Henry Ford lived two lives. The first half of his life was about building a company to become one of the most successful men in the country. The second half of his life was about maintaining that success.
I hope you enjoy this documentary I made on the life of Henry Ford. What do you do when you're one of the richest and most powerful men in the country? When your name is on over 50% of all vehicles on the road? When you've revolutionized mass manufacturing for the industrial age? Building a gigantic...
business empire from nothing and creating scores of enemies along the way. Before Henry Ford was one of the world's most powerful men, he was a humble boy on a farm with no money, no ideas, and no future. Throughout his life, he grew to nearly autocratic proportion, becoming entangled with countless world figures, from presidents to Thomas Edison and even German Chancellor Adolf Hitler. Ford's journey to building the world's most successful company is the single greatest underdog story. And it all begins with a pocket watch.
This is the amazing full story of Henry Ford. It was soon after the end of the Civil War, on a small farm in Detroit, Michigan, when a hard-working, God-fearing couple, William and Mary Ford, gave birth to their eldest of six children, a boy named Henry. To Henry's father, William, an Irish immigrant, He finally had a son to one day take over the back-breaking work of running the family farm. However, as he grew, it quickly became clear that young Henry Ford was cut from a different cloth than his father.
He had no passion whatsoever for the tedious drudgery of agriculture. While Henry did his best to help out his parents, he hated the sheer idea of working at the farm. Many assumed he was just lazy, as even when he dropped out of Springwell Middle School in the 8th grade, A one-room school?
He still wouldn't put his hours in the field. But they were wrong. Henry had a passion in mechanics.
His innate curiosity for understanding how machines work led him to enthusiastically dismantle and reassemble every single piece of equipment he encountered. When Henry's father gifted him a pocket watch at the age of 12, he mastered taking it apart and rebuilding it in minutes. Before long, he gained renown as an expert neighborhood watch repairman.
fixing timepieces for locals. And this talent would serve him well in life. At 13, Henry's life was altered with a vision and a tragedy.
His vision was in nearby Detroit, when Henry saw his first vehicle that wasn't powered by a horse. It was a tractor powered by a Nichols and Shepard steam engine. The engineer had fixed the chain from the axle of the machine to the wheels, sort of a crude self-propelling motor car. It was a vehicle that filled his mechanical mind with dreams to one day build his own horseless vehicle. However, around the same time, Henry saw tragedy when his mother died due to complications during childbirth.
Being very close to his mother, Henry was devastated beyond words, and his grief aggravated his already considerable disdain for the farming lifestyle, which now felt suffocating with memories of his mom around every corner. To deal with his grief, Henry immersed himself in consuming everything he could learn about engines, even constructing his own crude steam engine model by age 15. But Henry felt steam engines were too heavy and not suitable for lightweight vehicles, and the boiler was too dangerous. Nonetheless, with his mother gone, his father needed Henry more than ever on the farm, and life at home between Henry and his father was getting contentious. By 16, the restless Henry had had enough. Yearning escape from a future he now hated, he abandoned his home, walking nine miles into Detroit.
Seeking both fortune and an escape from farming, the ambitious Henry plunged into the burgeoning world of industry taking shape in Detroit. The city had become a beacon for young engineers, as steam power had rapidly mechanized production. Eager to reinvent himself, Henry dove headfirst into learning everything about machines.
He landed an entry-level job at the Michigan car company Works, but his inexperience led to dismissal just six days later. Undeterred, Henry eventually secured an apprenticeship with the James Flower and Brothers machine shop. Toiling for a meager $2.60 a week, it wasn't enough to even cover a room and board.
So leveraging his childhood watch repair mastery, Henry cleaned and fixed tickers six hours a night, six nights a week, for an extra $3 a week. Despite working two grueling jobs, Henry's passion for tinkering never ceased. Any spare moment found him studying machinist books or experimenting on scrap metal.
Henry then Henry found a job working on motors on iron boats at the Dry Dock Company. And after three years as their apprentice, Henry felt he had learned all he needed. And he was also getting homesick.
So in 1882, at age 19, he went back to his father's farm in Springwells, Michigan. Back home, he did as little farm work as possible. Instead, constantly fine-tuning a portable Westinghouse steam engine his dad had recently purchased to mechanize harvesting. In fact, before long, Henry became so adept at operating and maintaining the device that a neighbor farmer paid him $3 just to utilize it on his land for one season. Impressed farmers spread the word quickly of a young wizard who could coax the temperamental steam contraptions into optimal production.
And this soon captured the attention of Westinghouse Company's regional manager, who hired Henry to service and install their steam tractors across rural southern Michigan and Ohio. The machines that had been Henry's ticket out of Detroit now tethered him back to the countryside he dreaded. But they also connected him to his first love, Clara Bryant, whom he met at a New Year's party in 1885. She was a friend of his sister Mary, and though Clara at first resisted Henry's advances, eventually the two married and moved on to a 40-acre plot gifted by Henry's father. But it didn't settle Henry's ambition.
