The history of the Ford Motor Company

Essay by cmiller1College, UndergraduateA+, January 1997

download word file, 6 pages 4.7

I am going to take you on a journey through time to start us off on July 30, 1863 in Dearborn Michigan.That is the date of the birth of one of the most well known men of all time, Henry Ford.

When Henry was sixteen he walked to detroit and apprenticed himself to a

mechanic for two dollars and fifty cents a week but his boarding cost three so he

worked nights for a watchmaker to make ends meet. Later in 1884 Henry took of

a little farm his father gave him. He got married and seemed settled down but

after two years Henry moved back to Detroit and worked as a night engineer for

the Detroit Edison Company.

In 1899 Ford helped organize the Detroit Automobile Company. Ford

wanted to build cars that didn't cost a lot so many people could afford them but

Ford's partner's disagreed so Ford sold out and moved on.

In 1903 Ford

developed the Ford Motor Company with only twenty eight thousand dollars. That

money came from eleven stockholders. Ford converted a small Detroit Wagon

Factory into an automotive plant and was staffed with ten people.

The first car Ford produced was the model A. Ford sold seventeen hundred

model A's in the first fifteen months of production. Beetween 1903 and 1908 Ford

and his engineers used the first nineteen letters of the alphabet to name their

masterpieces but some were experimental and never made the line. In 1908 Ford

created the Model T, the car was a drastic improvement over all the previous cars

and became an instant success. By 1927 Ford had sold more than fifteen million

model T's.

On May 31, 1927 All Ford plant's shut down to retool and improve upon the

fifteen year old design of the...