Henry Ford's Own Story

Few Americans have a reputation and legacy anything like Henry Ford's, the man whose name is still associated with one of the world's most famous car companies. Ford is unquestionably one of his country's most famous industrialists, and his use of an assembly line to mass produce automobiles was not only innovative but also made it possible for Americans to own cars en masse. To this day, Ford Motor Company's Model T is a household name more than a century after they were manufactured,...
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Few Americans have a reputation and legacy anything like Henry Ford's, the man whose name is still associated with one of the world's most famous car companies. Ford is unquestionably one of his country's most famous industrialists, and his use of an assembly line to mass produce automobiles was not only innovative but also made it possible for Americans to own cars en masse. To this day, Ford Motor Company's Model T is a household name more than a century after they were manufactured, not only because they were famous cars but because they represented affordable purchases that revolutionized the way people traveled across the country. Cars would never be a luxury item only for the wealthy again. Although Ford's use of an assembly line meant human labor was not as necessary as it would otherwise be, he became known for advocating on behalf of labor rights, including offering an unprecedented $5 work day (the equivalent of $120 today), which doubled how much his workers were previously making and helped ensure his company would be both popular and a destination for workers. Ford helped Detroit become the Motor Capital, and he was progressive when it came to hiring minorities and women. In the process, Ford, who was born into a farming family of modest means, also enriched himself beyond his wildest imaginations, with Forbes magazine recently estimating that his net worth in today's dollars was nearly $190 billion. However, while Ford may arguably be America's most famous businessman, part of that is due to his virulent anti-Semitism and his association with Nazi Germany in the 1930s and the leadup to World War II. He invested in a weekly publication that became notorious for its screeds, and Ford was the only American praised in Hitler's Mein Kampf because of his antagonism towards Jews. Hitler went so far as to call Ford an "inspiration". On his 75th birthday, Ford was awarded the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, which was the highest honor a non-German could receive from Nazi Germany, but one acquaintance later claimed that Ford was disgusted when he saw footage of Nazi concentration camps and what had happened to Jews across Europe.