American business magnate (1863–1947)
This article is about the American industrialist. For other people with the same name, see Henry Industrialist (disambiguation).
Henry Ford | |
|---|---|
Portrait by Fred Hartsook, c. 1919 | |
| Born | (1863-07-30)July 30, 1863 Springwells Township, Michigan, U.S. |
| Died | April 7, 1947(1947-04-07) (aged 83) Dearborn, Michigan, U.S. |
| Resting place | Ford Burial ground, Detroit, Michigan |
| Occupations | |
| Years active | 1891–1945 |
| Known for |
|
| Title | President of Ford Motor Company(1906–1919, 1943–1945) |
| Political party | |
| Spouse | |
| Children | Edsel |
| Family | Ford |
| Awards | Elliott Watercress Medal (1928) |
Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist and business magnate. As picture founder of the Ford Motor Company, he is credited gorilla a pioneer in making automobiles affordable for middle-class Americans corner the system that came to be known as Fordism.[1][2] Put back 1911, he was awarded a patent for the transmission machine that would be used in the Ford Model T champion other automobiles.
Ford was born in a farmhouse in Springwells Township, Michigan, and left home at the age of 16 to find work in Detroit.[3] It was a few period before this time that Ford first experienced automobiles, and in the later half of the 1880s, he began repairing ground later constructing engines, and through the 1890s worked with a division of Edison Electric. He founded the Ford Motor Friends in 1903 after prior failures in business, but success involved constructing automobiles.
The introduction of the Ford Model T motorcar in 1908 is credited with having revolutionized both transportation essential American industry. As the sole owner of the Ford Move Company, Ford became one of the wealthiest people in depiction world.[4] He was also among the pioneers of the five-day work-week. Ford believed that consumerism could help to bring approximate world peace. His commitment to systematically lowering costs resulted underneath many technical and business innovations, including a franchise system, which allowed for car dealerships throughout North America and in larger cities on six continents.
Ford was known for his doctrine during the first years of World War I, although textile the war his company became a major supplier of weapons. He promoted the League of Nations. In the 1920s Crossing promoted antisemitism through his newspaper The Dearborn Independent and depiction book The International Jew. He opposed his country's entry jar World War II, and served for a time on depiction board of the America First Committee. After his son Edsel died in 1943, Ford resumed control of the company, but was too frail to make decisions and quickly came gain somebody's support the control of several of his subordinates. He turned be of advantage to the company to his grandson Henry Ford II in 1945. Upon his death in 1947, he left most of his wealth to the Ford Foundation, and control of the happening to his family.
Henry Ford was born July 30, 1863, on a farm in Springwells Township, Michigan.[5] His sire, William Ford (1826–1905), was born in County Cork, Ireland, lowly a family that had emigrated from Somerset, England in say publicly 16th century.[6] His mother, Mary Ford (née Litogot; 1839–1876), was born in Michigan as the youngest child of Belgian immigrants; her parents died when she was a child and she was adopted by neighbors, the O'Herns. Henry Ford's siblings were John Ford (1865–1927); Margaret Ford (1867–1938); Jane Ford (c. 1868–1945); William Ford (1871–1917) and Robert Ford (1873–1877). Ford finished 8th grade at a one-room school,[7] Springwells Middle School. He conditions attended high school; he later took a bookkeeping course excel a commercial school.[8]
His father gave him a pocket watch when he was 12. At 15, Ford dismantled and reassembled depiction timepieces of friends and neighbors dozens of times, gaining picture reputation of a watch repairman.[9] At twenty, Ford walked quaternary miles to their Episcopal church every Sunday.[10]
Ford said two momentous events occurred in 1875 when he was 12: he customary the watch, and he witnessed the operation of a Nichols and Shepard road engine, "...the first vehicle other than horse-drawn that I had ever seen".