The Industrial Age was taking root in big cities, And Henry wanted to be part of the excitement. In 1891, at 28 years old, Henry and Clara packed up their meager belongings in rural Michigan and moved into a tiny apartment in bustling Detroit. Henry was driven by whispers he'd read in a British magazine about an exciting new invention taking place in Germany, the gasoline engine. Unlike noisy belching steam engines needing half an hour to build pressure before use, these gasoline-fueled motors generated power via small controlled explosions right inside the contraption itself. Germany was scrambling to roll out production versions, but in America, in the early 1890s, gas engines were virtually unheard of.
Henry felt positively electrified reading about this development. He had to see one up close. After months of fruitless searching, Henry eventually located a sole gas engine specimen in a Detroit warehouse owned by an eccentric Polish inventor known for tinkering. Henry peppered the man with endless questions, pleading to see it run.
And once witnessed firsthand, Henry was positively awestruck by the roaring power and throaty hum. He returned nearly daily, offering to labor unpaid if the inventor would explain its inner mysteries. Try as he might, the technical complexities... of igniting fuel vapors through perfectly timed electric sparks eluded Henry's understanding, but he knew gasoline would be a much better way of powering wheels than steam, faster and more lightweight, and he grew determined to someday build one himself without knowing the first thing about shaping metal, electronics, or machining intricately fitted parts. Craving proximity to industrial technology and electricity, in 1892, Henry eagerly accepted a night shift job maintaining a giant steam engine and dynamo at Detroit Edison's Illuminating Company plant.
In a short time he rose through the ranks, promoted to chief engineer. His expertise mending farm steam tractors qualified him for the $40 monthly salary roll, ensuring uninterrupted electrical flow to Detroit's 1,000 wired homes. Most nights, as the engine hummed reliably, Henry enjoyed ample time to hungrily pour through electrical manuals in the engineering room.
And in 1893, by age 30, he confidently felt he could wire anything. That same year, Henry proudly watched his family grow by one, with the birth of his son, Edsel Bryant Ford. And just months later, rewards of his diligent self-education and hard work showed in a promotion to chief engineer with double his previous salary.
Now earning $100 a week, Henry funneled every spare penny towards his next of session, building his first gasoline engine prototype using second-hand scraps. Fueled by months of frustration, on a dim, chilly night in early October, Henry erupted in triumphant cheers that rattled his tiny garage. His crude, hand-built contraption sputtered, then steadied into the unmistakable throaty hum of success. One explosion led to the next as Henry watched hypnotized, feeding and tweaking his beautiful creation.
And in the wee hours of June 4th, 1896, 1.30 a.m. to be precise, Henry achieved his next milestone. Under cloak of darkness to avoid prying eyes, Henry wheeled a wheel of light.
out an odd bicycle-like contraption from his lab and pedaled furiously through the sooty Detroit dawn. Sandwiched between two rubber-wheeled metal cycles was a pulsating engine fueled by drops of gasoline. Clanking and bucking with each power stroke, Henry's experimental quadricycle represented four years of secret relentless midnight trial and error. Though crude, bulky and nearly uncontrollable, The quadricycle indeed moved by engine power alone, confirming Henry's core theory that a portable gas motor could propel a carriage lacking horses.
When Henry had a chance meeting with Thomas Edison at the Illumination Company, he told the enterprising inventor about it. Edison encouraged Henry to keep going. Henry made several adjustments over the next year, including cooling the engine to prevent catastrophic overheating. In 1898, When a curious British industrialist offered to buy his history-making prototype for $200, Henry took the money to make a more improved version. Henry envisioned that perhaps one day, there would be a way to create a simple, reliable gas-powered car, affordable to average workers trying to escape a life of only moving as fast as their feet or horses could carry them.
People called him a fanciful dreamer, but Henry felt confident he could make this dream a reality. What he needed was investors. and failure was not an option. With support from Detroit's mayor, Henry feverishly constructed his second, larger experimental automobile prototype.
Sturdier and heftier than his previous creation, this model caught the eye of William Murphy, a wealthy lumber merchant. After personally test-driving Henry's ungainly but roaring vehicle, Murphy proposed a partnership on the spot. Henry managed to acquire acquire a total of 12 investors and a capital of $15,000, and on August 5, 1899, Detroit Automobile Company was birthed as America's 17th motor car startup.
While Henry was the mechanical superintendent and could make a car run, he wasn't capable yet of manufacturing enough of those cars to make a company run. There were many other brands of horseless carriages at this point, and all of them were handmade and extremely expensive. And because of this, cars only serve the function as a luxury item for the rich. But Henry was thinking different.
