Opinions/facts wanted regarding Henry Ford

[Guest prs519]

I have heard it said numerous times, that the main motivation behind Ford's implementation of the $5 day, was that he would thereby enable his workers to buy the cars he sold. Having read his autobiography, I will fail to believe this till I am shown otherwise. Henry's goal was self-stated as "build more and better cars cheaper" (and all else takes care of itself). Big as the Ford employee base was, it seems to me naive that he would target his own people to think the $5 wage would attain this purpose of car affordability (although it no doubt did enable some to buy his Model T). Pundits go on to implicate that his $5 was a ruse to start wages rising across the country, thereby enabling many more to afford his cars. If nothing else, Ford was aware that value comes from a better car cheaper, and he surely did not think the efficiency of his plants would spread like fire across the country. Without some increase in efficiency or output, higher wages cannot be justified, let alone maintained. He surely knew how inflationary across-the- board wage increases would be, didn't he?

[ModelTMike]

There are many books available about Henry Ford. In my opinion, one of the things that made him appear great was that he owned his own newspaper and could write what he wanted people to read--more biased than todays mainstream media! Do some more research and you'll find out that the parts of the $5/day wage that history overlooks are very interesting. Just everyone didn't qualify. One probably needs to read at least a half dozen books to get a feel for the "Real" Henry Ford. Over time people have found it easier to read an article about him and form their opinions from there. He's much more complex than that.

[West Peterson]

The PBS series stated that because of the boredom the assembly line caused, it was getting hard to keep workers. In order to keep workers from quitting, the pay was raised.

[trimacar]

As stated, if you research the $5/day pay rate you'd soon find that's only part of the story.

There was a base rate, somewhere in the $2/day range, and whether you got the balance of the $5 was based not only on the employee's output in the factory, but also the employee's home life. Maximum output and a calm home life (settled down, neat house or apartment, no drinking) meant the maximum wage.

Thus, not everyone received the full amount.

However, if it did drive employees to maximum output, then overall costs would drop....

[Studemax]

Read Lacey's biography if you want further insight into this tyrant's mind and motives. Benevolence was not one of his attributes.

I've read Robert Lacey's excellent book about Ford, and no where did I get the idea that Henry was a tyrant. As for benevolence - he certainly was prone to giving away land, money, and other properties to charity, or for libraries and schools. I suspect you merely hate the man because of his supposed anti-Semitism. I will grant you that the man drove Edsel into the grave.

[Bhigdog]

All I know, for sure, about Henry was that my father worked in the River Rouge plant for awhile during the Harry Bennet era. My father HATED, HATED, HATED everything about Ford and Fords until the day he died..........................Bob

[MochetVelo]

There are two more Ford bios just published (listed below), so the interest continues in thie enigmatic man. I do think Edsel was more adept at charitable giving than his father, but Henry was one-of-a-kind.

I Invented The Modern Age, by Richard Snow

Henry Ford, by Vincent Curcio

Phil

[keiser31]

The PBS series stated that because of the boredom the assembly line caused, it was getting hard to keep workers. In order to keep workers from quitting, the pay was raised.

The PBS story also stated how Henry took all of the credit for the Model A......all of the credit his son deserved.

[trimacar]

Ford wasn't a genius, just an excellent practical engineer at a time when the demand for automobiles exceeded both the availability and the cost.

A simple man, he could envision that an affordable car would be the successful car. Such anomalies as Model K were somewhat out of his control.

Once successful with Model T, he used his money and fame as power, both attempting and succeeding in shaping the workplace and public opinion. His philosophy on workers fostered both the need and the rise of union organization.

Without Model T, the United States would have still progressed to a mobile society, possibly a decade later, but it was going to happen regardless.

He was a common man with good mechanical skills, understanding and identifying with the needs of the masses, then elevated to perceived greatness by both success and myth.....

[Marty Roth]

Trimacar stated it very well... Oh, and Studemax, there was nothing "supposed" about Henry Ford's Anti-Semitism - it was blatant!!

