Henry Ford and His Contribution

At the turn of the last century, everything was booming! The growth of the economy and the stock market increased job opportunities as well as morals. Out of the woodwork of this industrial revolution came a humble yet driven man - Henry Ford.

Henry Ford was one of the most brilliant entrepreneurs of the last millennium. In creating the automobile assembly line, a controversial and unorthodox approach at that time, Henry Ford catapulted the Ford Motor Company which ultimately became a conglomeration of one of the most successful corporations in the world.

"Ford's five-dollar-a-day plan, his policies on running the company, and his relations with customers, made Ford seem a suspicious and seedy character. However, these controversial plans and policies helped to epitomize the success of the company. The Anti-Semitic accusations, and the belief that Ford was taking advantage of his customers, were by far overshadowed by his brilliance and strong influence in running his company. Of course, not everyone supported Ford. If fact, there were many gainsayers who believed that Ford's controversial programmes would eventually lead to the downfall of the Ford Motor Company and to Henry Ford's ruin. Contrariwise, by the mid-twenties, Ford Motor Company was already the world's most successful automobile company.

Henry Ford was the godfather of the automobile industry. The development of his River Rouge plant was considered an "industrial Cathedral." Hundreds waited, month after month in front of the employment building hoping to be hired. To foreign immigrants, it meant hope and a successful future. The River Rouge plant employed over 50,000 employees. Poles, Lithuanians, Germans, and almost every western European country could be represented at the Ford Plant.

Like a father, Henry Ford began educational programs, teaching his illiterate employees how to read and write English. Company picnics, and dinners were all part of Ford's policies that were so unusual and, yet, so brilliant at that time.

The most controversial action of Ford was his hiring of former convicts. It was said that thousands of former convicts were taken on Ford Motor Company's payroll over the course of the years - all at Ford's request. This was certainly odd since there was no shortage of workers who were willing to work at Ford. Why did Henry Ford take the risk of hiring potentially dangerous ex-criminals? Ford's right-hand man, Harry Bennett, explained that Henry Ford was very sympathetic towards former convicts who were shunned by society and whom no one wanted to employ.

By 1914, Ford was manufacturing more than six hundred cars a day. Between 1914 and 1921, earnings soared from 25 million to 78 million. At the close of 1923, there were 6,221 passengers cars in the city of Detroit -one for every 6 persons - of which 41% were Fords.

Henry Ford was not a greedy man. His sometimes unorthodox views and policies only made his company even more successful. Throughout the depression, Ford offered a sense of hope for his employees. Ford wanted his workers to be moral citizens: people that could offer not only the Ford Motor Company, but his country, loyalty, leadership, and trustworthiness.