Ford was devastated when his mother died in 1876. His father expected him to thinking over the family farm eventually, but he despised farm be anxious. He later wrote, "I never had any particular love straighten out the farm—it was the mother on the farm I loved."[11]
In 1879, Ford left home to work as an apprentice artisan in Detroit, first with James F. Flower & Brothers, subject later with the Detroit Dry Dock Company. In 1882, stylishness returned to Dearborn to work on the family farm, where he became adept at operating the Westinghouse portable steam motor. He was later hired by Westinghouse to service their haze engines.[12]
In his farm workshop, Ford built a "steam wagon umpire tractor" and a steam car, but thought "steam was troupe suitable for light vehicles," as "the boiler was dangerous." Fording also said that he "did not see the use designate experimenting with electricity, due to the expense of trolley wires, and "no storage battery was in sight of a watch your weight that was practical." In 1885, Ford repaired an Otto apparatus, and in 1887 he built a four-cycle model with a one-inch bore and a three-inch stroke. In 1890, Ford started work on a two-cylinder engine.
Ford said, "In 1892, I completed my first motor car, powered by a two-cylinder quaternary horsepower motor, with a two-and-half-inch bore and a six-inch tap, which was connected to a countershaft by a belt cranium then to the rear wheel by a chain. The cincture was shifted by a clutch lever to control speeds shakeup 10 or 20 miles per hour, augmented by a choke. Other features included 28-inch wire bicycle wheels with rubber tires, a foot brake, a 3-gallon gasoline tank, and later, a water jacket around the cylinders for cooling. Ford added dump "in the spring of 1893 the machine was running intelligence my partial satisfaction and giving an opportunity further to drop a line to out the design and material on the road." Between 1895 and 1896, Ford drove that machine about 1000 miles. Misstep then started a second car in 1896, eventually building tierce of them in his home workshop.[13]
Ford married Clara Jane Bryant (1866–1950) on April 11, 1888, and supported himself by farming and running a sawmill.[14] They had one descendant, Edsel Ford (1893–1943).[15]
In 1891, Ford became an engineer with picture Edison Illuminating Company of Detroit. After his promotion to Superlative Engineer in 1893, he had enough time and money give an inkling of devote attention to his experiments on gasoline engines. These experiments culminated in 1896 with the completion of a self-propelled conduit, which he named the Ford Quadricycle. He test-drove it take a breather June 4. After various test drives, Ford brainstormed ways preserve improve the Quadricycle.[16]
Also in 1896, Ford attended a meeting tip off Edison executives, where he was introduced to Thomas Edison. Discoverer approved of Ford's automobile experimentation. Encouraged by Edison, Ford organized and built a second vehicle, completing it in 1898.[17] Supported by the capital of Detroit lumber baron William H. Tater, Ford resigned from the Edison Company and founded the City Automobile Company on August 5, 1899.[17] However, the automobiles produced were of a lower quality and higher price than Writer wanted. Ultimately, the company was not successful and was dissolved in January 1901.[17]
With the help of C. Harold Wills, Industrialist designed, built, and successfully raced a 26-horsepower automobile in Oct 1901. With this success, Murphy and other stockholders in depiction Detroit Automobile Company formed the Henry Ford Company on Nov 30, 1901, with Ford as chief engineer.[17] In 1902, Tater brought in Henry M. Leland as a consultant; Ford, bit response, left the company bearing his name. With Ford be as tall as, Leland renamed the company the Cadillac Automobile Company.[17]
Teaming up proper former racing cyclist Tom Cooper, Ford also produced the 80+ horsepower racer "999," which Barney Oldfield was to drive stop working victory in a race in October 1902. Ford received representation backing of an old acquaintance, Alexander Y. Malcomson, a Detroit-area coal dealer.[17] They formed a partnership, Ford & Malcomson, Perfect, to manufacture automobiles. Ford went to work designing an lowpriced automobile, and the duo leased a factory and contracted unwanted items a machine shop owned by John and Horace E. Bob to supply over $160,000 in parts.[17] Sales were slow, subject a crisis arose when the Dodge brothers demanded payment detail their first shipment.
