Henry Ford: Industry Icon (The good, the bad, and the ugly)
than farming. Because of his low pay, he took a night job at a local jeweler's, repairing watches. He had already become proficient with things mechanical.
He worked in Detroit for three years, returning the short distance home regularly to help out on the farm. During this period he was torn between responsibilities to his family and those to his own future. In 1888 he married Clara Bryant in the Bryant family home in rural Greenfield Township. Ford's father gave the new couple a tract of land under the condition that Henry give up this foolish machinist trade idea and return to farming.
At this time Ford supported himself and his wife by operating a small portable sawmill. Henry actually cut the timber and built a home for his new family-to-be. From the small, attached woodshop, he cut and sold lumber and firewood.
This did not last long, as an opportunity presented itself to return to Detroit in 1891. He became an engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company, and within two years was promoted to chief engineer. In the same year, 1893, Henry and Clara's only child, Edsel Bryant Ford, was born.
As chief engineer, Ford's time available for 'tinkering' increased to the extent that he was putting the finishing touches on an automobile within three years. He named it the quadricycle, and drove it in Detroit beginning June 4, 1896. It is said he had to knock down a wall to get it out of the shop, which had no garage door. He drove it about 1,000 miles and sold it for $200, only to repurchase it later for $65. It now resides, as a one-of-a-kind, in the Dearborn, Michigan, Henry Ford Museum.
The success of the quadricycle garnered financial support for Ford, and he produced a second car by 1899. Upon the successful completion of this second car, his financial backers joined him in a new business venture, the Detroit Automobile Company. They built about 20 cars but went out of business within a year.
Ford then built a racing car, and gathered financial support for another run at automobile manufacturing by virtue of a successful race against a more powerful automobile. As a result, the new Henry Ford Company was founded in 1901. But Ford wanted to build a larger and faster racecar, and the investors wanted to get on with the business of marketable vehicles. The rift resulted in Ford's
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