[Rusty_OToole]

I thought Ford did a study on what it cost to live in Detroit and raise a family, and set the $5 a day wage accordingly. This was part of the work of the short lived Sociological Department that did research on all aspects of employee wellbeing. It had to be abandoned due to protests against "company snoops and spies" by the workers.

There are plenty of biographies of Ford. He was a strange, quirky guy and a puzzle to me for many years. I finally figured out the key to his character. He was a 19th century upstate Michigan farm boy and remained one until the day he died. All his inexplicable ideas, his resistance to higher education, his membership in the Masons, his liking for square dances and country music, even his anti Semitism and progressive politics, none of these would have raised an eyebrow if he had been a small town feed and grain merchant anywhere in the midwest.

One other quality he had to an uncanny degree, was the ability to stick with a good idea, and abandon a bad idea. I believe this was the secret to his success.

If you think this is easy, try it. If you can keep doing things that work, over and over, and abandon things that don't work, you will be a success in all areas of life.

Two examples. First, sticking with a good idea. Ford built the Model T for 19 years with minimal changes. Everyone in the industry knew this was the best and cheapest way to build cars but only Ford stuck with it for so long, and this at a time when cars were changing much faster than they do today.

Second, abandoning a bad idea. Ford's Peace Ship. In the early days of WW1 Ford announced that he would give up all his money if he could end the war. I believe he was sincere in this statement. He actually chartered a ship and sailed to Norway with crew of ministers, socialists, and do gooders of every stripe, hoping to negotiate a cease fire, working through neutral countries. He sailed to Norway with the ship but after 2 weeks he decided the venture had no hope of success. At this point he abandoned the project and returned to Detroit.

This was possibly the most important, certainly the biggest thing he ever tackled. He invested $400,000 out of his own pocket yet he dropped it without a second thought.

I don't know anyone else who could have done either of these things.

Incidentally Ford's anti Semitism is very overblown. He took up the idea in the wake of WW1, believing as many people did, that international bankers were behind the war. He got the idea from his Jewish socialist friends. In 1927 he realized that he was misinformed and repudiated these views, shut down the Dearborn Independent and even issued a public apology. He also burned a large and costly library of anti Semitic literature.

[Bhigdog]

Just goes to show how different peoples opinions can be. My wife's father worked and retired from Ford motor company for thirty five years finishing up as a metallurgist. His dad, my wife's grandfather, was Henry Fords chef of many years. The Ford benefit system was very good. You would be hard pressed to find a company these days with those kind of benefits today. All the medical bills when her father got sick and after his death, taking care of my mother in law for over twenty years, then taking care of her and her medical bills before she passed I would say was pretty good. That doesn't even take into the consideration to all the members of the family on getting cars at a considerable discount or the investments that were matched by the company in regards to 401's. And no, it wasn't the unions...... he was a MPS employee.

Probably Henry's chef or metallurgist wasn't told to **** in his pants while working on the line or was smacked in the back of the head if a headliner had a wrinkle in it. Just sayin..........Bob

[Guest prs519]

How do you beat a guy's AUTObiography, for a window to his soul?

[West Peterson]

I'm not knocking Ford one way or the other, only as a general answer to your question: Actions speak louder than words.

Edited June 27, 2013 by West Peterson (see edit history)

[trimacar]

The direction this thread took certainly borders on the bizarre.......

[Bhigdog]

Just saying ....Bob. That kind of behavior exist, everywhere and you know it. I don't believe it was company policy though. Do you? I know for a fact it is not in our U.S.A.'s military policy but I've seen it happen there plenty of times too. Should we condemn the U.S. military? I think not. I even saw that kind of behavior while growing up in grammar school through high school. What about that?

