Henry Ford and His Contribution

At the turn of the last century, everything was booming! The growth of the economy and the stock market increased job opportunities as well as morals. Out of the woodwork of this industrial revolution came a humble yet driven man - Henry Ford.

Henry Ford was one of the most brilliant entrepreneurs of the last millennium. In creating the automobile assembly line, a controversial and unorthodox approach at that time, Henry Ford catapulted the Ford Motor Company which ultimately became a conglomeration of one of the most successful corporations in the world.

"Ford's five-dollar-a-day plan, his policies on running the company, and his relations with customers, made Ford seem a suspicious and seedy character. However, these controversial plans and policies helped to epitomize the success of the company. The Anti-Semitic accusations, and the belief that Ford was taking advantage of his customers, were by far overshadowed by his brilliance and strong influence in running his company. Of course, not everyone supported Ford. If fact, there were many gainsayers who believed that Ford's controversial programmes would eventually lead to the downfall of the Ford Motor Company and to Henry Ford's ruin. Contrariwise, by the mid-twenties, Ford Motor Company was already the world's most successful automobile company.

Henry Ford was the godfather of the automobile industry. The development of his River Rouge plant was considered an "industrial Cathedral." Hundreds waited, month after month in front of the employment building hoping to be hired. To foreign immigrants, it meant hope and a successful future. The River Rouge plant employed over 50,000 employees. Poles, Lithuanians, Germans, and almost every western European country could be represented at the Ford Plant.

Like a father, Henry Ford began educational programs, teaching his illiterate employees how to read and write English. Company picnics, and dinners were all part of Ford's policies that were so unusual and, yet, so brilliant at that time.