Henry Ford

  b. 1863; d. 1947 | American auto manufacturer

At The Bottom

— 1901

Like so many other failed businessmen, Ford went back to the drawing board.

There was little reason for anyone to believe that Henry Ford would make a name for himself in the new world of automobile manufacturing.  A farm boy from Dearborn, Michigan, Ford left home as a teenager and took up work as a machinist for the Westinghouse company before moving on to the Edison company, where he was employed as an engineer.  Fascinated by steam power, Ford developed several designs for a “quadricycle” between 1896-1896 before founding his own company — the Detroit Automobile Company — in August 1899.  Within eighteen months, it had failed.  Product quality was not to Ford’s satisfaction, and the price for the consumer was higher than he hoped.  Like so many other failed businessmen, Ford went back to the drawing board.  Between 1900 and 1908, there were more than 500 companies established to manufacture automobiles, and Ford’s initial failure was simply one of hundreds of similar stories.