Summary: Ford E-Book

BusinessNews Publishing

• Herausgeber: Business Book Summaries
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 34

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

The must-read summary of Robert Lacey's book: "Ford: The Men and the Machine".

This complete summary of the ideas from Robert Lacey's book "Ford: The Men and the Machine" tells the fascinating story of the men and women behind the giant automobile industry. In this entertaining and detailed biography, the author focuses on the public and private lives of manufacturer Henry Ford, his son Edsel and his grandson Henry II. This summary offers an insight into how this family-run business empire transformed our way of life, including Ford's early failures, Henry Ford's revolutionary standards and the triumph of the Model T.

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To learn more, read "Ford: The Men and the Machine" to discover the story behind the giant company and the people behind it.

Leseprobe

Book Presentation: Ford by Robert Lacey

Important Note About This Ebook

Summary of Ford (Robert Lacey)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Book Presentation: Ford by Robert Lacey

Important Note About This Ebook

This is a summary and not a critique or a review of the book. It does not offer judgment or opinion on the content of the book. This summary may not be organized chapter-wise but is an overview of the main ideas, viewpoints and arguments from the book as a whole. This means that the organization of this summary is not a representation of the book.

Summary of Ford (Robert Lacey)

Part 1

The Ford Motor Company is today the world’s largest family controlled business. It stands today as a monument to the vision and drive of one man in particular – Henry Ford.

Henry Ford was born on 30 July 1863. His father William and mother Mary were hard working and industrious farmers who had achieved some measure of success – in fact, they owned several hundred acres of land and were very well regarded in the greater Detroit area. Their land was located in Dearborn, a suburb on the outskirts of Detroit.

Henry Ford’s early life was dominated by attending school and the death of his mother while delivering her eighth child. Henry was 13-years old at the time and his mother died at age 37.

Henry, like most boys, enjoyed playing with anything mechanical. However, the sight of a steam engine propelling a rudimentary wagon absolutely fired his imagination. This was July 1876. Henry Ford would later recall:

“I remember that engine as though I had seen it only yesterday. I had seen plenty of these engines hauled around by horses, but this one had a chain that made a connection between the engine and the rear wheels of the wagon-like frame on which the boiler was mounted.”

As the oldest child in the family, William Ford was keen for Henry to follow him and eventually take over the farm. Henry’s heart and enthusiasms, however, lay in the field of mechanical pursuits. Therefore, there was an increasing amount of tension between the father and son, until the matter was suddenly and decisively decided when Henry was 16-years old. He simply walked the 9 miles to Detroit, rented a room and sought employment in a mechanical shop. It was 1 December 1879.

Detroit, at that time, was a city of around 80,000 people which was embarking on an ambitious program to expand by concentrating on manufacturing. (This program would be so successful that Detroit would within a few years rank as the third most productive city in the entire U.S.A.).

Ford started an apprenticeship at the James Flower & Brothers Machine Shop manufacturing metal fittings. He then continued his mechanical apprenticeship at the Detroit Dry Dock Company. By the age of 20, Henry Ford was now qualified as a mechanical engineer.

Even though Ford had left his father’s farm, he still went back to help out each year at harvest time. This lead to a job for a few years with Westinghouse helping maintain a demonstration steam engine the company was selling to farmers in the Detroit region. Ford’s father also offered Henry an 80-acre farm which needed clearing – which suited Henry very well as he could use a steam engine to fell and trim the lumber.

On 11 April 1888, Henry Ford married Clara Bryant and they settled down on Henry’s farm. However, when Henry was visiting Detroit, he had a look at a new internal combusting engine that was all the rage at that time. Henry realized this would be ideal for making a self-propelled vehicle. Therefore, he moved his family into Detroit to allow him to follow up on this new idea. It was now September 1891.

“Bell and the telephone. Edison and the light bulb, the Wright brothers and the airplane. Henry Ford and his motorcar fit neatly into this familiar pantheon of American hero-inventors - except that Henry Ford was not an inventor. Bell, Edison and the Wright brothers all personally devised the machines that made them famous, but Henry Ford’s achievement was built on the work of others.”

– Robert Lacey

Part 2