Father of the Automobile Industry
Henry Ford was an American industrialist who made significant contributions to the automobile industry and to society as a whole. He has left lasting positive impacts on our planet – with continuing global contributions from the Ford Foundation and Ford Motor Company Fund even to this day. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential people of the 20th century.
Ford founded the Ford Motor Company and in 1908 launched the Model T – the world’s first mass-produced automobile. He achieved low prices via efficient fabrication, most notably the moving assembly line production, which made car ownership no longer just for the wealthy, but for many millions, changing the world forever.
Ford made other game-changing contributions to the Industrial Revolution – including the $5/day wage and the five-day/40-hour work week.
He also made important contributions to the aviation industry. He pioneered navigation systems, manufactured airplanes, designed and built modern airports, and established Midwestern freight, passenger and air mail service. During World War I, Ford built aero engines for the military, including a mass-produced engine costing only $40 each – to power unmanned flying bombs, forerunners of today’s military drones.
Henry Ford is also remembered for his generosity and philanthropic work. He established small village factories and built one-room schools in which vocational training was emphasized. He sponsored a weekly radio hour on which quaint essays were read to “plain folks”.
He constructed Greenfield Village, a restored rural town in Dearborn, Michigan that captures much of America’s heritage and remains open to the public today. On the same 200-acre site, he built The Henry Ford Museum – initially filling it with American artifacts and antiques from when American society was almost wholly agrarian. He proudly moved into the museum the actual chair Thomas Edison sat on in his laboratory as he created the electric light-bulb.
Today it houses a replica of the original Wright Brothers’ Flyer – the 1961 Lincoln Limousine in which John F Kennedy was assassinated – and the 999 race car Henry Ford built in 1902 to first break the 1-minute mile barrier.
Most notable, Ford’s legacy continues via the Ford Foundation that he and his son Edsel founded. It supports visionary leaders and organizations on the frontlines of social change worldwide – working on a variety of issues from human rights to sustainable development to freedom of expression.
For the past eight decades the Foundation’s mission has been to reduce poverty and injustice, strengthen democratic values, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement. Today the Ford Foundation is sustained solely by investment returns from a $16 billion endowment. It makes grants totaling $500 million every year.
Henry Ford, a man of modest beginnings, owned the Ford Motor Company outright until he died at the age of 83 with a net worth of $200 billion (adjusted for inflation), making him one of the wealthiest individuals who ever lived.
Our writings are influenced by visionary leaders who’ve influenced society in positive and lasting ways, including of course Henry Ford and his own hero, Thomas Edison. In our stories, we work on a variety of issues, from the importance of family, to AI and advanced technology, to corruption in the corporate and political worlds, human rights, sustainable development, and freedom of expression.
In Adam in Taoland our own hero employed AI to better the lives of others and invented cures for previously incurable diseases. Like Ford, he later contributed selflessly to helping others in need. Reflecting on Henry Ford, let us not condemn the wealthy of our own era – but admire their achievements and be grateful for the fact that so many of them give-back generously, and often anonymously. And let each of us give-back, as one by one we do our parts, however small, toward a safer, fairer, more peaceful planet – where all are free to dream their own dreams – and then go make them happen.
