About Henry Ford
Three giants -
steel, oil, and railways - set the stage for Henry Ford and the beginnings of
motor transportation. In 1864, a year after Mr. Ford's birth, the open-hearth
process was developed and the modern age of steel began. The following year,
the oil industry laid the first stretch of pipelines in the Allegheny River
Valley. In 1869, the American continent was linked from east to west by the
railway.
From his boyhood days, Henry Ford was a master of mechanical logic. From a glance at a machine, he could understand the inter-dependence of its parts and trace the interaction of gears, ratchets, spurs, cams and levers. According to his father, William Ford, neighbors referred to Henry as a young man with "wheels in his head." After leaving home - a small farm just outside Detroit - at the age of 16, he became an apprentice in a Detroit machine shop that made steam engines. Within a few years, he had become chief engineer of the Edison Illuminating Company. His colleagues described him as "highly proficient as a mechanic and as an operational engineer."
Quadricycle
But it was not
enough. In the early 1890s, Henry Ford began tinkering with a tiny vehicle in a
small workshop at the rear of his home at 58 Bagley Avenue in Detroit, a few
blocks from the Edison plant. At that time, any man experimenting with
"horseless carriages" was considered something of an oddity. An
elderly Detroiter said Henry Ford - no exception to this prejudiced rule - was
regarded with some suspicion around the neighborhood. The young inventor was
supported by his wife, Clara, whom he had married in 1888, and by the help of
friends and colleagues from the Edison Company - David Bell, Jim Bishop, George
Cato, and "Spider" Huff.
Henry Ford's first motor spluttered its way into history on Christmas Eve in 1893 - the same year his only son, Edsel Bryant Ford was born. For the next few years, he experimented with engine designs, but he did not begin work on the final larger motor for his Quadricycle until January 1896. A little later he began building the chassis and body of the carriage. In the months before the Quadricycle was finished, he worked night after night until midnight or later, and all day and night Saturdays. According to Allan Nevins, Ford did not mind the long hours. "I cannot say that it was hard work," he observed years later. "No work with interest is ever hard." He was confident of the results - "they always come if you work hard enough."
source: Ford corporation.
Comments
Post a Comment