If you reread my O.P. I stated "all I know for sure" and then stated my Dad's feelings towards Ford. The post is factually correct. As to Ford's "official" company policy at the time I can only go by what most biographers and historians write. The consensus seems to be that Harry Bennett's personal policies towards the production workers were tantamount to Company policy, If not by direction from Henry then at the very least least by acquiescence. As to whether their defacto policy of intimidation, humiliation and thuggery extended to the white collar workers I can't comment...........Bob

[John_Maine]

In my view, Henry Ford was an engineering genius in much the same vein as Thomas Edison. Not only did they come up with the basics (Ford automobile, Edison light bulb - for one), they both had to come up with the infrastructure for their "inventions" and yes, I know Ford did not invent the automobile. They were both practical men but not highly educated or terribly worldly and thus their prejudices showed through. I am sure he has passed by now but 20 years ago I had some correspondence with Prof. David Lewis who used to write a column on Ford for "Cars & Parts." He was looking for information on Mellie Dunham, Ford's favorite fiddler and at the time, my town was having a Mellie Dunham Festival as Mellie was from here - so I wrote Prof. Lewis and asked if he would like a copy of the booklet on Dunham published by our town historical society. He responded in the affirmative and sent me some info on Ford which I still have somewhere. Prof. Lewis was an excellent authority on Henry Ford and any articles/books on Ford by Lewis would be worth searching for - but I digress. I agree the Harry Bennett years were a shameful era for the company but they arose out of Ford's contempt for labor unions. On the other hand, I think it is unfair to Henry to say that he drove Edsel to his death. He was absolutely rotten to Edsel because he (Edsel) was not "manly" enough in Henry's view but Edsel died of stomach cancer which he likely would have had even if he'd had a normal relationship with his father. Perhaps Henry's treatment of Edsel brought this on sooner than it might have otherwise, but we'll never know for sure. About the PBS series, there are a lot of errors in it so I wouldn't take it as gospel even though the Edison/Ford Museum in Ft. Myers uses it and sells copies of it.

[West Peterson]

David Lewis is still with us. Professor Emeritus of Business History, University of Michigan

[Guest prs519]

I have heard that Henry inadvertently contributed quite literally to Edsel's death by insisting that Edsel drink unpasteurized milk, which greatly irritated his ulcers. A sad thing, indeed, as the intentions were good. I do not know how much credibility this has.

[Guest Magoo]

The $5 day is a complicated issue that is argued at length to this day in business schools. The best place to start might be with volume one of the Allan Nevins biography -- Ford: The Man, the Times, and the Company

One factor that cannot be overlooked -- yet usually it is -- is the extreme labor shortage in the Detroit area at the time. The city's population doubled in these early years of the industry, yet the growth was still insufficient to meet the demand.

Also, among all the automakers, the Ford Highland Park plant in particular had a huge employee turnover rate. Most of the workers, including a large number of immigrants, were not accustomed to working in large factories at all, let alone in the high-volume, high-pressure methods the company wasl inventing at that moment.

As for Ford's overall psychology: with all his accomplishments, people tend to forget that he was born in 1863 and raised in the absolute middle of nowhere in rural Michigan. He had a number of seemingly progressive ideas, but by modern standards he was an uneducated, unworldly person. Many aspects of his thinking, for example his anti-semitism, were rooted mainly in ignorance.

[Guest Magoo]

David Lewis is still with us. Professor Emeritus of Business History, University of Michigan

Saw him at the SAH Leland chapter meeting a few weeks ago. We owe him a lot. I always looked forward to his column in Cars and Parts each month.

[smithbrother]

It is my belief that Henry had like many of us, FLAWS, many of them, but I also feel he played a major role in the mass production of the automobile. At the very least he sped up the creation of such, IMO.

He had vision, and was as far as I can tell, determined to produce a car that masses could afford.

Henry wasn't the first to push a son to hard, it is still going on today. I have a friend that has been very successful in his business, but just won't accept the fact that his, (very nice son) is not a carbon copy of himself. It isn't easy for a son to work in his father's business, IMO. Ask my son.

Dale in Indy

[trimacar]

Seriously, Pop.

That's what my son asks when my comments or statements are somewhat left field.

Seriously, this thread was edited to eliminate some of the interesting, but possibly off topic, statements?

I didn't read anything in the deleted comments that would involve lawyers, I realize that the forum is not "free speech", but seriously, there's an over reaction here........