While directors pressed for sensible production of saleable motor carriages for the elite, Henry sank company resources into radical personal pet projects, unlikely to deliver near-term revenue. He built a delivery wagon model for hauling light goods, but unfortunately it wasn't what his shareholders wanted. They wanted a variety of different vehicles, all built as quickly as possible. to sell for top dollar to rich hobbyists.
But Henry was a perfectionist and worked slow. Also, Henry relied on outside vendors to supply most components. So delays in tentative supply chains meant entire factory shutdowns while awaiting back-ordered parts. Crippling any efficiency gains, Henry was in constant conflict with shareholders who grew furious with constant production delays. Eventually, Henry's venture capsized just a year later.
Sinking under the weight of his lofty ambitions colliding with boardroom pragmatism, after two years of operation, a mere 20 vehicles had been constructed, an abysmal total. With cash reserves evaporated, Henry was unceremoniously dismissed from his own company. But true to his irrepressible nature, he remained unfazed, taking it as a lesson learned, not a legacy cemented.
Failure is only the opportunity to more intelligently begin again, he said. In truth, Henry also felt relief to be unburdened from the executive duties and impatient investors, who couldn't see the trailblazing long view as he did. He was now free to build purely as he wished without compromise, and he decided to get into racing.
And this time, he wouldn't fail. Understanding that winning races carried publicity value far exceeding actually selling motor cars to the ultra-wealthy, Henry pivoted his next venture to designing speedy, nimble race cars to pit against rival car makes. Henry felt strongly that race cars exuded visceral excitement many Americans craved, and beating other backers'cars would broadcast Henry's engineering wizardry for all to see, attracting possible new investors for all his future endeavors.
Henry saw that other race cars at the time were too focused on power, so Henry thought he would focus on weight. He started on a lightweight 26-horsepower two-cylinder race car, which he used to win his first race, a 10-lap competition at the Detroit Driving. Club.
Henry's newly constructed race car faced off against the fearsome machine of legendary Cleveland car builder Alexander Winton, piloted by America's top professional driver. To the shock of all, Henry's 26-horsepower stripped-down speedster triumphed. And as word spread, it faulted Henry's confidence and credibility to attempt forming a new automobile firm.
So much so, in fact, that some of Henry's old investors from his first company including Mayor Murphy and coal baron Alexander Malcolmson, re-approached him to create a second company, which they called the Henry Ford Company. The goal of the newly formed Henry Ford Company was to produce lightweight city cars. However, Henry's recent success in racing had his mind racing about building more race cars.
And so very quickly, just like his first failed company, Henry was at odds with the shareholders of his namesake company. Tension simmered. with Henry continually dedicating the firm's capital towards further race car development, rather than the sensible passenger models that his executive board expected would turn actual profit.
Once again, investors were extremely frustrated with Henry Ford, and eventually replaced him as chief engineer. Thus, Henry Ford left the Henry Ford Company. His company was now headed up by master engineer Henry Leland, who would have great success after the Henry Ford Company was renamed to the founder of Detroit, Cadillac.
Henry Ford had two failed businesses, but he wasn't going to give up that easily. He continued to work on race cars, and in 1901, he created the groundbreaking 80-horsepower Ford 999. And two years later, his next car broke all American driving records with a top speed of 56 miles an hour. And this success in the racing world helped Henry Ford's reputation, which once again attracted the attention of investors who wanted to work with the determined mechanic and engineer.
This time, Henry thought there must be some way to turn his innovative mind into making a profitable car. And if the third time is a charm, in 1903, Henry put his efforts into his third business venture, the Ford Motor Company. Two-time business failure Henry Ford, now at the age of 40, was about to experience success beyond anything he dreamed possible.
Coal baron Alexander Malcolmson still believed in Henry, and he, along with Henry, gathered several new investors for Ford's third attempt at building a car company. Investors included John and Horace Dodge, as well as Malcolmson's uncle, his secretary, and two of his lawyers. In total, they all put up the $28,000 needed to launch the newly formed Ford Motor Company. And Henry told his Ford Motors stakeholders, I will build a motor car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual.
It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men. It will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one. Henry focused on creating an easy-to-operate, no-frills car simple enough for ordinary citizens to purchase.
At the time, most models cost upwards of $1,000. pricing them beyond all but the wealthiest 2% of America. So Henry's populist notion was radical in 1903, when cars remained playthings for the rich, and Henry's top-notch engineering team and clarity of vision was put to use, churning through over 20 experimental prototypes in two years, before arriving at his minimalist Model A, a two-seat runabout with 8 horsepower, 1200 pounds, and a top speed of 28 miles an hour.