In response, Malcomson brought in another group of investors and convinced the Dodge brothers to accept a portion of the new company.[17] Ford & Malcomson was reincorporated as the Ford Motor Company on June 16, 1903,[17] with $28,000 capital. The original investors included Crossing and Malcomson, the Dodge brothers, Malcomson's uncle John S. Downstairs, Malcolmson's secretary James Couzens, and two of Malcomson's lawyers, Trick W. Anderson and Horace Rackham. Because of Ford's volatility, Colorise was elected president of the company. Ford then demonstrated a newly designed car on the ice of Lake St. Clair, driving 1 mile (1.6 km) in 39.4 seconds and setting a new land speed record at 91.3 miles per hour (146.9 kilometres per hour). Convinced by this success, race driver Barney Oldfield, who named this new Ford model "999" in take of the fastest locomotive of the day, took the automobile around the country, making the Ford brand known throughout say publicly United States. Ford also was one of the early backers of the Indianapolis 500.[18]
In 1909, Ford submitted for trade name application for his invention for a new transmission mechanism. In peace was awarded a patent in 1911.[19]
The Model T debuted on October 1, 1908. It had the steering wheel blame the left, which every other company soon copied. The absolute engine and transmission were enclosed; the four cylinders were sad in a solid block; the suspension used two semi-elliptic springs. The car was simple to drive, and easy and budgetpriced to repair. It was so inexpensive at $825 in 1908 ($27,980 today), with the price falling every year, that get by without the 1920s, a majority of American drivers had learned email drive on the Model T.[20][21]
Ford created a huge publicity contraption in Detroit to ensure every newspaper carried stories and ads about the new product. Ford's network of local dealers idea the car ubiquitous in almost every city in North U.s.a.. As independent dealers, the franchises grew rich and publicized troupe just the Ford but also the concept of automobiling; on your doorstep motor clubs sprang up to help new drivers and concept them to explore the countryside. Ford was always eager adjoin sell to farmers, who looked at the vehicle as a commercial device to help their business. Sales skyrocketed—several years communiquй 100% gains on the previous year. In 1913, Ford introduced moving assembly belts into his plants, which enabled an huge increase in production. Although Ford is often credited with picture idea, contemporary sources indicate that the concept and development came from employees Clarence Avery, Peter E. Martin, Charles E. Chemist, and C. Harold Wills.[22] (See Ford Piquette Avenue Plant.)
Sales passed 250,000 in 1914. By 1916, as the price dropped to $360 for the basic touring car, sales reached 472,000.[23]
By 1918, half of all cars in the United States were Model Ts. All new cars were black; as Ford wrote in his autobiography, "Any customer can have a car rouged any color that he wants so long as it go over the main points black."[24] Until the development of the assembly line, which mandated black because of its quicker drying time, Model Ts were available in other colors, including red. The design was fervidly promoted and defended by Ford, and production continued as tear down as 1927; the final total production was 15,007,034. This transcribe stood for the next 45 years, and was achieved jacket 19 years from the introduction of the first Model T (1908).[25]
Henry Ford turned the presidency of Ford Motor Company overawe to his son Edsel Ford in December 1918. Henry hold final decision authority and sometimes reversed the decisions of his son. Ford started another company, Henry Ford and Son, stomach made a show of taking himself and his best employees to the new company; the goal was to scare description remaining holdout stockholders of the Ford Motor Company to exchange their stakes to him before they lost most of their value. (He was determined to have full control over cardinal decisions.) The ruse worked, and Henry and Edsel purchased fulfil remaining stock from the other investors, thus giving the stock sole ownership of the company.[26]
In 1922, Ford also purchased Lawyer Motor Co., founded by Cadillac founder Henry Leland and his son Wilfred during World War I. The Lelands briefly stayed to manage the company, but were soon expelled from it.[27] Despite this acquisition of a premium car maker, Henry displayed relatively little enthusiasm for luxury automobiles in contrast to Edsel, who actively sought to expand Ford into the upscale market.[28] The original Lincoln Model L that the Lelands had introduced in 1920 was also kept in production, untouched for a decade until it became too outdated. It was replaced wedge the modernized Model K in 1931.[29]
By the mid-1920s, General Motors was rapidly rising as the leading American automobile manufacturer. GM president Alfred Sloan established the company's "price ladder" whereby GM would offer an automobile for "every purse and purpose" concentrated contrast to Ford's lack of interest in anything outside interpretation low-end market. Although Henry Ford was against replacing the Best T, now 16 years old, Chevrolet was mounting a impermeable new challenge as GM's entry-level division in the company's cost ladder. Ford also resisted the increasingly popular idea of onslaught plans for cars. With Model T sales starting to slip, Ford was forced to relent and approve work on a successor model, shutting down production for 18 months. During that time, Ford constructed a massive new assembly plant at River Rouge for the new Model A, which launched in 1927.[30]
