Henry Ford

The Quadricycle was Henry Ford's first attempt to build a gasoline-powered automobile. It utilized commonly available materials: angle iron for the frame, a leather belt and chain drive for the transmission, and a buggy seat. Ford had to devise his own ignition system. He sold his Quadricycle for $200, then used the money to build his second car.

Henry Ford built his first experimental engine using scrap metal for parts. He tested it on the kitchen sink after supper on December 24, 1893. For ignition he ran a wire from the ceiling's light bulb. His wife Clara hand-fed gasoline to the intake valve while Henry spun the flywheel. The engine roared into action, shaking the sink.

Even Henry wore a badge! Ford identification badges began to appear around 1912 and changed in design several times over the years. Henry Ford's badge shown here was standard during World War II for all employees, who were also issued a laminated ID card with a facsimile of Harry Bennett's signature. These picture badges were discontinued in November 1945.

Henry Ford and Ford Motor Company revolutionized the auto industry once again in 1932 with the introduction of a low-priced V-8 engine. By casting the crankcase and cylinder banks as a single unit, Ford cut manufacturing costs and could offer its V-8 in a car starting under $500. Ford's original V-8 design remained in production, with modifications, until 1953.

Henry Ford courted Clara Bryant from 1885-1888 before Clara's mother granted her daughter permission to marry. The ceremony was conducted by the Reverend Samuel W. Frisbie, for a $10 fee. Henry wore a blue suit and Clara a dress she made for the occasion. They were wed in the old-fashioned bay window in the home of Clara's parents, Melvin and Martha Bryant.

This is Henry Ford's first race car. After his first auto company failed, Ford turned to racing to restore his reputation. He raced "Sweepstakes" against Alexander Winton on October 10, 1901, and, to everyone's surprise, the novice Ford beat the established Winton. The victory and resulting publicity encouraged financiers to back Ford's second firm.

This copy of Henry Ford's driver's license allows us to have a better sense of his physical presence. Information on driver's licenses hasn't changed much in the past century.

After his first two attempts at commercial automobile manufacturing failed, Henry Ford found success with Ford Motor Company, established in 1903. The new company's first product, the Model A, was conventional by the standards of the day. It featured a two-cylinder engine mounted under the seat and rear wheels driven by a chain.

Henry Ford's office kept a file of newspaper articles from across the country that covered Ford Motor Company and other topics of interest to Henry. These pages are from the days following Ford's announcement of the $5 per day profit sharing plan in January 1914. While Ford's primary objective was to reduce employee turnover, the $5 day was also excellent publicity.

The Fordson tractor, manufactured by Henry Ford and Son, Inc., was the first lightweight, mass-produced tractor that was affordable to the average farmer. Through this and other efforts, Henry Ford sought to relieve farmers of the burden of heavy labor. Ford gave this Fordson, the first production model, to fellow innovator Luther Burbank, creator of hundreds of new plant varieties.

Scotch Settlement School was where Henry Ford spent his first two years of schooling from 1871 to 1873. In later life, with only a sixth grade education, Ford became known as an educational pioneer with his early Greenfield Village school system. This picture depicts the new class of 1930 at the start of the school year.

Early pilots depended on visible landmarks, preventing reliable navigation in bad weather. Henry Ford's engineers developed a radio beacon that simultaneously transmitted two Morse code letters. Pilots steered until the separate signals merged into one steady hum. The original beacon station building at Ford Airport was removed in 1933 and is now displayed in Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation.

This bound volume contains the minutes of the first stockholders' meeting of the newly formed Ford Motor Company on June 18, 1903 (see pages 7 and 8). The meeting was called to select a chairman and board of directors. A later meeting on July 22 would direct Mr. Ford's salary to be $3600 a year and Mr. Couzens to receive $2500.

The Ford Tri-Motor was the most popular airliner of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Its rugged dependability led Richard Byrd to choose a Tri-Motor for his attempt to be the first person to fly over the South Pole. On November 28-29, 1929, Byrd and a crew of three achieved that goal in this plane.

These few paragraphs from the January 5th meeting of Ford's Board of Directors announcing the a $5.00 a day wage for an eight hour work day brought thousands of workers to Detroit and sent shock waves through the upper echelon of the automobile industry.

This is one of the first shares of Ford stock. It was issued to Alexander Malcomson, a wealthy Detroit coal merchant. He took a liking to young Henry and agreed to back his third attempt at starting a company despite the fact that Ford had failed twice before. Malcomson was instrumental in finding wealthy backers for the new company.

This tap and die set was used by Henry Ford when building the Quadricycle. Taps and dies are cutting tools used to create screw threads.