In 1903, Henry sold his first Model A to a Chicago dentist. In less than a year, over 500 Model A's had been sold. At the same time, the Ford Motor Company was upgrading the line with the Model B. It was bigger, more powerful, and considerably more expensive than the Model A. There was even a Model C with 10 horsepower.
But Henry Ford just couldn't get comfortable with the notion of a luxury car. He wanted to keep it simple. But even as demand outpaced production capacity, Affirming Henry's belief in pent-up desire in an affordable, usable car, the manufacturing still crept along in 19th-century fashion, one vehicle at a time. Each component was painstakingly handcrafted, then combined to form a complete automobile.
Skilled workers clustered around a slowly emerging chassis, like surgeons hovering over a patient. However, everything changed during a visit to a Chicago slaughterhouse. It was 1904 in a cold Chicago meatpacking plant when Henry witnessed live stock effortlessly gliding past workers performing single disassembly tasks. As the cow bodies moved along a conveyor belt, each butcher performed one specific task. It was unbelievably quick and efficient, and Henry decided to adopt the innovation of this assembly line for his own car factories.
By splitting the production process into a series of small individual tasks, he could assign workers to one task each, which they could quickly complete over and over again. with no skill and no experience required. If aligned properly, a car under construction could travel pausing only for each employee to efficiently add their respective elements.
To incubate this production line concept, Henry constructed a massive factory in late 1904 and fine-tuned installation of the unprecedented mechanized approach. Ingenious machines stamped out identical chassis and body parts, conveying them to workers strategically doing small repetitive installation steps as the unit trottled through the plant. Immediately, factory efficiency increased by 500 percent, and Henry was able to quickly expand and hire 300 new employees, since he could hire cheap, low-skilled labor to do these repetitive tasks. As output climbed, prices correspondingly dropped, putting ownership within reach of America's swelling middle class.
And Henry put his assembly line concept to use with his next line of automobile, in 1908 came Henry's piece de resistance, the defining Model T, an apotheosis of dependable, uncomplicated mobility. Priced initially around $850, the Model T's smart design targeted reliability over features, and it attracted a fanatical following. It had the steering wheel on the left, which every other company soon copied. The entire engine and transmission were enclosed, the four cylinders were cast in a solid block, and the suspension used two semi-elliptic springs. Fifteen thousand orders flooded Ford within days.
And owning the entire manufacturing chain was central to Henry's vision for scaling affordability. To that end, he constructed a maze of maximally efficient factories, supplying every conceivable part, sub-assembly, and raw material. This unprecedented coordination of mass production enabled sweeping economies of scale.
By 1910, booming demand for Model Ts forced Henry to construct an enormous new factory in Highland Park, capable of producing over 700 cars daily. Rather than workers walking around a fixed chassis, the Model T frame now came to them, snaking through the plant. Stations were strategically spaced, allowing each employee to efficiently bolt on their two parts as the vehicle glided by. This revolutionary workflow collapsed 12-hour build times down to just 90 minutes, and every Model T rolled out of the factory with the same color and same interchangeable parts. It was an immediate bestseller, and it brought in huge profits for the company, allowing them to ramp up production even further.
By 1914, Henry was selling more cars than all other car manufacturers in America combined, generating over $300,000. thousand cars annually. In just five years, output roared from a meager 20,000 units to over 1 million. And Henry continued chopping prices in lockstep with their swelling manufacturing prowess.
As volumes doubled yearly, Henry slashed Model T prices. In fact, by 1916, the Model T that once cost $850 was now selling for less than $400. His blockbuster recipe seemed bulletproof. Optimize production, cut cost, pump savings into greater output, and lower sticker prices further to exploit demand. Before long, 50% of the cars on the road were Fords, and Henry Ford was a household name, on his way to becoming one of the richest and most powerful men in America.
When the Model T car chassis was put into motion along a human assembly line, forever transforming how cars would be made, It also created problems. By hiring cheap labor to do simple repetitive tasks, it began to wear down the workers'mental well-being. They would lay in bed at night, dreaming they were still at the factory, working.
And it was creating high turnover rates. New enthusiastic employees would quickly realize that the job wasn't so easy after all, and turnover was getting so high that it would take 1,000 men just to fill 100 positions. Also, Henry Ford had been known for slowly speeding up the assembly line each week, just to squeeze a few more cars a day into the system.
And Henry also knew that he couldn't have the assembly line stop. or it would crash the entire operation. So Henry Ford did the nearly unthinkable. He doubled the average worker's wage from roughly $2 per day to $5 a day, an unheard of salary for manual labor in the early 1900s. $5 a day easily solved the worker's turnover rate, but higher wages only created yet another problem, angry investors.
Since Henry didn't want to raise the price of the automobile for consumers, he decided the money would come out of the profits he would pay as dividends. And his investors were not happy. They didn't understand why he would choose to give his profits to his workers. And given the high demand of the Model T, why wouldn't Henry raise his price?