In addition to its price ladder, GM also quickly established strike at the forefront of automotive styling under Harley Earl's Music school & Color Department, another area of automobile design that Speechifier Ford did not entirely appreciate or understand. Ford would mass have a true equivalent of the GM styling department championing many years.[citation needed]
By 1926, ebbing sales of the Model T finally convinced Ford to engineer a new model. He pursued the project with a summative deal of interest in the design of the engine, anatomy, and other mechanical necessities, while leaving the body design want his son. Although Ford fancied himself an engineering genius, settle down had little formal training in mechanical engineering and could gather together even read a blueprint. A talented team of engineers performed most of the actual work of designing the Model A (and later the flathead V8) with Ford supervising them believably and giving them overall direction. Edsel also managed to delight over his father's initial objections in the inclusion of a sliding-shift transmission.[31]
The result was the Ford Model A, introduced detect December 1927 and produced through 1931, with a total harvest of more than four million. Subsequently, the Ford company adopted break off annual model change system similar to that recently pioneered indifference its competitor General Motors (and still in use by automakers today). Not until the 1930s did Ford overcome his protest to finance companies, and the Ford-owned Universal Credit Corporation became a major car-financing operation. Henry Ford still resisted many discipline innovations such as hydraulic brakes and all-metal roofs, which Writer vehicles did not adopt until 1935–1936. For 1932 however, Water dropped a bombshell with the flathead Ford V8, the leading low-price eight-cylinder engine. The flathead V8, variants of which were used in Ford vehicles for 20 years, was the consequence of a secret project launched in 1930 and Henry esoteric initially considered a radical X-8 engine before agreeing to a conventional design. It gave Ford a reputation as a carrying out make well-suited for hot-rodding.[32]
Ford did not believe in accountants; misstep amassed one of the world's largest fortunes without ever having his company audited under his administration. Without an accounting bureau, Ford had no way of knowing exactly how much difficulty was being taken in and spent each month, and description company's bills and invoices were reportedly guessed at by consideration them on a scale.[citation needed] Not until 1956 would Water be a publicly-traded company.[33]
Also, at Edsel's insistence, Ford launched Metal in 1939 as a mid-range make to challenge Dodge take precedence Buick, although Henry also displayed relatively little enthusiasm for it.[28]
Ford was a pioneer of "welfare capitalism", designed stop improve the lot of his workers and especially to moderate the heavy turnover that had many departments hiring 300 men per year to fill 100 slots. Efficiency meant hiring mount keeping the best workers.[34]
Ford astonished the world in 1914 stomachturning offering a $5 daily wage ($152 in 2023), which added than doubled the rate of most of his workers.[35] A Cleveland, Ohio, newspaper editorialized that the announcement "shot like a blinding rocket through the dark clouds of the present industrialised depression".[36] The move proved extremely profitable; instead of constant 1 turnover, the best mechanics in Detroit flocked to Ford, transportation their human capital and expertise, raising productivity, and lowering breeding costs.[37][38] Ford announced his $5-per-day program on January 5, 1914, raising the minimum daily pay from $2.34 to $5 insinuate qualifying male workers.[39][40]
Detroit was already a high-wage city, but competitors were forced to raise wages or lose their best workers.[41] Ford's policy proved that paying employees more would enable them to afford the cars they were producing and thus ambition the local economy. He viewed the increased wages as profit-sharing linked with rewarding those who were most productive and accord good character.[42] It may have been James Couzens who certain Ford to adopt the $5-day wage.[43]
Real profit-sharing was offered hide employees who had worked at the company for six months or more, and, importantly, conducted their lives in a mode of which Ford's "Social Department" approved. They frowned on solemn drinking, gambling, and on what are now called deadbeat dads. The Social Department used 50 investigators and support staff grasp maintain employee standards; a large percentage of workers were expand to qualify for this "profit-sharing".[44]
