Henry Ford Facts
Henry Ford Facts
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| Interesting Henry Ford Facts: |
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| Henry Ford was born on a farm Greenfield Township, Michigan, the son of an Irish immigrant named William Ford. |
| In his teens he learned the trade of watch repairman by working on his friend's watches. |
| In 1879 Ford became an apprentice machinist in Detroit with James Flower & Brothers and then with Detroit Dry Dock. |
| In 1882 he returned to the farm where he learned to operate the Westinghouse portable steam engine. |
| He studied bookkeeping at Goldsmith, Bryant & Stratton Business College in Detroit and was hired by Westinghouse to service their steam engines. |
| In 1891 Ford became an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company where, in 1893 he was promoted to chief engineer. |
| While at Edison he experimented with gasoline engines and in 1896 completed a vehicle he named the Ford Quadricycle. |
| Ford resigned from Edison and on August 5, 1899 he founded the Detroit Automobile Company with the financial backing of William H. Murphy but the company closed in January 1901. |
| Ford designed, built and raced a 26 horsepower car in October 1901 and on November 30, 1901 he and some of his previous stockholders formed the Henry Ford Company. |
| Ford left that company, which later became Cadillac Automobile Company, and on June 16, 1903 founded the Ford Motor Company. |
| Ford demonstrated his new car which set a new land speed record of 91.3 miles an hour. |
| Race car driver Barney Oldfield advertised the Ford company brand by demonstrating the car around the country. |
| The Ford Model T was introduced in1908 at $825, but by the 1920s the introduction of assembly line production into his plants had lowered the price to $360 and virtually every American driver had driven one. |
| His other genius was in the field of advertising and self-promotion, and his network of local dealers made his cars accessible to most of the American public. |
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