The Life of Henry Ford essays

The Life of Henry Ford essays The nineteen hundreds were a difficult time for most people living in the United States. The railroad was the biggest employer in the country. Most people living in this time period were poor. They were sharecroppers who still lived on their former masters land or freed slaves who had little or no education. Even though it was a difficult time quite a few of the technologies we enjoy today, were invented in the early nineteen hundreds. Henry Ford was one of the great inventors of that difficult time period. The oldest of six children Ford was born July 30, 1863 on a farm near Dearborn, Michigan. Ford attended a one-room schoolhouse until he was fifteen years old. While attending school he developed a strong dislike for farm work and a fascination for machinery. Ford left his family in 1879 and moved to Detroit to work as an apprentice machinist. Ford remained working as an apprentice machinist for three years, then returned to Dearborn to help out with the farm work. While at home he still found ways to work with engines and machinery, he often operated and repaired steam engines. Ford then moved back to Detroit were he became chief engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company. Although Fords father wanted him to be a farmer and offered him forty acres of land Ford continued his work with machinery. In 1888 Ford married Clara Bryant, the daughter of a neighboring farmer in Dearborn. Mrs. Ford took an active part in her husbands experiments with engines. Some of the first tests of Fords trial engines were made in the family kitchen, with Mrs. Ford checking the engines oil supply. While working for the Edison Illuminating Co. Ford designed and built and automobile in his home workshop. By mounting a gasoline engine on a four-wheeled carriage body. The car did not look impressive at all. The body shook when the two-cylinder engine was running. The car was steered by a le ...