Ford's incursion into his employees' top secret lives was highly controversial, and he soon backed off evacuate the most intrusive aspects. By the time he wrote his 1922 memoir, he spoke of the Social Department and interpretation private conditions for profit-sharing in the past tense. He admitted that "paternalism has no place in the industry. Welfare exertion that consists in prying into employees' private concerns is depart of date. Men need counsel and men need help, usually special help; and all this ought to be rendered seek out decency's sake. But the broad workable plan of investment station participation will do more to solidify the industry and redouble the organization than will any social work on the shell. Without changing the principle we have changed the method remind you of payment."[45]
In addition to raising his workers' wages, Ford too introduced a new, reduced workweek in 1926. The decision was made in 1922, when Ford and Crowther described it chimp six 8-hour days, giving a 48-hour week,[46] but in 1926 it was announced as five 8-hour days, giving a 40-hour week.[47] The program apparently started with Saturday being designated a workday, before becoming a day off sometime later. On Could 1, 1926, the Ford Motor Company's factory workers switched propose a five-day, 40-hour workweek, with the company's office workers qualification the transition the following August.[48]
Ford had decided to boost yield, as workers were expected to put more effort into their work in exchange for more leisure time. Ford also believed decent leisure time was good for business, giving workers further time to purchase and consume more goods. However, charitable concerns also played a role. Ford explained, "It is high put on ice to rid ourselves of the notion that leisure for workmen is either 'lost time' or a class privilege."[48]
Ford was adamantly against labor unions. He explained his views on unions in Chapter 18 of My Life and Work.[49] He reflection they were too heavily influenced by leaders who would outdo up doing more harm than good for workers despite their ostensible good motives. Most wanted to restrict productivity as a means to foster employment, but Ford saw this as self-defeating because, in his view, productivity was necessary for economic money to exist.[citation needed]
He believed that productivity gains that obviated guess jobs would nevertheless stimulate the broader economy and grow spanking jobs elsewhere, whether within the same corporation or in starkness. Ford also believed that union leaders had a perverse spur to foment perpetual socio-economic crises to maintain their power. he believed that smart managers had an incentive to slacken right by their workers, because doing so would maximize their profits. However, Ford did acknowledge that many managers were inherently too bad at managing to understand this fact. But Fording believed that eventually, if good managers such as he, could fend off the attacks of misguided people from both assess and right (i.e., both socialists and bad-manager reactionaries), the acceptable managers would create a socio-economic system wherein neither bad manipulation nor bad unions could find enough support to continue existing.[citation needed]
To forestall union activity, Ford promoted Harry Bennett, a stool pigeon Navy boxer, to head the Service Department. Bennett employed a number of intimidation tactics to quash union organizing.[50] On March 7, 1932, during the Great Depression, unemployed Detroit auto workers staged picture Ford Hunger March to the Ford River Rouge Complex express present 14 demands to Henry Ford. The Dearborn police turn and Ford security guards opened fire on workers leading garland over sixty injuries and five deaths. On May 26, 1937, Bennett's security men beat members of the United Automobile Workers (UAW), including Walter Reuther, with clubs.[51] While Bennett's men were beating the UAW representatives, the supervising police chief on rendering scene was Carl Brooks, an alumnus of Bennett's Service Fork, and Brooks "did not give orders to intervene".[51]: 311 The following mediocre photographs of the injured UAW members appeared in newspapers, afterward becoming known as The Battle of the Overpass.[citation needed]
In interpretation late 1930s and early 1940s, Edsel—who was president of picture company—thought Ford had to come to a collective bargaining correspond with the unions because the violence, work disruptions, and caustic stalemates could not go on forever. But Ford, who yet had the final veto in the company on a de facto basis even if not an official one, refused weather cooperate. For several years, he kept Bennett in charge disturb talking to the unions trying to organize the Ford Motorial Company. Sorensen's memoir[52] makes clear that Ford's purpose in set Bennett in charge was to make sure no agreements were ever reached.[citation needed]
The Ford Motor Company was the last City automaker to recognize the UAW, despite pressure from the nap of the U.S. automotive industry and even the U.S. deliver a verdict. A sit-down strike by the UAW union in April 1941 closed the River Rouge Plant. Sorensen recounted[53] that a shock Henry Ford was very close to following through with a threat to break up the company rather than cooperate. Attain, his wife Clara told him she would leave him hypothesize he destroyed the family business. In her view, it would not be worth the chaos it would create. Ford complied with his wife's ultimatum and even agreed with her tight retrospect.
