Ford Company History

The History of Ford Motor Company

Henry Ford, the man who created the Ford company, at a young age was always curious of fixing and creating things.At the age 16 he left his family farm to become an apprentice for a machinist at a shipbuilding firm.Henry was able to service and operate steam engines. He married his first wife named Clara Bryant in 1888. He supported him and his wife by running a saw mill for several years. He and his wife moved to Detroit and he worked at Edison Illuminating company and moved through the ranks fast. He was on call 24 hours a day and since he had weird hours he worked on his new invention the Quadricycle. The Quadricycle was made in the year of 1896 which ran on 4 bicycle wheels. The vehicle

The Model A was later discontinued in 1931. In 1932 Ford Motor Company introduced the V8. But sadly by 1936 the company had dropped down in number three in automotive sales. He also waged a war against unionization of labor. He refused to come to terms with United Automobile Workers even tho his competitors did. Ford’s security clashed with the UAW at the “Battle of the Overpass” at the Rouge plant. After the clash the National Labor Relations Board ordered Ford to stop interfering with the union. “Ford Motor Company signed its first contract with UAW in 1941, but not before Henry Ford considered shutting down the company to avoid it.”

Ford’s political views got him a reputation in the U.S. He did have a view of the U.S. not being involved in World War 1. He ran for senate in 1918 and had failed in getting the seat. “In the Dearborn Independent, a local newspaper he bought in 1918, Ford published a number of anti-Semitic writings that were collected and published as a four volume set called The International Jew.” In later years he expressed his admiration of Adolf Hitler and in the year 1938 he received the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, which is the highest medal the Nazi’s regiem had for

“Ford common stock goes on sale, with 10.2 million shares sold in the first day, representing 22 percent of the company.” Also that year Ford starts test crashing their cars. Since that year ford had crash tested 31,000 times all over the world. In the recent years Ford uses virtual test crashing to gather the most data for their cars. In 1956 Ford goes into the stock market and at the time Ford’s initial public offering was the largest IPO in history. In 1964 the mustang goes on sale as it is the poster car of the Ford motor company. The Ford mustang was the best selling car of the time and was very popular car. During the time 1961- 1974 Ford owned Philico. Philco made electronics for the public and the military. In 1965 Ford-Philco unveil the control room that helped put a man on the moon. In 1976 the company built seven INTELSAT V satellite for the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization. In 1966 Ford GT40 Mk 2 beats Ferrari’s six year winning streak at Le Mans to become the U.S. first manufacturer to win the