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Henry and Edsel
by Richard Bak
Henry Ford, the dictator.
The legendary automaker, Henry Ford, was a man of conflict. Despite
shepherding-in the revolutionary change that came with the assembly line,
he would later resist change, stubbornly insisting that the automobile which
brought his company notoriety, continued to be available in only one color.
“People can have the Model T in any color – so long as it's black,” he was
famous for saying. And despite becoming renowned as a friend of the
workingman, raising wages and shortening the workday, he later vehemently
opposed labor unions.
Journalist and former autoworker Richard Bak tells the story of Ford and
his son Edsel, who was instrumental in helping Ford survive the trying
times the company faced in the 1920s and 1930s, in this revealing
biography.
Blessed with an insatiable curiosity about all things mechanical, Henry's
sister, Margaret, once confessed, “When we had mechanical or ‘wind up' toys
given to us at Christmas, we always said, ‘Don't let Henry see them! He
just takes them apart!'”
At the age of 16, the young Ford became an apprentice at the railroad
boxcar manufacturer, Michigan Car Company, where he immediately solved a
mechanical problem that had been plaguing senior employees for years. Not
pleased with the prospect of being shown up by a 16-year-old, the foreman
fired him, after only one week.
Not much of a fan of horses, after being dragged by one when his foot was
caught in a stirrup, Ford had no qualms about replacing them by using his
curiosity and advancing his design of the automobile.
Ford's first business venture, the Detroit Automobile Company, aimed to
manufacture delivery trucks, but was a dismal failure and didn't produce a
single finished vehicle due to conflicts between Ford and his investors.
Interpersonal conflict would be a problem that plagued him throughout his
life. He quit his second venture, the Henry Ford Company, because his
investors wanted him to make cars for the masses, while Ford was intent on
producing race cars. That second company became Cadillac, after Ford's
departure.
Finally, after a brief partnership dedicated to building race cars, the Ford
Motor Company was formed. Twelve investors were rounded up for the
enterprise, with Ford refusing a 13th because he thought 13 investors would
be bad luck.
When the company was incorporated in 1903, a “frugal schoolteacher” used
half her savings to buy one share for $100. She sold that share 16 years
later for a tidy profit of $355,000.
Once the Ford Motor Company become profitable, Ford forced out his
investors by starting a second company, manufacturing parts for the cars
they were building, delivered at a price that was sure to squeeze the
profitability out of selling the cars themselves.
With Ford well on his way, it seemed Edsel need only follow in his father's
footsteps, and Ford seemed anxious to pave the way. As a birthday present,
Ford walked into a bank with Edsel and told the banker, “I have a million
dollars in gold [in this bank]. This is Edsel's 21st birthday, and I want
him to have it.”
What Ford didn't want was Edsel having a say in the operation of the Ford
Motor Company. A talented designer with innovative business ideas, Edsel
consistently found his ideas were met with derision. In 1926, with sales of
the Model T sagging in an increasingly competitive marketplace– which basically hadn't changed since its introduction in 1908 , Edsel surreptitiously
designed a prototype for a new car, only to have Henry single-handedly
destroy it in a fit of rage when he discovered it.
When he wasn't dismantling Edsel's improvements, he was ridiculing and
belittling him, in an unending attempt at giving his “weakling” son
“backbone.”
The result, for Edsel, was chronic ulcers and other health problems that
eventually included cancer and led to Edsel's death at the age of 49,
caused, family members suspect, by Ford's almost-constant rejection.
Ford would not relinquish control of his company until his own death four
years later, just soon enough to allow his grandson, Henry II, to rescue
the company from the patriarch's senility.
In his telling of the Fords' tale, Bak has breathed new life into an old
subject, providing us with a riveting, warts-and-all biography.
Title: Henry and Edsel
Author: Richard Bak
Publisher: Wiley
ISBN: 0471234877
Review written by: Marc Duane Anderson
Reviewer's Rating:9.5
Reader's Rating: 0
Reader's Votes: 0
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