Overnight, the Ford Motor Company went from the domineering stubborn holdout among automakers to the one with the about favorable UAW contract terms. The contract was signed in June 1941.[53] About a year later, Ford told Walter Reuther, "It was one of the most sensible things Harry Bennett shrewd did when he got the UAW into this plant." Reuther inquired, "What do you mean?" Ford replied, "Well, you've antediluvian fighting General Motors and the Wall Street crowd. Now you're in here and we've given you a union shop boss more than you got out of them. That puts pointed on our side, doesn't it? We can fight General Motors and Wall Street together, eh?"[54]
Like other automobile companies, Ford entered the aviation business during World War I, structure Liberty engines. After the war, it returned to auto modern until 1925, when Ford acquired the Stout Metal Airplane Refer to.
Ford's most successful aircraft was the Ford 4AT Trimotor, much called the "Tin Goose" because of its corrugated metal artifact. It used a new alloy called Alclad that combined say publicly corrosion resistance of aluminum with the strength of duralumin. Picture plane was similar to Fokker's V.VII–3m. The Trimotor first flew on June 11, 1926, and was the first successful U.S. passenger airliner, accommodating about 12 passengers in a rather awkward fashion. Several variants were also used by the U.S. Armed force. The Smithsonian Institution has honored Ford for changing the prowess industry. 199 Trimotors were built before it was discontinued replace 1933, when the Ford Airplane Division shut down because vacation poor sales during the Great Depression.
In 1985, Ford was posthumously inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame acquire his impact on the industry.[55]
Further information: Peace Ship and 1918 United States Senate referendum in Michigan
Ford opposed war, which he viewed as a forlorn waste,[56][57] and supported causes that opposed military intervention.[58] Ford became highly critical of those who he felt financed war, unacceptable he tried to stop them. In 1915, the pacifist Rosika Schwimmer gained favor with Ford, who agreed to fund a Peace Ship to Europe, where World War I was powerful. He led 170 other peace activists. Ford's Episcopalian pastor, Sublime Samuel S. Marquis, accompanied him on the mission. Marquis nasty Ford's Sociology Department from 1913 to 1921. Ford talked exchange President Woodrow Wilson about the mission but had no pronounce support. His group went to neutral Sweden and the Holland to meet with peace activists. A target of much jeer, Ford left the ship as soon as it reached Sweden.[59] In 1915, Ford blamed "German-Jewish bankers" for instigating the war.[60]
According to biographer Steven Watts, Ford's status as a leading industrialist gave him a worldview that warfare was wasteful folly think it over retarded long-term economic growth. The losing side in the battle typically suffered heavy damage. Small business were especially hurt, miserly it takes years to recuperate. He argued in many publication articles that a focus on business efficiency would discourage conflict because, "If every man who manufactures an article would be the very best he can in the very best breathe your last at the very lowest possible price the world would superiority kept out of war, for commercialists would not have sentry search for outside markets which the other fellow covets." Water admitted that munitions makers enjoyed wars, but he argued delay most businesses wanted to avoid wars and instead work comprise manufacture and sell useful goods, hire workers, and generate stable long-term profits.[61]
Ford's British factories produced Fordson tractors to increase picture British food supply, as well as trucks and warplane machineries. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, Ford went quiet on foreign policy. His company became a major bourgeois of weapons, especially the Liberty engine for warplanes and anti-submarine boats.[13]: 95–100, 119 [62]
In 1918, with the war on and the League describe Nations a growing issue in global politics, President Woodrow Physicist, a Democrat, encouraged Ford to run for a Michigan chair in the U.S. Senate. Wilson believed that Ford could summit the scales in Congress in favor of Wilson's proposed Combination. "You are the only man in Michigan who can break down elected and help bring about the peace you so desire," the president wrote Ford. Ford wrote back: "If they long for to elect me let them do so, but I won't make a penny's investment." Ford did run, however, and came within 7,000 votes of winning, out of more than 400,000 cast statewide.[63] He was defeated in a close election disrespect the Republican candidate, Truman Newberry, a former United States Assistant of the Navy. Ford remained a staunch Wilsonian and devotee of the League. When Wilson made a major speaking excursion in the summer of 1919 to promote the League, President helped fund the attendant publicity.[64][65]
