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An essay about the history of automobiles
An essay about the history of automobiles
Essay of the american automobile industry
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Evolution of the Automobile Industry and Henry Ford
Henry Ford, "the high priest of efficiency," was the tinkerer-craftsman who produced one of many horseless carriages, the automobile. Nearly three years after his only son was born in 1893, Ford succeeded in producing his first car. After months of vigorous work and two final sleepless nights, the Quadricycle tolled out of Ford's garage. The Quadricycle was a primitive machine, with a tiller for a steering wheel, bicycle tires, a bicycle seat and a bicycle chain to transfer the power of the engine to the wheels.
Engine-manufacturing plants did not exist, so Ford's car was constructed entirely by hand, with common parts recycled into new uses. A house doorbell was the horn. The two cylinders were made from scrap pipe rescued from an old steam engine, honed and then cut in half (Taub 17-18).
An attempt to create one of the first automobiles was Charles King. However, his car weighed three times the amount of Ford's attempt at 500 pounds. While King's car could only make five miles per hour, the speed of a brisk walk, Ford's automobile reached up to 20 miles per hour.
Since Ford lacked factory experience, the company folded before a single car could be produced and sold. A convincing win in a 1901 automobile race attracted a new group of supporters for Henry Ford's industry. "With fifty-thousand dollars in capitalization, these supporters set up the Henry Ford Company. But Ford could not set his mind to designing and building the low-cost cars in which he claimed he was interested (Taub 18)." By 1903, Ford designed another car, the Model A. This came with a two-cylinderengine developing eight horse power, capable speeds up to thirty miles per hour. H...
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Henry Ford's invention of the automobile led to many opportunities that people had never before dreamed of. This new invention is one of the main factors that has built our nation to where it is today. Through all of the different models of the automobile, we have evolved to where we are today.
Works Cited
- Barker, Ronald. Automobile Design: Twelve Great Designers and Their
Work. Warrendale, PA: Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc., 1992.
- Clymer, Floyd. Henry's Wonderful Model T 1908-1927. New York:
Bonanza Books, 1955.
- Meyer, Stephen III. The Five Dollar Day: Labor Management and Social
Control in the Ford Motor Company 1908-1921. Albany: State of
University of New York Press, 1981.
- Taub, Eric. Tavrus: The Making of the Car That Saved Ford. New York:
Dulton Book, Penguin Group, 1991.
Henry Ford’s development of the single and unchanging automobile model meant the possibility to concentrate upon a single cheap car for the masses. When The Ford Company began to make Model C for $900, Model F for a thousand, and Model B for two thousand, the profits began to drop more and more each year and progress was being made backwards. The Ford factory was taken control over by Henry who stopped the production of
Shortly afterwards, with financial backing from private investors, Ford established the Detroit Automobile Company. He later withdrew from the venture after a disagreement with business associates over numbers and prices of cars to be produced. Working independently in a small shed in Detroit, Henry Ford developed two four cylinder, 80-horsepower race cars called the “999” and the “Arrow”, with $28,000 of capital raised from friends and neighbors. Henry Ford established a new shop on June 16, 1903. In this facility the Ford Motor Company began production of a two cylinder, eight-horsepower design called the Model A. The company produced 1,708 of these models in the first year of operation.
Henry Ford was born on July 30 in 1863 in Greenfield Township, Michigan he was one of the first American industrialists and wanted to make a difference in the automobile industry. Back then, before 1908 automobiles were expensive that only rich people could afford. Henry Ford wanted to change this and wanted everyone to have a vehicle to drive. He was able to accomplish this by the assembly line, in which it created more cars in less time. The first car Henry Ford made was the Model T created on the assembly line. Ford’s innovation in manufacturing created less expensive cars and higher wage jobs.
Imagine that you are not that rich or not very poor. The very next day you are driving off the lot with a brand new Model T by Henry Ford. The car that is affordable for everyone to buy and it being safe to drive everyday and everywhere. Henry Ford led to the best car manufacturer in the world. The world knows this company because of how Henry Ford got his company to where it is now, how it is a unique company, and it rebounded time and time again. Ford was and is the greatest car company. It is here to stay.
started up in 1903. Of course, it wasn’t all smooth sailing. George Baldwin Selden, an inventor, earned himself a patent for the automobile in 1895. This halted production of the Model A almost entirely. Ford eventually gained the support of other carmakers and eventually shut down the Selden Patent. Henry Ford faced many other challenges including greedy employees, failed model t prototypes and many more things. However, Ford also had his Triumphs in some of the things he's most famous for. First, Ford invented the assembly line. Before, one car would be assembled at a time bringing all the parts around to one place. Ford’s assembly line changed this. Now they could make and mass produce several cars at a time. Heres how it works: a bare chassis would roll down a conveyor. Along the way the engine, wheels, body, and a black paint job would be applied. Going along with the assembly line, Ford was also able to make a cheap, easy to fix,
The birth of the automobile was truly something special. Once a far fetched dream is now what many people believe to be the back bone of the American economy. When people think about the automobile the name that comes to mind is most usually Henry Ford. Although he is not credited with the invention of the automobile, Henry Ford played a crucial role in the development of mass production. The automobile was first invented Europe in 1771 with a top speed of 2.3 miles per hour. A man by the name of Gottliech Daimler produced what was known as the milestone car in 1889, this vehicle traveled at 10 miles per hour (Brown, 105). Not more then a handful of these cars were produced over seas. Not many people had ever seen one, let alone had one. It wasn’t until Henry Ford invented the assembly line, that anyone knew what a car was. Henry Ford and the invention of the assembly line altered the American economy and revolutionized travel everywhere.
