I invented the modern age: The Rise Of Henry Ford

345 Pages·2013·7.96 MB·English

by  Ford

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CONTENTS
Epigraph
CHAPTER 1
A Homecoming
Saving the farm, then saving the entire past; between the
steam engine and the Apple; “nobody knew anything about
cars”; Fordism.
CHAPTER 2
“My Toys Were All Tools”
The boy who hated farming; McGuffey’s “new green
world”; steam and clockwork; a house without a
mainspring; “the biggest event in those early years”; into
Detroit.
CHAPTER 3
Clara
“He’s a thinking, serious person”; winning a dead man’s
job; electricity; a baby and a seventh home; the Christmas
Eve engine.
CHAPTER 4
Working from the Ground Up
Making a car in a world without any; “a colorless, limpid,
innocent-appearing liquid”; the Bagley Avenue woodshed;
America’s first car race; Henry Ford’s first car.
CHAPTER 5
What Edison Said
Ford’s first sale; “There’s a young fellow who has made a
gas car”; Ford’s first company; a winter drive with
“civilization’s latest lisp”; dissolution: “Henry wasn’t
ready.”
CHAPTER 6
“Glory and Dust”
“We had to race”; Smiling Billy’s World’s Championship
Sweepstakes; Ford vs. Winton: “A thin man can run faster
than a fat one”; the Henry Ford Company; “The
materialization of a nightmare.”
CHAPTER 7
The Seven-Million-Dollar Letter
Malcomson’s gamble; from a toy printing press; the Dodge
brothers; the Ford Motor Company; “This business cannot
last”; the (first) Model A; “BOSS OF THE ROAD.”
CHAPTER 8
Ford Finds His Greatest Asset
“Who in hell are you?”; Couzens bosses the boss; the cars
get shipped; the importance of dealers; an earthquake
proves the Model A; parasites; who was Malcomson?
CHAPTER 9
Inventing the Universal Car
Who wanted it?; Sorensen’s locked room; steering wheel
on the left—forever; new experts, new engine, new steel,
new car; “Without doubt the greatest creation in
automobiles ever placed before a people.”
CHAPTER 10
The Man Who Owned Every Car in America
Selden files a patent on all gas-powered automobiles and
sues their makers; the court finds for him; most carmakers
give in; Ford won’t pay “graft money”; a second trial;
“One of the greatest things Mr. Ford did . . .”
CHAPTER 11
The Model T Takes Over
New York to Seattle on thin ice; learning to drive the Model
T; birth of a dealer; the farmer and the car; caring for your
Model T; the perils of starting it; “Funny Stories About the
Ford”; five thousand accessories; remaking the nation in a
decade: “I’ll go without food before I’ll go without my
car.”
CHAPTER 12
Terrible Efficiency
The Crystal Palace; taking the work to the worker;
speeding up; the twentieth century’s only industrial
revolution; the workers hate it.
CHAPTER 13
The Five-Dollar Day
Couzens and his conscience; “It’s a good round number”;
Ford bids against himself; “every worker a potential
customer”; Ford at his zenith.
CHAPTER 14
Simple Purposes
Telling workers how to live; ugly enough to be a minister;
war; Ford on the American soldier: “Lazy, crazy, or just
out of a job”; Couzens quits; “GREAT WAR TO END
CHRISTMAS DAY: FORD TO STOP IT”; from “peace
angel to Vulcan.”
CHAPTER 15
The Expert
The Rouge rises; the Dodge brothers sue; “we don’t seem
to be able to keep the profits down”; sandbagging the
shareholders; probing Ford’s ignorance in court: “Did
you ever hear of Benedict Arnold?”
CHAPTER 16
The International Jew
The problems of civilization traced to their source; the
Dearborn Independent ; Liebold; “LET’S HAVE SOME
SENSATIONALISM”; “Jewish Degradation of American
Baseball”; two U.S. presidents ask Ford to stop his
campaign; he carries it on for ninety-one issues of the
Independent ; Ford apologizes, saying he had no idea what
was in his newspaper.
CHAPTER 17
The End of the Line
Edsel; his powerless power in the company; Evangeline
Dahlinger and her houses and horses; the “executive scrap
heap”; how to join it: suggest changing the Model T; sales
dwindle; Edsel fights; the last Model T; what the car had
done.
Epilogue
The Model A; “The Rouge is no fun anymore”; buying
every steam engine; “Maybe I pushed the boy too hard”;
the reluctant armorer of Democracy; to bed by candlelight.
A Note on Sources, and Acknowledgments
Photographs
About Richard Snow
Bibliography
Index
FOR CAROL,
who brightened my explorations of Greenfield Village, just as she has everything
else I’ve done for the last quarter century.