Instead, he was lowering his price. It went against the basic laws of supply and demand. Two of his biggest investors, John and Horace Dodge, felt demand was so high and so too should be the price. John and Horst Dodge were experts in car design and manufacturing, and were currently supplying thousands of parts to Ford. As car experts, they had also been suggesting to Henry ways to improve his Model T, but it was falling on deaf ears.
After multiple failures, success was going to Henry Ford's head. He thought his Model T was perfect. He didn't want to listen to any advice on changes or improvements. The Model T came one way, and only in one color, and people bought it. If it's not broke, don't fix it.
This clash would lead the Dodge Brothers into going into competition with Henry Ford, creating their own car company, the Dodge Brothers Motor Company. And in 1914, they created their own four-cylinder car, the Dodge Model 3035 Touring Car. Marketed as a slightly more upscale competitor to the Ford Model T, it offered an all-steel body, unlike the wood frame of the Model T. And it had 35 horsepower.
compared to the Model T's 20 horsepower. The Dodges sold their car for over $800, even while Henry was still lowering his Model T to half that price. The Dodge logic was that if someone wanted a better quality car, they'd be willing to pay more for it.
John Dodge was once quoted as saying, someday people who own a Ford are going to want to buy an automobile. And by 1916, Dodge cars were ranked second in U.S. sales, behind only Ford. Henry Ford's response was severe. The way Henry saw it, his two other car companies had failed due to investor meddling. And this time, now a massive success, Henry Ford felt he no longer needed to answer to his board of investors, especially the Dodge brothers, who were also now his competition.
So Henry Ford simply stopped paying his investors their dividends, and instead spent his money on expansion, creating the iconic gigantic River Rouge factory to further expand his car production. Soon after, the Dodge brothers sued Henry. Between not paying his dividends, raising workers'wages, and lowering the price of the cars without the board's consent, they questioned Henry's ability to responsibly lead the company. During the trial, the judge sided with the Dodge brothers, and Henry Ford was ordered to pay out millions of dollars in lost dividends and penalties.
But Henry Ford Now with the money to do what he wanted, still shocked everybody with two unheard of moves. First, he resigned as president of the Ford Motor Company, naming his only son Edsel, aged 26, as president of Ford Motors. It shocked the financial world that Henry Ford would resign as head of Ford Motors and the stock prices crashed.
Then, Ford turned around and bought out nearly all of the investor company shares. essentially putting the majority of the ownership of Ford Motors under the umbrella of the Ford family name. It cost him today's equivalent of nearly $700 million.
But from that point on, Henry was the dictator of Ford Motors. He didn't have to answer to anyone else. Whatever Henry wanted, Henry got.
Ironically, only one year later, in 1920, both John and Horace Dodge would die due to the Spanish flu epidemic. Henry Ford's success was growing so quickly that he was starting to believe a narrative about himself that, as a man who revolutionized the auto industry and modernized the workforce in America, that he alone also knew how to solve the rest of the world's problems. During the same years as the Model T was taking off, Henry Ford was now becoming worldly. As a farm boy, he was raised as a pacifist who opposed war.
and he also supported causes that opposed military intervention. But now, as rich and powerful, Henry Ford's air force has been a great help to the country. arrogance was starting to cloud his judgment.
He thought, I'm the man who revolutionized the world with the Model T and the $5 workday. Why can't I speak out about otherworldly things? And in 1915, with tensions breaking out in Europe, Henry thought he had the power to single-handedly stop World War I from happening.
Henry Ford chartered an ocean liner, the Oscar II, and headed to Europe as a peace advocate on a diplomatic mission. to broker peace in Europe before the war escalated. Ford had reached out to President Woodrow Wilson for support, but Wilson felt that Henry was doing a fool's errand and declined. Even Henry Ford's friend Thomas Edison declined joining the peace ship to Europe. Nonetheless, Henry Ford thought he could create peace in Europe and set out November 15th.
His efforts were a disaster, with reporters claiming of infighting on the cruise liner amongst other pacifists. dubbing the trip a ship of fools. Upon arriving in Norway three weeks later, Henry quickly realized the error of his ways and turned around and went home.
Clearly, he had built a powerhouse company, but that didn't mean he had the power to stop world war. But it wasn't all bad. Upon his return to the United States, people hailed Henry as a hero for trying.
And throughout the eventual war, Ford would support the United States war effort. supplying weapons including Liberty warplane engines and a submarine chaser, the Eagle Boat. After World War I ended, President Wilson urged Ford to run for U.S. Senate. Henry said that he would run, but he wouldn't invest any of his own money on a campaign.