Henry Ford was one of the first American industrialists. He is best known for his revolutionary achievements in the automobile industry, and his inventions are still marveled in the modern world today. Henry Ford grew up on a small farm near Dearborn, Michigan. It was here Henry Ford was born, on July 30, 1863. He went to local district schools like the rest of the children from his town, and he excelled in most subjects. As Henry grew up, he spent most of his free time tinkering, and finding out exactly how things work. A pastime that developed thinking and logic abilities, but being a farmer's boy, he had little spare time, for there were always chores to be done. By twelve years of age, Henry was doing a man's work on the farm and had begun repairing machinery for neighboring farmers. His father pleased when Henry would repair a harness, reset a tool handle, or make hinges for furniture, but he was not pleased however, when his son repaired things for neighbors, as he often did, without charging them a cent. It was one day when Henry saw a steam engine powering a farming machine that he dreamed that one day he would build a smaller engine that would power a vehicle and do the job that horse's once did.
Henry Ford incorporated the Ford Motor Company in 1903 with 12 investors supplying him with only $28,000. By 1918 half of all cars in America were Ford Model T’s. The Ford Motor Company developed an assembly line which mandated that all cars produced were painted black because of the paint’s quicker drying time. Henry Ford writes that “any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black (Ford & Crowther).” By 1927, the t...
A motor car for the great multitude a goal for Henry Ford(Schlager 593). In the 1920s, automobiles are rapidly changing the American lifestyle forever because of their affordability and also the development of new assembly technology to lower the cost. Technological innovations of assembly begin to expand and advance for the better throughout the 1920s, which impacts Americans and the people of the world today. Henry Ford, a bold figure during the 1920s, owner of Ford automobiles. His ideas and innovation like the assembly line forever changes the automobile and the way goods are produce. Although there are many technological advancement during the 1920s, the assembly line designed by Henry Ford is the most important innovation of its time because it lowers the price for goods, creates worker friendly well paying jobs, and still largely impacts the automobile industry today.
Thanks to Henry Ford, who revolutionized the automotive industries with his system of mass production when he created the Model-T. But even Mr. Ford had competition when he created his car against various other steam engines and electric cars at the time. “Henry Ford overcame the challenges posed by gasoline-powered cars” (Berman). However, it was Ford’s vision that paved the way for car companies when his Model-T hit great success in America. But Ford’s time in the limelight didn’t last long and by 1920 the sales for the Model-T started to decline due to other competitors beginning to enter the mass production game. It wasn’t the car itself that Ford revolutionized, but how the cars was made that etched him him into history.
Henry Ford was one of the most renowned industrialists in America. Ford invented assembly lines for the automobile which allowed cars to be produced at a much higher rate and at a higher efficiency. He credits his inspiration to his co-workers that
Cars have changed the way people travel and the time it takes for folks to get to their destinations. They have changed the way people think about distance. When Henry Ford designed the conveyor belt system for his automobile factory, he changed the way products were produced in the United States. This technology was expensive when it first came out. Henry Ford's goal was to make cars that middle class people could afford and this vision is still true today.
He jumped around a lot in his younger years, but soon got married and moved to Detroit. This is where he found work at Edison Illuminating Company. Two years later, he was promoted to chief engineer. In his down time, Ford worked on an invention he later called the “Quadricycle”. The quadricycle was powered by a four cylinder gasoline engine.
When Henry Ford was born on June 30th, 1863, neither him nor anyone for that matter, knew what an important role he would take in the future of mankind. Ford saw his first car when he was 12. He and his father where riding into Detroit at the time. At that moment, he knew what he wanted to do with his life: he wanted to make a difference in the automobile industry. Through out his life, he achieved this in an extraordinary way. That is why he will always be remembered in everyone’s heart. Whenever you drive down the road in your car, you can thank all of it to Henry Ford. Through his life he accomplished extraordinary achievements such as going from a poor farm boy to a wealthy inventor who helped Thomas Edison. When he was a young man, he figured out how to use simple inventions, such as the light bulb. He then taught himself the design of a steamboat engine. His goal was to build a horse-less carriage. He had come up with several designs and in 1896, he produced his first car, the Model A. When Ford’s first car came out, he had been interviewed by a reporter and when asked about the history of the car, he had said “History is more or less bunk.” Ford worked in Thomas Edison’s factory for years and the left to become an apprentice for a car-producer in Detroit. While working there, he established how he was going to make the car.
By 1899 Ford created a more proper looking motorcar with the help of wealthy businessman William Murphy. It had high wheels, a padded double bench, brass lamps, mud guards, and a "racy" look. In the same year Ford founded the Detroit Automobile Company. Within 3 years Ford had built an improved, more reliable Quadricycle, using a four-cylinder, 36 horsepower-racing engine. In 1901 his car beat what was then the world's fastest automobile in a race before a crowd of eight thousand people in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. The publicity he received for this victory allowed Ford to finance a practical laboratory for refining his auto ideas. In 1903 Ford launched his own car company, The Ford Motor Car Company, and by January 1904 he had sold 658 vehicles. By 1908 he built the famous Model T, a car that was affordable to the middle class. The automobile was no longer the toy of the rich.