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mission statement
The Henry Ford provides unique edu-
cational experiences based on authentic
objects, stories and lives from America’s
traditions of ingenuity, resourcefulness
and innovation. Our purpose is to inspire
people to learn from these traditions to
help shape a better future.
HENRY FORD: become a farmer. But young Henry was fascinated by ma-
A CASE STUDY OF AN INNOVATOR chines and was willing to take risks to pursue that fascina-
tion. In 1879, he left the farm to become an apprentice at a
machine shop in Detroit. Over the next few years, he held
Introduction jobs at several places, sometimes moving when he thought
Henry Ford did not invent the automobile. But more than he could learn more somewhere else. He returned home in
any other single individual, he was responsible for transform- 1882 but did little farming. Instead he operated and serviced
ing the automobile from an invention of unknown utility portable steam engines used by farmers, occasionally worked
into an innovation that profoundly shaped the 20th century in factories in Detroit, and cut and sold timber from 40 acres
and continues to affect the 21st. of his father’s land.
Innovators change things. They take new ideas, sometimes By now, Ford was demonstrating another characteristic—a
their own, sometimes other people’s, and develop and preference for working on his own rather than for some-
promote those ideas until they become an accepted part body else. In 1888, Ford married Clara Bryant and in 1891
of daily life. Innovation requires self-confidence, a taste for they moved to Detroit, where Ford had taken a job as night
taking risks, leadership ability and a vision of what the future engineer for the Edison Electric Illuminating Company—
should be. Henry Ford had all these characteristics, but it another risk on Ford’s part, because he did not know a great
took him many years to develop all of them fully. deal about electricity at this point. He took the job in part as
an opportunity to learn.
Portrait of the Innovator as a Young Man
Early Automotive Experiments—Failure and Then Success
Ford’s beginnings were perfectly ordinary. He was born on
his father’s farm in what is now Dearborn, Michigan, on July Henry was a skilled student and by 1896 had risen to chief
30, 1863. At this time, most Americans were born on farms, engineer of the Illuminating Company. But he had other
and most looked forward to being farmers themselves. interests. He became one of the scores of other people
working in barns and small shops trying to make horseless
Early on, Ford demonstrated some of the characteristics that
carriages. Ford read about these other efforts in magazines,
would make him successful. In his family, he became infa-
copied some of their ideas, added some of his own and con-
mous for taking apart his siblings’ toys as well as his own. He
vinced a small group of friends and colleagues to help him.
organized other boys to build rudimentary waterwheels and
This resulted in his first primitive automobile, completed in
steam engines. He learned about full-size steam engines by
1896. A second, more sophisticated car followed in 1898.
becoming acquainted with the engines’ operators and pes-
tering them with questions. He taught himself to fix watches Ford now demonstrated one of his most important char-
and used the watches themselves as textbooks to learn the acteristics—the ability to articulate a vision and convince
basics of machine design. Thus, at an early age Ford dem- other people to sign on and help him achieve that vision.
onstrated curiosity, self-confidence, mechanical ability, the
He convinced a group of businessmen to back him in the
capacity for leadership and a preference for learning by trial
biggest risk of his life—a company to make horseless
and error. These characteristics would become the founda-
carriages. But Ford knew nothing about running a busi-
tion of his whole career.
The early history of Ford Motor Company illustrates Henry Ford had a wider vision for the automobile. He
another of Henry Ford’s most valuable traits—his ability summed it up in a statement that appeared in 1913 in the
to identify and attract outstanding talent. He hired a core company magazine, Ford Times:
of young, highly competent people who would stay with
“I will build a motor car for the great multitude. It will be large
him for years and make Ford Motor Company into one
enough for the family but small enough for the individual to run
of the world’s great industrial enterprises. The new com-
and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best
pany’s first car was called the Model A, and a variety of
men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineer-
improved models followed. In 1906, Ford’s 4-cylinder,
ing can devise. But it will be so low in price that no man making a
$600 Model N became the best-selling car in the country.
good salary will be unable to own one—and enjoy with his family
But by this time, Ford had a vision of an even better, cheaper
the blessings of hours of pleasure in God’s great open spaces.”
“motorcar for the great multitude.” Working with a small
group of employees, he came up with the Model T, It was this vision that moved Henry Ford from inventor and
introduced on October 1, 1908. businessman to innovator. To achieve his vision, Ford drew
on all the qualities he had been developing since childhood:
The Automobile—A Solution in Search of a Problem curiosity, self-confidence, mechanical ability, leadership, a
preference for learning by trial and error, a willingness to take
As hard as it is for us to believe, in 1908 there was still much
risks, and an ability to identify and attract talented people.
debate about exactly what automobiles were good for. We may
see them as necessary parts of daily life, but the situation in
One Innovation Leads to Another
1908 was very different. Americans had arranged their world
to accommodate the limits of the transportation devices avail- Ford himself guided a design team that created a car that
able to them. People in cities got where they wanted to go by pushed technical boundaries. The Model T’s one-piece
using electric street cars, horse-drawn cabs, bicycles and shoe engine block and removable cylinder head were unusual
leather because all the places they wanted to go were located in 1908 but would eventually become standard on all cars.
within reach of those transportation modes. The Ford’s flexible suspension system was specifically
designed to handle the dreadful roads that were then typical
Most of the commercial traffic in cities still moved in
in the United States. The designers utilized vanadium alloy
horse-drawn vehicles. Rural Americans simply accepted the
steel that was stronger for its weight than standard carbon
limited travel radius of horse- or mule-drawn vehicles. For
steel. The Model T was lighter than its competitors, allowing
long distances, Americans used our extensive, well-developed
its 20-horsepower engine to give it the performance equal
railroad network. The fact was that people did not need
to that of more expensive cars.
automobiles to conduct their daily activities. Rather, the
people who bought cars used them as a new means of recre-
ation. They drove them on joyrides into the countryside. The
Chapter 2 zine that the “greatest need today is a light, low-priced car
with an up-to-date engine with ample horsepower, and built
THE MODEL T AND THE ASSEMBLY LINE of the very best material. . . . It must be powerful enough for
American roads and capable of carrying its passengers any-
where that a horse-drawn vehicle will go without the driver
Introduction being afraid of ruining his car.”
On October 1, 1908, the Ford Motor Company introduced The same year Henry Ford made that statement, his com-
one of the most famous and influential products in the his- pany introduced a car that met many of those requirements,
tory of American business—the Ford Model T. By the time the Ford Model N. But it had several shortcomings and
the last the Model T rolled off the assembly line in 1927, it still seated only two or three people. Henry Ford thought
had made the company and its founder famous, wealthy and he could do better. Early in 1907, he ordered construction
powerful—and altered American society forever. The key to of a room in the northeast corner of the third floor of the
the Model T’s success was Henry Ford’s ability to recognize company’s plant on Piquette Avenue in Detroit. Behind the
what Americans wanted in an automobile and then deliver padlocked door of that room, Henry Ford and a small group
such an automobile at a price most could afford. of his closest associates created the Model T.