Henry's Lieutenants

Introduction

Introduction Henry Ford had the innate power to motivate and control people. As a boy he had two younger brothers over which he ruled. As a young man he was able to induce others into helping with mechanical projects believed to border on the ridiculous. And at age thirty-three, he obtained considerable free technical help in building his first automobile . From the very beginning of the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford attracted the talents needed to spur it on to success. During the course of this success, Ford gathered a most notable array of professionals , many of them self-trained as was he. These individuals vastly differed in character, but together completed the pattern required to launch the largest productive enterprise in the world. The breadth of Ford's needs ranged from engineering the world's largest manufacturing plant to measuring a piece of steel within an accuracy of two-millionths of an inch. He employed people who could manage a 2.5 million acre rubber plantation in Brazil, remove a human kidney stone, direct fleets of ships, operate coal mines, and play violins. Henry Ford recognized a need for essentially every profession. The people who carried out Henry Ford's instructions are in themselves significant personalities worthy of individual attention. Some made their greatest contributions under Ford's direction; others reached the apexes of their careers after escaping from Ford's dominance. Of the people described in this book, the greater number were employed by Ford Motor Company. A lesser number were Ford's personal employees, satisfying concurrent needs of a more private nature—his farming, educational, and sociological ventures. Although Henry Ford gloried in the limelight of highly publicized achievement, he privately admitted, "I don't do so much, I just go around lighting fires under other people." These other people were allowed very little public recognition by Ford. It is well known that Ford frowned upon Ford Motor Company employees ' publishing technical papers, speaking before technical groups, or even attending such meetings on their own initiative. Company affairs were not to be discussed outside work. Henry alone controlled announcements of company plans and accomplishments either directly to the press or through a delegated personal representative such as Ernest Liebold or William Cameron. For years, Ford Motor Company patents were in the name of Henry Ford as inventor, rather than being 11 assigned by the actual inventor to Ford Motor Company. Introduction Henry Ford was fond of announcing grandiose plans, some of which did and some of which did not materialize. Those projects that succeeded were realized through the efforts of his key employees. Considering the combined contributions of his many "lieutenants,, leaves less and less attributable to Henry Ford himself. And, noting the many books that have heaped praise upon Henry Ford, perhaps it is time to acknowledge the contributions of some of those people who elevated Ford to his honored position. Although these biographies can be read together with enjoyment as a book, their primary purpose is for library reference. The series is admittedly incomplete; it would require far more than this number of talented people to provide all of the business and sociological achievements attributed to Henry Ford. An extended list of biographies could well include the people listed in Appendix I. The order in which the biographies appear is alphabetical. There is no reliable way to assign a relative value to the contributions of each person. Each biography subject was important at one time or another to Henry Ford. And some people of considerable importance are not included here because information about them is too obscure. Much help in preparing this series of biographies was provided by more than two hundred oral reminiscences of Ford associates collected and transcribed by Owen Bombard in the early 1950s and more recently by David R. Crippen. These reminiscences are now on file in the Archives of the Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village. Although many of the people interviewed had not been especially vital to Ford's success, each presents an interesting facet of Ford activities. People who have submitted oral reminiscences are listed in Appendix II. It was difficult sometimes to determine where credit for a given Ford development is primarily due. Sometimes more than one employee in their reminiscences have claimed credit for the same accomplishment. In such cases, both individuals are acknowledged as contributors. Assuming this book will be used most frequently to obtain data concerning only one biography subject at a time, major...