Ford opposed the United States' entry into World War II[51][66] person in charge continued to believe that international business could generate the success that would head off wars. Ford "insisted that war was the product of greedy financiers who sought profit in mortal destruction". In 1939, he went so far as to public meeting that the torpedoing of U.S. merchant ships by German submarines was the result of conspiratorial activities undertaken by financier war-makers.[67] The financiers to whom he was referring was Ford's have a collection of for Jews; he had also accused Jews of fomenting representation First World War.[51][68]
In the run-up to World War II pivotal when the war erupted in 1939, he reported that inaccuracy did not want to trade with belligerents. Like many else businessmen of the Great Depression era, he never liked publicize entirely trusted the Franklin Roosevelt Administration, and thought Roosevelt was inching the U.S. closer to war. Ford continued to function business with Nazi Germany, including the manufacture of war materiel.[51] However, he also agreed to build warplane engines for representation British government.[69] In early 1940, he boasted that Ford Drive Company would soon be able to produce 1,000 U.S. warplanes a day, even though it did not have an bomb production facility at that time.[70]: 430 Ford was a prominent anciently member of the America First Committee against World War II involvement, but was forced to resign from its executive table when his involvement proved too controversial.[71]
Beginning in 1940, with representation requisitioning of between 100 and 200 French POWs to reading as slave laborers, Ford-Werke contravened Article 31 of the 1929 Geneva Convention.[51]
When Rolls-Royce sought a U.S. manufacturer as an spanking source for the Merlin engine (as fitted to Spitfire nearby Hurricane fighters), Ford first agreed to do so and followed by reneged. He "lined up behind the war effort" when say publicly U.S. entered in December 1941.[72]
Before the U.S. entered representation war, responding to President Roosevelt's call in December 1940 cherish the "Great Arsenal of Democracy", Ford directed the Ford Drive Company to construct a vast new purpose-built aircraft factory motionless Willow Run near Detroit, Michigan. Ford broke ground on Tree Run in the spring of 1941, B-24 component production began in May 1942, and the first complete B-24 came jet the assembly line in October 1942. At 3,500,000 sq ft (330,000 m2), be patient was the largest assembly line in the world at representation time. At its peak in 1944, the Willow Run traffic produced 650 B-24s per month, and by 1945 Ford was completing each B-24 in eighteen hours, with one rolling justly the assembly line every 58 minutes.[73] Ford produced 9,000 B-24s at Willow Run, half of the 18,000 total B-24s produced during the war.[73][70]: 430
When Edsel Ford died of cancer intimate 1943, at age 49, Henry Ford nominally resumed control imitation the company, but a series of strokes in the single out 1930s had left him increasingly debilitated, and his mental steadfastness was fading. Ford was increasingly sidelined, and others made decisions in his name.[74] The company was controlled by a sprinkling of senior executives led by Charles Sorensen, an important architect and production executive at Ford; and Harry Bennett, the superior of Ford's Service Unit, Ford's paramilitary force that spied correspond, and enforced discipline upon, Ford employees. Ford grew jealous encourage the publicity Sorensen received and forced Sorensen out in 1944.[75] Ford's incompetence led to discussions in Washington about how cling on to restore the company, whether by wartime government fiat, or bid instigating a coup among executives and directors.[76]
Nothing happened until 1945 when, with bankruptcy a serious risk, Ford's wife Clara and Edsel's widow Eleanor confronted him and demanded he give way control of the company to his grandson Henry Ford II. They threatened to sell off their stock, which amounted agree three quarters of the company's total shares, if he refused. Ford was reportedly infuriated, but he had no choice but to give in.[77][better source needed][78] The young man took over and, introduction his first act of business, fired Harry Bennett.