He lost by a narrow margin of just 7,000 votes. For Henry Ford, his need for power and control were growing. Even as things were starting to loosen from his grasp, even though Henry Ford was no longer president of his namesake Ford Motors company, he had no intention to move away from the day-to-day of running the company.
In fact, just the opposite, as the way Henry saw it, his son Edsel was the perfect puppet to be president. And Henry now got to run the company as its chief investor and final decision maker. Henry and his son Edsel were very different men. Edsel was a softer, gentler family man, raising four small kids, and had grown up in a life of luxury. Henry was a farmer's boy, hardworking, stubborn, shy, and tough as nails.
And Henry resented his son Edsel for not being tougher. Henry Ford never drank, but Edsel was more social, enjoying a night out dancing and drinking cocktails. And as a man growing up in the Roaring Twenties, Edsel had a better sense of the mind of the modern man. Edsel personally liked the newer, flashier automobiles he was seeing on the road, and he begged his father for updates to the Model T. But Henry refused to change.
Henry just couldn't see what Edsel saw, that car designs could change like styles of clothing and types of music. Henry Ford would shoot down any idea Edsel had for an update, even as it became clear that he was going to be a man. clear competition was starting to creep up on the Model T, especially from General Motors. The 1920s were known for its economic prosperity, social and cultural change, and though it would take years for that to fully become clear to Henry Ford, eventually the slowing sales of the Model T, along with Edsel's insistence of a need for an updated car, gave way for Henry to okay the development of Ford's next major vehicle, the Model A. In 1927, Around the time that the last Model T came off the assembly line, the first Model A was released.
Now available in four colors, and not just black, the 40-horsepower vehicle came in nine styles, including coupes, convertibles, sedans, and more. Selling $3 million in the first three years, Henry Ford had done it again with another blockbuster car. But deep down, Henry was never comfortable in the modern world that he helped shape.
He liked an older America more than he liked change. Meanwhile, in the factories, times were also changing with disgruntled factory workers becoming vocal. Talks of union organizing within the factory halls had a real chance of ending the Ford Motor's machine.
Henry had been instrumental in making solid, helpful changes for his workers and for the betterment of their lives. Even beyond the impressive $5 a day salary increase, Ford offered classes to let immigrants learn English, or as some called it, Americanizing immigrants. And Ford also reduced the number of workdays in the week from six down to five, an unheard of benefit at the time, and something that we still use today. Additionally, taking a suggestion from his wife Clara, he lowered the workday to just eight hours a day, another standard that still exists today.
While it benefited the workers, it also benefited Henry, who could now run three eight-hour shifts in the plant, creating 24 hours of continuous assembly line production. Yet despite these benefits for employees, Henry harbored no soft spot whatsoever for independent labor activism, which he despised as abetting laziness and restricting output. So all of these benefits came with a caveat, that the workers would take his kindness and not complain. He called this approach Fordism. And to ensure his workers didn't get out of hand, Henry Ford created a service department, a group of tough thugs whose job it was to intimidate and punish workers who got out of hand and didn't follow Fordism rules.
To discourage organizing, Henry enlisted Harry Bennett, a ruthless former Navy boxer, to head internal security squads, to storm strike lines, swinging clubs with impunity. His men acted as Ford's intimidating shock troops against early unionization efforts by United Auto Workers, leaving workers bloodied and defeated. And this violent battle would play out at Ford for decades.
One of the secrets to keeping the price of his cars low, in addition to the assembly line, was that Henry Ford knew that as long as he could make his own parts, he wasn't at the mercy of outside vendors. However, there was one part that was out of his control, the rubber to make tires. So in the late 1920s, Henry had another grand vision, to build a rubber plantation deep in the Brazilian jungle.
Henry set his sights on Brazil, buying up millions of acres of rugged wilderness, with grand plans to farm rubber trees. And it wasn't just about securing rubber supplies. Henry also wanted to create a utopian community. A slice of rural America in the heart of the Amazon, for all the plantation workers to call home.
He dubbed this ambitious colony Fordlandia. And it was truly astonishing. Single-family homes, shops, a school, golf course, even a modern hospital.
At its peak, over 7,000 souls called it home. But there was a dark underside to this would-be paradise. You see, Henry imposed draconian set of rules on the town folk.
No drinking, no smoking, no sports or card playing, even in the privacy of one's home. A police force was tasked with enforcing Ford's stern edicts. As you can imagine, this didn't exactly endear the workers to either the place or Henry.
And this was just the beginning of Fordlandia's troubles. The merciless jungle climate wrecked havoc. Floods and diseases crippled rubber production. Worker discontent festered.
finally boiling over into open revolt against the overbearing American managers. Despite the mounting fiascos, Henry kept doubling down on his jungle utopia, pouring in millions more. But eventually a leaf blight ravaged the rubber plantations, sealing Fortlandia's fate as a failure of epic proportions. When Henry was growing up on the farms in the Midwest, Anti-Semitism was actually very common. It fell under a general mistrust of the banking systems and those in power.
