quite different. Was Henry Ford from the start set up for this role of changing the world? Born in a small village and living on a farm in Michigan some might think not. (Watts 15) But some also think he invented the automobile. Ford took a lot from the farm life style to get to the point of starting up Ford Motor Company. Despising farm work was a great inspiration for Ford but without the invention of the automobile in France, the eagerness that the United States welcomed the concept of the invention of the automobile, and Ransom E. Olds, who was the first man to bring the automobile into mass production in the United States, the stage would not be set for Ford to create the evolution he had. (Sloan 9-15) Before founding Ford Motors Company Ford had quite a few set backs and experiences with other companies in the automobile industry. Fords determination led him to overcome these obstacles and resulting in Ford Motor Company being founded. Ford Motor Company produced the Model T and the Model T had success on its own because of its availability to the average American. (Douglas 123) Ford had a different approach then ever other business man had about the automobile production, he did not see the only way of making earnings was to pocket money, he wanted to create mass production. That is when Henry Ford applied the concept he had
Bibliography: Douglas Brinkley, Wheels for the World (New York: Viking Penguin, 2003) Alfred P. Sloan, Jr, My Years With General Motors (New York: Doubleday & Company, 1963) Keith Sward, The Legend of Henry Ford (New York: Atheneum, 1968) Steven Watts, The People’s Tycoon Henry Ford and the American Century (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005)