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He was born to parents William and Mary Ford near present-day Dearborn, Michigan. The actual birthplace of Ford is unknown. http://castle.eiu.edu/~wow/classes/fa03/hfchildhood.html
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He was only sixteen with only seven years of education, but he took the risk and left for Detroit. He was a self-taught mechanic as a child, working on his farm equipment. Now, he was looking for a chance in this huge industrial city. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford
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At the Detroit Illuminating Company, he worked as chief engineer which provided him with a lot of free time. In this free time, he decided to build his first car. It looked like two bicycles attached to each other. https://www.nps.gov/edis/faqs.htm
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In June 1896, he was finished building his first car, the Quadricycle. It was very simplistic and only had a two-cylinder engine. Everybody gave him weird looks as he drove down the street. Sadly, it broke down very quickly. https://markmarkblog.wordpress.com/2015/04/22/henry-fords-invention-of-the-first-automobile-the-quadricycle-2/
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By 1899, Ford had built a new car that was much more powerful and durable than the Quadricycle. It looked nicer and had a sporty vibe to it. In 1901 he raced it against the fastest car in a race before and beat it in front of a huge crowd. https://www.flickr.com/photos/thehenryford/5266360055
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In 1903, Ford was able to start a new company that he named the Ford Motor Company. He was able to do this because of his success in his race that he won in 1901. By January 1904, he sold 658 cars. http://hfha.org/event/ford-motor-company-incorporation-papers-signed/
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The Model T was the car that Ford had been hoping to build for his entire life. It was durable and inexpensive. It changed the car from being something for the rich to being something for the average working man. https://corporate.ford.com/history.html
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Henry Ford is usually given credit for the creation of the assembly line. By applying this in his factories, he was able to reduce reduction time from 12.5 hours to 1.5 hours. This helped lower the price of the Model T even more. https://corporate.ford.com/history.html
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In 1914, Ford doubled the pay for his workers to $5 per day. He also reduced shifts by an hour. Doing this made his workers happier and allowed them to buy his cars. It was a win win for Ford. Today, this would be $127 per day.
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In 1915, Ford went to Europe to end the ongoing WW1 happening there. He believed that there was no use for war. It took two weeks for Ford to realize that nobody would listen to him because they were too engrossed in the "arms race". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_Ship
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In 1916, Ford sold 730,000 Model Ts. This was the company's biggest year of production.
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After WW1, Ford bought a newspaper to share how he felt about Jewish people to the world. He came out as an anti-semitic. Adolf Hitler mentioned him in his novel, Mein Kampf. He even had a portrait of Ford in his office. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/385831893049852212/
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Many new companies were starting to rival Ford such as Dodge and General Motors. Ford's chairmen knew they had to make a new model to take over the Model T, but Henry Ford didn't want this. He finally gave in and Ford made the Model A, which was faster, more reliable, and still cheap.
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Edsel Ford, Henry's only son, died at 49 due to stomach cancer. Ford was hard on his son, and thought he was weak because he would drink alcohol and was not the businessman that Henry Ford was. When he started showing signs of cancer, Henry just thought it was another time that he was being weak. Not until he collapsed and was in his death bed did he know it was cancer.
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Almost five years after his son died, Henry Ford died after a long, successful life. He died due to multiple strokes. He was becoming unfit to run a business, so his grandson, Henry Ford II, took over Ford Motor Company.