But as Henry Ford entered his later years, those deep-held feelings began to surface with an increasing obsession, blaming Jews for pretty much everything he didn't like in the world. The Jew caused the war. The Jew caused thievery in the country. The Jew caused problems in our Navy. And while this anti-Semitic rhetoric isn't new, What was new is that Henry Ford now had the money and the power to publish his ideas on paper and spread it around the world.
It was a mix of primitive bigotry alongside conspiracy theory, jealousy over Jewish business success, and progressive era social control, all aimed at cultural assimilation. To propagate these paranoid anti-Semitic delusions, Henry Ford bankrolled a newspaper, the Dearborn Independent. filled with Jew-hating propaganda.
And Henry Ford required every Ford dealership nationwide to purchase newspaper subscription for free customer distribution to boost circulation. At its peak, it had over 700,000 weekly readers lapping up its bigoted bile. He even published his own toxic series entitled The International Jew, The World's Foremost Problem, consisting of over 60 hate-filled diatribes. Jewish advocacy groups boycotted Ford Motor Company purchases over Henry's refusal to halt publication or recant views. Meanwhile in Europe, the Dearborn Independent's hate found eager promotion by rising fascists like Hitler, who revered Henry Ford as an inspiration.
German translations of his anti-Semitic pamphlets and book series continued stoking ominous anti-Jewish sentiment across Central Europe. In 1938, Henry Ford accepted the Nazi officials German Grand Cross, the highest honor the Third Reich could bestow on a foreigner, in tacit endorsement of their racial ideologies, despite international outcry over newsreels exposing fascist atrocities and oppression. Though it is said that when Henry Ford learned about the atrocities that happened during the Second World War, he was horrified for what transpired. In October 1929, the stock market crashed. Millions of people were out of work.
And though Ford would certainly have enough money not personally feel the financial pinch. As sales slowed due to consumer spending, Henry Ford felt he needed to be part of the solution. A terribly shy person and frightened public speaker, Henry Ford nonetheless joined forces with friends Thomas Edison and tire magnate Harvey Firestone in a radio broadcast offering advice during the Depression, saying, if a young man makes up his mind to work, there's no limit to what he can do. But if he makes up his mind to go at it without the idea of work, Why?
He hasn't much changed. His words of encouragement, however, would not stop the eventual slowdown of car sales. And after only three years on the market, Model A sales fell dramatically.
Also, Chevrolet had a six-cylinder engine, and it was cutting into Ford's market share. Ford was forced to shut down production and send workers home. And those who stayed found their wages cut. Frustration boiled over.
And during those years, a young labor organizer named Walter Ruther had been part of forming a union called the United Auto Workers. And they had recently folded GM and Chrysler under their umbrella, and they were setting their sights on Ford. On a bitterly cold day, a crowd gathered to march on the Rouge plant and confront Henry Ford with a demand for more jobs.
At the Dearborn city limits, local police had amassed, but the marchers ignored their orders to disperse. Ford's service department showed up and things got out of hand. Police attacked and a full-scale riot broke out.
Machine gun fire dispersed the crowd. It was dubbed the Ford Massacre. In the aftermath of the fighting, four young marchers lay dead.
A fifth died several days later and there were no new jobs. But during the slowdown, it did make Henry go back to the drawing board, coming up with his last great triumph. the V8 engine.
Chevrolet had brought out a six-cylinder engine, which was more powerful than Ford's four, and Henry didn't like six-cylinder engines, so he went on ahead to the V8. And a Ford V8 could probably do 70 to 80 miles an hour. Tributes from all over celebrated Ford's return to genius.
Fan mail from notorious gangsters like John Dillinger and Clyde Barrow of Bonnie and Clyde fame wrote to Henry Ford, thanking him for making a car that, at the time, was faster than a police vehicle, and the engine helped bring workers back to the factory. With the success of the V8, Ford found time to turn his attention to Herbert Hoover's 1932 re-election campaign. Ford was still painfully shy about public speaking, but he offered these words, I support the best man for the job. Herbert Hoover should be allowed to carry out his program, and I think he will. However, Americans in record numbers disagreed with Henry Ford's politics in 1932, and President Franklin Roosevelt was elected in a landslide.
By now, due to the layoffs and the violent service department, working at Ford in the 1930s was a living nightmare. Ford was the long-holdout company that did everything in his power to keep the union away. It was Henry Ford's ability to wield incredible power and fear.
And it worked. It wasn't until April 1st, 1941, when Andy Dewar, one of the workers in the steel rolling mill, changed labor history at Ford. Andy got into an argument with the foreman and then finally decided he had enough. He started chanting, strike, strike, strike, and all along the assembly line, the chant kept picking up. And that was it.
