HENRY FORD AND HIS COMPANY

Today we would like to give a speech about the life of Henry Ford and his company called "Ford Motor Company".

Henry Ford was born on the 30^th July 1863 in Dearborn in the state Michigan (US).

Ford left the family farm at the age of 16. He walked to Detroit and there he worked at the "Detroit Dry Dock Company". After three years, in 1882, he left the work and decided to go back to the farm.

In January 1885 he met Clara for the first time, but only at their second meeting she was also impressed in him. The couple were married on the 11^th April 1888, this was Clara´s twenty-second birthday. Clara and Henry Ford´s only son was born in November 1893.

Ford moved to Detroit again to start work at the Edison Illuminating Company. After about two years he became a chief engineer with an increased salary of $100 a month.

In 1892 he constructed his first car. He fitted a motor on a frame with four bicycle wheels.

After two unsuccessful attempts to establish a company to manufacture automobiles, the Ford Motor Company was built in 1903 with Henry Ford as vice-president and chief engineer. At first the company produced only a few cars a day at the Ford factory on Mack Avenue in Detroit. Groups of two or three men worked on each car from components made to order by other companies.

In 1905 there were 50 start-up companies trying to get into the auto business. The backers at the new Ford Motor Company recommended that the best way to maximize profits was to built a car for rich people.

But Ford was from modest, agrarian Michigan roots. He thought that the guys who made the cars want to be able to afford one themselves, so he did not listen to his backers. This smart decision made him successful.

Henry Ford realized his dream of producing an automobile that was reasonably priced, reliable, and efficient with the introduction of the Model T in 1908. This black vehicle began a new era in personal transportation. and it was celebrated as America´s Everyman car.

Ford instituted industrial mass production. Like horses, cars had to be "fed", so he pushed for gas stations everywhere. He also campaigned for better roads.

Because of the growing demand for the Model T, the company opened a large factory at Highland Park, Michigan, in 1910.

In 1913 Ford built a continuous moving assembly line. Workers remained in place, adding one component to each automobile as it moved down a line. Delivery of parts by conveyor belt to the workers was carefully timed to keep the assembly line moving smoothly.

With the World´s first automatic conveyer belt Ford could churn out a car every 93 minutes.

Ford's production of Model Ts made his company the largest automobile manufacturer in the world.

By 1912 there were 7000 Ford dealers across the country and in 1918, half of all cars in America were Model Ts.

Till 1927, when the production stopped, more than 15 million cars had been sold.

On the 7^th April 1947 he died.