Take a Test Drive with Henry Ford

On June 4, 1896, a young and ambitious engineer employed by the Edison Illuminating Company put an experiment to the test. The experiment was a self-propelled vehiclecalled the Quadricycleand the engineer went by the name of Henry Ford.

The son of an Irish immigrant, William Ford, and his wife, Mary, Ford was born July 30, 1863 in Greenfield Township, Michigan. When Ford was twelve or thirteen, his father gave him a pocket watch. Ford was fascinated by the timepiece, and he spent hours figuring out how the thing worked. By the time he was fifteen, he had successfully disassembled and reassembled not only his father's watch, but those of friends and acquaintances. At the age of 19 Ford, working on the family farm, expert at managing his father's Westinghouse portable steam engine. He became so good with it, in fact, that he would eventually be hired by Westinghouse.

Ford left the family farm in 1888, marrying Clara Ala Bryant, and running his own farm and sawmill. He began working for Thomas Edison's company in 1891, meeting the famed inventor in 1896. With Edison's encouragement, and with the financial backing of Michigan businessman William H. Murphy, Ford left Edison's employ in 1899 and launched the Detroit Automobile Company. However, Ford was not satisfied with the company or its products, and the DAC would be no more within two years.

Over the next few years, Ford would cross paths with the founders of Cadillac and Dodge before he and a new backer, Alexander Y. Malcomson, formed the Ford Motor Company in June 1903. In fact, the Dodge brothers, whom Ford was contracted to provide with auto parts, were original investors in the Ford Motor Company.

Under the banner of this new company, Ford continued to innovate the American automobile. He built and test drove a new car on the frozen surface of a lake, setting a new speed record of 91.3 miles per hour, and traveling an entire mile in less than 40 seconds. In October 1908, Ford unveiled the Model T, an automobile that was relatively cheap to own$825and simple to drive. Within twenty years, most Americans could drive, and many of them did so on a Model T.

Ford believed passionately in the idea that, in order for his company to be its most productive and efficient, he had to attract and keep the the best skilled employees. In 1914, he stunned his competitors by offering his workers a whopping $5 a day, almost doubling the pay of some men. The plan worked; Ford did not suffer from regular employee turnover and in fact did attract many of the best mechanics and engineers in Michigan.

Today, the Ford Motor Company, still in operation, has become a brand associated with the solid dependability of Americans and their work ethic. And to think that all started 118 years ago, with a strange invention called the Quadricycle.