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First Years
During the summer of 1873, Henry saw for the first time a self-propelled machine; a stationary steam engine that could be used for agricultural activities. Ford later said that this experience was what "taught him that he was instinctively an engineer". -
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Beginning to work
He left his home and went to Detroit to work as a trainee apprentice, first at James F. Flower & Bros., and later at the Detroit Dry Dock Co.
Then he returned to Dearborn to work on the farm and took over the management of the Westinghouse portable steam engine until he became an expert. This led him to be hired by the Westinghouse company to service his steam engines. -
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Himself
In 1891, Ford obtained the position of engineer in the company Edison, and after his ascent to chief engineer in 1893 he began to have enough time and money to dedicate it to his own experiments with gasoline engines. These experiments culminated in 1896 with the invention of his own self-propelled vehicle called the quadricycle, which made its first successful test on June 4 of that year. After several tests, Ford began to develop ideas to improve it. -
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Henry Ford Company
Ford came to Edison Illuminating in 1899 along with other investors, and formed the Detroit Automobile Company. The company soon went bankrupt because Ford continued to improve the prototypes instead of selling cars. With this interest in racing cars he created the Henry Ford Company. During this period he personally drove one of his cars in the victory over Alexander Winton on October 10, 1901. -
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Ford 999
Henry Ford was just successful in his third business project, launched in 1903: the Ford Motor Company, founded on June 16 along with 11 other investors and with an initial investment of 28,000 US dollars. In a car of recent design, Ford made an exhibition in which the car covered the distance of a mile on the frozen lake of St. Clair in 39.4 seconds, breaking the speed record on the ground. -
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Henry Ford Company (The model "T")
The Ford T appeared in the market on October 1, 1908 and presented a lot of innovations. For example, I had the steering wheel to the left, this being something that the vast majority of the other companies soon copied.
The car was very easy to drive and, more importantly, very cheap and easy to repair. It was so cheap that, at a cost of 825 US dollars in 1908 (the price fell every year), by 1920 the vast majority of drivers had learned to drive in the Ford T. -
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Ford Motor Compay (the best company with the best pay)
Ford astonished the world in 1914 by offering his workers a salary of $ 5 a day, which at that time was more than double what most of these employees were paid. This tactic was immensely profitable when the best mechanics of Detroit began to change to the company Ford. -
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His death
Ford suffered a first heart attack in 1938, after which he gave his company's address to his son Edsel; After his death in 1943, Henry Ford left his retirement. However, with already deteriorated health, he ceded the presidency to his grandson, Henry Ford II in September 1945, and retired completely.
He died in 1947 of a brain hemorrhage at the age of 83 in Fair Lane, and is buried in Detroit's Ford cemetery.