- Wikipedia

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This article is about the American industrialist. For other people with the same name, see Henry Ford (disambiguation).

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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 Cemetery, Detroit, Michigan
Occupations	Engineer industrialist publisher philanthropist
Years active	1891\u20131945
Known for	Founding and leading the Ford Motor Company Pioneering a system that launched the mass production and sale of affordable automotives to the public
Title	President of Ford Motor Company (1906\u20131919, 1943\u20131945)
Political party	\n Republican (1881\u20131918) \n Democratic (1918\u20131947) \n
Spouse	\n Clara Jane Bryant (m. 1888)
Children	Edsel
Family	Ford
Awards	Elliott Cresson Medal (1928)
Signature

Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 \u2013 April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist and business magnate. As the founder of the Ford Motor Company, he is credited as a pioneer in making automobiles affordable for middle-class Americans through the system that came to be known as Fordism.^[1]^[2] In 1911, he was awarded a patent for the transmission mechanism that would be used in the Ford Model T and other automobiles. \n

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 years before this time that Ford first experienced automobiles, and throughout the later half of the 1880s, he began repairing and later constructing engines, and through the 1890s worked with a division of Edison Electric. He founded the Ford Motor Company in 1903 after prior failures in business, but success in constructing automobiles.\n

The introduction of the Ford Model T automobile in 1908 is credited with having revolutionized both transportation and American industry. As the sole owner of the Ford Motor Company, Ford became one of the wealthiest people in the world.^[4] He was also among the pioneers of the five-day work-week. Ford believed that consumerism could help to bring about world peace. His commitment to systematically lowering costs resulted in many technical and business innovations, including a franchise system, which allowed for car dealerships throughout North America and in major cities on six continents.\n

Ford was known for his pacifism during the first years of World War I, although during the war his company became a major supplier of weapons. He promoted the League of Nations. In the 1920s Ford promoted antisemitism through his newspaper The Dearborn Independent and the book The International Jew. He opposed his country's entry into World War II, and served for a time on the 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 under the control of several of his subordinates. He turned over 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 company to his family.\n

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Business positions\n
Preceded by John S. Gray \n	President of Ford Motor Company July 6, 1906 \u2013 July 11, 1919\n	Succeeded by Edsel Ford \n
Preceded by Edsel Ford \n	President of Ford Motor Company May 26, 1943 \u2013 September 21, 1945\n	Succeeded by Henry Ford II \n

v t e Henry Ford
Life and history	\n Ford Motor Company\n history \n Ford Model T \n The Dearborn Independent \n	$\"Henry$
Residences	\n Fair Lane \n Edison and Ford Winter Estates \n
Family	\n Clara Bryant Ford (wife) \n Edsel Ford (son) \n Henry Ford II (grandson) \n Josephine Clay Ford (granddaughter) \n William Clay Ford Sr. (grandson) \n Edsel Ford II (great-grandson) \n Alfred Ford (great-grandson) \n Sheila Ford Hamp (great-granddaughter) \n William Clay Ford Jr. (great-grandson) \n Elena Ford (great-granddaughter) \n
Other	\n Fordism \n Car Entrepreneur of the Century \n The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village \n
\n $\"\"$ Commons \n $\"\"$ Wikibooks \n $\"\"$ Wikiquote \n $\"\"$ Wikisource \n

v t e SAE International
Organizations	\n Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers \n FISITA \n Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des ing\u00e9nieurs de l'automobile \n
Standards	\n ARP4754 \n ARP4761 \n AS9000 \n AS9100 \n SAE J300 \n SAE J306 \n SAE J1587 \n SAE J1708 \n SAE J1772 \n SAE J1814 \n SAE J1939 \n SAE J2452 \n SAE J3016 \n SAE J3068 \n SAE J3105 \n SAE J3400 \n
Awards	\n Wright Brothers Medal \n
People	\n Andrew L. Riker \n Henry Ford \n
Competitions	\n Baja SAE \n Formula SAE \n SAE Aerodesign \n SAE Supermileage Competition \n
Related	\n Engineering Societies' Building \n SAE steel grades\n SAE 304 \n SAE 316 \n SAE 316L \n SAE 440C \n SAE 630 \n SAE 904L \n