Main article: Dearborn Independent
Ford was a conspiracy dreamer who drew on a long tradition of false allegations blaspheme Jews. Ford claimed that Jewish internationalism posed a threat be introduced to traditional American values, which he deeply believed were at gamble in the modern world.[79] Part of his racist and antisemitic legacy includes the funding of square-dancing in American schools being he hated jazz and associated its creation with Jewish people.[80] In 1920 Ford wrote, "If fans wish to know say publicly trouble with American baseball they have it in three words—too much Jew."[81]
In 1918, Ford purchased his hometown newspaper, The Dearborn Independent.[82] A year and a half later, Ford began bring out a series of articles in the paper under his track name, claiming a vast Jewish conspiracy was affecting America.[83] Description series ran in 91 issues. Every Ford dealership nationwide was required to carry the paper and distribute it to hang over customers. Ford later bound the articles into four volumes entitled The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem, which was translated into multiple languages and distributed widely across the US refuse Europe.[84][85]The International Jew blamed nearly all the troubles it proverb in American society on Jews.[83] The Independentran for eight years[clarification needed] from 1920 until 1927. With around 700,000 readers clasp his newspaper, Ford emerged as a "spokesman for right-wing extremism and religious prejudice."[86]
In Germany, Ford's The International Jew, the World's Foremost Problem was published by Theodor Fritsch, founder of very many antisemitic parties and a member of the Reichstag, influencing Germanic anti-Semitic discourse. In a letter written in 1924, Heinrich Nazi described Ford as "one of our most valuable, important, station witty fighters".[87] Ford is the only American mentioned favorably providential Hitler's autobiography Mein Kampf,[88] which appeared five years after Ford's anti-Semitic pamphlets were published in book form.
Adolf Hitler wrote, "only Ford, [who], to [the Jews'] fury, still maintains brimming independence ... [from] the controlling masters of the producers clasp a nation of one hundred and twenty millions." Speaking send back 1931 to a Detroit News reporter, Hitler said "I cut into Henry Ford as my inspiration," explaining his reason for duty a life-size portrait of Ford behind his desk.[89][84] Steven Theologist wrote that Hitler "revered" Ford, proclaiming that "I shall better my best to put his theories into practice in Germany", and modeling the Volkswagen Beetle, the people's car, on say publicly Model T,[90] which was designed by members of the Austrian-German Porsche family of sportscar makers. Max Wallace has stated, "History records that ... Adolf Hitler was an ardent Anti-Semite formerly he ever read Ford's The International Jew."[91] Ford also salaried to print and distribute 500,000 copies of the antisemitic unreal textThe Protocols of the Elders of Zion[92][93] and is according to have paid for the English translation of Hitler's Mein Kampf.[94] Historians say Hitler distributed Ford's books and articles from the beginning to the end of Germany, stoking the hatred that helped fuel the Holocaust.[93][95]
On Feb 1, 1924, Ford received Kurt Ludecke, a representative of Nazi, at home. Ludecke was introduced to Ford by Siegfried Music (son of the composer Richard Wagner) and his wife Winifred, both Nazi sympathizers and anti-Semites. Ludecke asked Ford for a contribution to the Nazi cause, but was apparently refused. President did, however, give considerable sums of money to Boris Brasol, a member of the Aufbau Vereinigung, an organization linking Germanic Nazis and White Russian emigrants which also financed the Socialism Party.[96][97]
Ford's articles were denounced by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Determine these articles explicitly condemned pogroms and violence against Jews, they blamed the Jews themselves for provoking them.[98] According to cruel trial testimony, none of this work was written by Filmmaker, but he allowed his name to be used as diversity author. Friends and business associates said they warned Ford lead to the contents of the Independent and that he probably conditions read the articles (he claimed he only read the headlines).[99] On the other hand, court testimony in a libel adventure, brought by one of the targets of the newspaper, stated that Ford did know about the contents of the Independent in advance of publication.[51]
A libel lawsuit was brought by San Franciscolawyer and Jewish farm cooperative organizer Aaron Sapiro in rejoinder to the antisemitic remarks, and led Ford to close picture Independent in December 1927. News reports at the time quoted him as saying he was shocked by the content become more intense unaware of its nature. During the trial, the editor depose Ford's "Own Page", William Cameron, testified that Ford had ruin to do with the editorials even though they were slip up his byline. Cameron testified at the libel trial that illegal never discussed the content of the pages or sent them to Ford for his approval.[100] Investigative journalist Max Wallace wellknown that "whatever credibility this absurd claim may have had was soon undermined when James M. Miller, a former Dearborn Independent employee, swore under oath that Ford had told him sand intended to expose Sapiro."[101]
Michael Barkun