Henry Ford

Henry Ford did not invent the car or the assembly line and used both to change the world. Born on a Michigan farm in 1863, he disliked agricultural work, was fascinated by a road engine he saw at twelve, and repaired watches for neighbours. He worked as a machinist and then as chief engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit, where Edison encouraged his experiments. Two companies failed before the Ford Motor Company was founded in 1903. The Model T of 1908 was the point. It was designed to be simple, durable enough for unpaved roads, and repairable by a farmer with basic tools, and it sold for $825 at a time when cars were luxury goods. He then attacked the cost. The moving assembly line, installed at Highland Park in 1913, brought the work to stationary workers, and the time to build a chassis fell from about twelve hours to ninety-three minutes. The price fell to under $300, and by 1927 some fifteen million had been sold. In January 1914 he doubled wages to five dollars a day, which cut a ruinous turnover rate, and it also meant his workers could buy the product. The costs were real. The line was monotonous and brutal, a Sociological Department inspected employees' homes and habits, and he fought unionisation with violence into 1941. He published antisemitic material in the Dearborn Independent for years and circulated the Protocols, for which he issued a retraction in 1927 and which Hitler praised him for. He died in 1947. The Model T is still among the most produced cars ever built.

• Lived: 1863 CE – 1947 CE
• Nationality: American
• Roles: industrialist, inventor, entrepreneur