Ford Motor Company's first checkbook, kept by Secretary James Couzens, shows the struggling company's transition. The bank account started with $14,500 on June 26, 1903. It sank to $223.65 by July 10 after 60 checks. Then on July 15, Ford sold its first car for $850. From then on, the balance kept increasing and the company was off and running.

Portable steam engines like this powered grain threshers, sawmills, or corn shellers. Horses pulled them from farm to farm. In 1882, 19-year-old Henry Ford was able to make this engine run well when an older man could not; his first accomplishment in the adult world. Thirty years later Ford tracked down the engine, bought it, and returned it to operating condition.

These four pages are the original Articles of Association that established Ford Motor Company on June 16, 1903. They provided the company name, the purpose for which it was formed, the place of operation, the amount of capital stock, the term of years the company would exist, and the names of the stockholders. Note that Henry Ford was not president.

The cornerstone commemorates the dedication of The Henry Ford. It suggests a union of nature (Luther Burbank's spade) and technology (Edison's signature and footprints). That unity is borne out by the block itself, made from Portland cement refined from blast furnace slag at the Ford's Rouge plant--a great example of Henry Ford approaching industry like a good farmer, denying the concept of waste.

On April 13, 1934, Ford Motor Company received this unusual product testimonial. In it notorious bank robber Clyde Barrow extolled the virtues of Ford V-8s as getaway cars. Handwriting analysts have questioned the letter's authenticity, but it is the sort of thing the publicity-seeking Barrow might have written.

Ford's Model T mass production system would not have been practical without electricity; by 1919 nine of these Ford-designed hybrid internal combustion/steam engines generated the power needed by the Highland Park plant's assembly lines and associated machinery. By 1926 the engines were rendered obsolete when electricity was fed from the power plant at Ford's River Rouge plant ten miles away.

This is the Ford Motor Company record of the very first Model T, which was assembled on September 27, 1908, at the Piquette plant in Detroit. The production card lists it as Model 2090, car #1. It had 4 cylinders, 2 levers (the second for reverse), and 2 foot pedals. About 1,000 of these early Ts were produced.

The Model T's distinction as a landmark car design can be traced in large part to machines like this -- a high capacity precision machine tool that performed just two production steps on the car engine's cylinder block. The Model T as a design achievement is inseparable from many hundreds of engineering, materials, and production innovations.

This poster is a reminder of the invaluable service extended by the men and women of the Ford Motor Company in the creation of the B-24 bombers so important in helping to win World War II.

Pocket watches were the first mechanical devices to catch Henry Ford's fancy. He made his first successful repair at the age of 13, when he removed the casing on schoolmate Albert Hutchings's watch and extracted a sliver from the works. Hutchings's family donated this watch, believed to be the original, to the Henry Ford Museum in 1933.

This postcard was sent just before the introduction of the Ford Model T on October 1, 1908. Ford exhibited at the Carriage Dealers Show, held annually in New York City. Ford's proposition was probably to entice dealers to sell the Model T. Postcards like this are very ephemeral and we are lucky to have this piece.

In the 1920s, Henry Ford purchased several exquisite Italian violins, including this 1703 Stradivari. From the 1680s until the 1730s, Antonio Stradivari was the leading stringed-instrument maker in Cremona, Italy--an important center of stringed instrument production. Henry Ford's 1703 Stradivari violin was made during Stradivari's "golden era." It is known as the "Rougemont" because it was thought to have been owned by a family of that name.

Ford workers disliked the new assembly line methods so much that by late 1913, labor turnover was 380 percent. The company's announcement to pay five dollars for an eight-hour day compared to the previous rate of $2.34 for a nine-hour day made many workers willing to submit to the relentless discipline of the line in return for such high wages.

The radio beacon may be Henry Ford's most important contribution to aviation. Early pilots depended on landmarks, preventing reliable navigation in bad weather. Ford's engineers developed a radio beacon that simultaneously transmitted the Morse code letter "A" (dot-dash) in one direction and the letter "N" (dash-dot) in another. The pilot steered until the separate signals merged into a steady hum.

The first Ford assembly line at the Highland Park, Michigan, plant was relatively crude. Here, in 1913, workers put V-shaped magnets on Model T flywheels to make one-half of the flywheel magneto. Each worker installed a few parts and simply shoved the flywheel down the line to the next worker.

In response to a letter of good wishes from Henry Ford, Mahatma Gandhi sent this spinning wheel to the industrialist as a gift in December 1941. Gandhi used the spinning wheel as a symbol in his struggle for India's independence and economic self-sufficiency. Gandhi and Ford shared a mutual admiration for one another because of their longstanding commitments to peace.