v t e Time 100: The Most Important People of the 20th Century
Leaders & revolutionaries	\n David Ben-Gurion \n Winston Churchill \n Mahatma Gandhi \n Mikhail Gorbachev \n Adolf Hitler \n Ho Chi Minh \n Pope John Paul II \n Ruhollah Khomeini \n Martin Luther King Jr. \n Vladimir Lenin \n Nelson Mandela \n Mao Zedong \n Ronald Reagan \n Eleanor Roosevelt \n Franklin D. Roosevelt \n Theodore Roosevelt \n Margaret Sanger \n Margaret Thatcher \n Unknown Tiananmen Square rebel \n Lech Wa\u0142\u0119sa \n
Artists & entertainers	\n Louis Armstrong \n Lucille Ball \n The Beatles \n Marlon Brando \n Coco Chanel \n Charlie Chaplin \n Le Corbusier \n Bob Dylan \n T. S. Eliot \n Aretha Franklin \n Martha Graham \n Jim Henson \n James Joyce \n Pablo Picasso \n Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein \n Bart Simpson \n Frank Sinatra \n Steven Spielberg \n Igor Stravinsky \n Oprah Winfrey \n
Builders & titans	\n Stephen Bechtel Sr. \n Leo Burnett \n Willis Carrier \n Walt Disney \n Henry Ford \n Bill Gates \n Amadeo Giannini \n Ray Kroc \n Est\u00e9e Lauder \n William Levitt \n Lucky Luciano \n Louis B. Mayer \n Charles E. Merrill \n Akio Morita \n Walter Reuther \n Pete Rozelle \n David Sarnoff \n Juan Trippe \n Sam Walton \n Thomas J. Watson Jr. \n
Scientists & thinkers	\n Leo Baekeland \n Tim Berners-Lee \n Rachel Carson \n Albert Einstein \n Philo Farnsworth \n Enrico Fermi \n Alexander Fleming \n Sigmund Freud \n Robert H. Goddard \n Kurt G\u00f6del \n Edwin Hubble \n John Maynard Keynes \n Leakey family \n Jean Piaget \n Jonas Salk \n William Shockley \n Alan Turing \n Francis Crick & James Watson \n Ludwig Wittgenstein \n Wright brothers \n
Heroes & icons	\n Muhammad Ali \n The American G.I. \n Lady Diana Spencer \n Anne Frank \n Billy Graham \n Che Guevara \n Edmund Hillary & Tenzing Norgay \n Helen Keller \n Kennedy family \n Bruce Lee \n Charles Lindbergh \n Harvey Milk \n Marilyn Monroe \n Emmeline Pankhurst \n Rosa Parks \n Pel\u00e9 \n Jackie Robinson \n Andrei Sakharov \n Mother Teresa \n Bill W. \n

Authority control databases $\"Edit$
International	ISNI VIAF FAST WorldCat
National	Germany United States France BnF data Japan Italy Australia Czech Republic Spain Portugal Netherlands Norway Latvia Chile Greece Argentina Korea Sweden Poland Vatican Israel Catalonia Belgium
Academics	CiNii
Artists	ULAN Discography of American Historical Recordings
People	Trove Deutsche Biographie DDB
Other	IdRef NARA 2 SNAC

Early life

Marriage and family

Career

Ford Motor Company

Transmission Patent

Model T

Model A and Ford's later career

Labor philosophy

Five-dollar wage

Five-day workweek

Labor unions

Ford Airplane Company

World War I era and peace activism

World War II era and controversies

Willow Run

Edsel's death

Forced out

Antisemitism and The Dearborn Independent

International business

Racing

Later career and death

Personal interests

Interest in materials science and engineering

Florida and Georgia residences and community

Preserving Americana

In popular culture

Honors and recognition

See also

References

Sources

Further reading

Memoirs by Ford Motor Company principals

Biographies

Specialized studies

External links

Henry Ford

Talks

11 April, 1888