The workers just stopped. Henry Ford was preparing for a long fight when something unexpected happened. His wife Clara joined the battle, siding with the workers. Clara Ford demanded that he settle with the union.
It was totally out of character for her to interfere, but Clara was afraid the situation would explode into real violence, and she threatened to leave her husband if he didn't put an end to the hostilities. Henry Ford finally caved in. Henry's ears stiffened against the winds of change blowing through the automobile industry.
As sleek, stylish Challengers like Chevy surged, Henry dismissed it. as fads. He remained adamantly convinced working folks still prized function over flash.
He wrote off appeals from executives and his own son Edsel to develop an updated automobile that could compete with General Motors'increasingly ritzy diversified offerings catering to shifting consumers'tastes. GM sold variety and affordability. Ford sold status quo.
Moreover, Alfred Sloan's management structure at GM encouraged innovation and accountability through decentralized divisions, unlike Ford's dictatorship under the stubborn, ill-willed Henry, who still personally controlled every aspect from design to manufacturing. By 1936, Ford had slipped to third in sales behind GM and Chrysler, and the dazzling V8 engine just wasn't enough. Mounting setbacks finally confronted Henry with the painful legacy of his refusal to relinquish.
control. For all his gifts of engineering and vision, he lacked the flexibility to adapt to new realities. And Henry wasn't getting any younger.
By the early 1940s, Henry Ford, approaching 80 years old, had endured cardiovascular incidents, leaving him mentally inconsistent and suspicious. While he should have felt confident in his son Etzel's ability to run the Ford Motor Company, instead, Henry Ford spent more and more time relying on his henchman and head of service department, Harry Bennett, a man who started spending time with Henry daily, even in his home. Henry Ford felt that there was nobody else in this world that he could truly trust to do whatever he said and wanted, and it started to put a strain on Henry and the Ford family.
There was even a rumor that Harry and Henry had begun to conspire on how to have Harry Bennett claim control of the Ford company, and all of this took an emotional and physical toll on the Ford family, a story that would play out over Henry Ford's final years. In 1943, Henry's son Edsel Ford tragically died of cancer. A number of illnesses actually, stomach cancer, liver cancer, and ironically, undulant fever as a result of drinking unpasteurized milk from his father's dairy.
Henry Ford was never the same after his son's death, and trusting no one in the company, the frail Henry impulsively decided to resume leadership of Ford Motors. At 80 years old and in failing health, once again, Henry Ford became president of his namesake company. Most board directors grimaced at the prospect of the elderly founder retaking the wheel, but for 20 years prior, Henry had always asserted a de facto control, irregardless of official executive title. So the board reluctantly elected Henry out of a long ingrained habit. of kowtowing to his imposing will.
The move quickly proved disastrous, however, accelerating the company's decline as Henry's grasp of modern realities faded. Additionally, with World War II plaguing the world, Ford Motors had been enlisted by President FDR to help with wartime efforts. Ford was asked to produce Jeeps, troop carriers, trucks, tanks, and the B-24 Liberator bomber.
It was a strained relationship between Henry and President Roosevelt, with FDR at one point considering folding Ford Motors into the government to make things smoother. Ford was hemorrhaging over $10 million monthly in today's terms. In September 1945, as losses mounted with bankruptcy becoming a serious risk, Henry's wife Clara and Etzel's widow Eleanor confronted Henry and demanded he cede control of the company.
to his grandson Henry Ford II. They threatened to sell off their stock, which amounted to nearly three-quarters of the company's total shares, if he refused. Henry was infuriated, but had no choice but to give in. Henry Ford immediately retired from operations after a half-century firmly at the helm of his industry. In failing health from successive strokes, Henry became increasingly reclusive at Fairlane, his palatial Dearborn estate.
He passed away there on April 7, 1947, at age 83, from a cerebral hemorrhage, less than two years after his storied career quietly concluded. At his funeral, attended by dignitaries, over 5,000 admirers per hour filed past Henry's casket during public viewing at the iconic Greenfield Village Museum he built to enshrine American ingenuity. He was laid to rest near the factory where his revolutionary vision for putting the world on wheels first took shape. Although controversial for past prejudicial views, Henry Ford's broader legacy still stands tall as epitomizing American industrial might at its apex.
He fulfilled his solemn words etched near his final resting place, a man can triumph if he says he can. Today, Ford Motor Company remains an iconic American institution with a value of nearly $100 billion. He fulfilled his own motto, Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger. Henry Ford certainly made the world he inherited dramatically bigger.
And if you're interested in going even deeper into the world of Henry Ford, you're in luck. Here's a video on what happened next with Henry Ford II, as well as the entire Ford family, and Henry Ford's goon, Harry Bennett. All that you can watch, right here, right now.
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