Henry and Clara Ford lived in Detroit, but preferred spending time in nature. Around 1910, the Fords built a small home west of the city on private farmland near the Rouge River in Dearborn. Here, at "the Bungalow," the Ford family could enjoy birdwatching, entertain friends, and stay overnight. Henry and Clara soon selected this secluded site for their Fair Lane estate.

The radio beacon may be Henry Ford's most important contribution to aviation. Early pilots depended on landmarks, preventing reliable navigation in bad weather. Ford's engineers developed a radio beacon that simultaneously transmitted the Morse code letter "A" (dot-dash) in one direction and the letter "N" (dash-dot) in another. The pilot steered until the separate signals merged into a steady hum.

Henry Ford was born July 30, 1863, and he was no more than three years old when he posed for his first photographic portrait. His parents, William Ford and Mary Litogot Ford, had lost their first son at birth in January 1862, but Henry arrived safe and sound. He was followed by five siblings: John, Margaret, Jane, William, and Robert.

Henry Ford was born in this farmhouse on July 30, 1863. The house stood near the corner of present-day Ford and Greenfield Roads in Dearborn, Michigan. Ford grew up in the house and moved out at age 16 to find work in Detroit. He restored the farmhouse in 1919 and moved it to Greenfield Village in 1944.

Henry Ford always carried a small notebook to jot down important pieces of information or simple reminders of things to remember. The over 50 small jot books give a sense of a busy man trying to capture information on the fly. The contents vary from questions to ask Thomas Edison to names and addresses to grocery lists.

This flag is associated with Henry Ford's "Peace Ship" expedition of 1915. Ford paid to sail more than 100 delegates and reporters to Europe in December 1915. His goal was to establish a conference of neutral nations that could end World War I. While the mission failed to bring peace, it brought extensive publicity to Ford and the pacifist cause.

This lovely poem sounds a bit flowery for Henry but whether composed or copied it is reflective of his strong feelings for his soon to be wife that would last for the remainder of his life. Henry Ford the romantic -- who knew!

Henry Ford crafted his ideal car in the Model T. It was rugged, reliable and suited to quantity production. The first 2,500 Model Ts carried gear-driven water pumps rather than the thermosiphon cooling system adopted later. Rarer still, the first 1,000 or so -- like this example -- used a lever rather than a floor pedal to engage reverse.

Henry Ford the businessman and innovator had a softer side as reflected by this note written to his son Edsel in May 1900. Edsel and his mother Clara were away on a trip to Louisville, Kentucky, to visit Clara's brother Milton. Notice that Henry printed this letter in capital letters to ensure that his six-and-a-half-year-old son could read it easily.

This flag was used on Henry Ford's "Peace Ship" expedition of 1915. Ford paid to sail more than 100 delegates and reporters to Europe in December 1915. His goal was to establish a conference of neutral nations that could end World War I. While the mission failed to bring peace, it brought extensive publicity to Ford and the pacifist cause.

In 1914, Ford Motor was hiring workers in droves. Many were immigrants who could not read or write English and were unable to carry out instructions. Henry Ford organized classes in English. These lessons also included instruction in United States naturalization requirements which led over 6,000 Ford employees to obtain diplomas accepted by U.S. emigration officials resulting in eventual citizenship.

Henry Ford had a vision of farmers being part of the industrial process -- an idea he called "chemurgy." This idea was most completely played out in his experimentation with soybeans, a versatile crop that could be used for industrial products as well as food. This model demonstrates how oil could be extracted from soybeans and converted into many plastic-like products.

In 1918, at the request of President Woodrow Wilson, Henry Ford reluctantly agreed to run for the Senate, stipulating he would not actively campaign. His opponent, Truman Newberry, former Secretary of the Navy, lavished thousands in advertising and public appearances. Surprisingly, Newberry only defeated Ford by the relatively narrow margin of 2,200 votes. Henry never ran for public office again.

By 1920, Henry and Clara Ford found it increasingly difficult to travel with any degree of privacy. They purchased a private railcar and named it Fair Lane. The car had four private rooms, an observation lounge, a dining room, and a fully equipped kitchen. It could accommodate eight passengers. The couple made over 400 trips using Fair Lane before selling the passenger car in 1942.

Henry Ford's first company was the Detroit Automobile Company. Aside from letterhead paper, a few photographs, some newspaper clippings, and this document, nothing remains of it. This agreement stipulates Henry's job as Mechanical Superintendent. In his early years Henry was not the actual president. In this case C.A. Black was president. The company failed because it offered a poor vehicle.

This test tube was one of several that Charles Edison noticed standing open in a rack in the bedroom in which his father had just died in 1931. The attending physician was asked to seal the tubes, one of which Charles later sent on to Henry Ford who kept it with other Edison mementos at his home, Fair Lane.