Ronald A. Reis - Henry Ford for Kids: His Life and Ideas, with 21 Activities

Copyright 2016 by Ronald A. Reis

All rights reserved

Published by Chicago Review Press Incorporated

814 North Franklin Street

Chicago, Illinois 60610

ISBN 978-1-61373-090-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Are available from the Library of Congress.

Cover and interior design: Monica Baziuk

Cover images: Front cover (clockwise, from top left): Automobile traffic, Library of Congress LC-DIG-det-4a27910; Henry Ford (right) at the Edison Illuminating Company plant, From the Collections of The Henry Ford (P.188.606); Ford Motor Company, Library of Congress LC-DIG-det-4a27900; Women welding, Library of Congress LC-USZ62-111143; Henry and Edsel Ford in the Model F, Corbis; four-cylinder Model T engine cutaway drawing, Wikimedia Commons. Back cover: Ford Motor Company Delivery Department, Library of Congress LC-USZ62-26766; Henry Ford and Barney Oldfield with the 999, From the Collections of The Henry Ford (P.188.4568).

Interior illustrations: James Spence

Printed in the United States of America

5 4 3 2 1

FOR MY GRANDSON THEO and his fourth-grade class at Wildwood Elementary School in Piedmont, California, with thanks for helping me test out some of the activities in this book. You are an awesome bunch.

INDEX

T here are two things it will be helpful for you to know as you read this book. First, the book contains a glossary, starting on . All the glossary terms are in bold typeface upon their first appearance in the book.

Second, dollar amounts given in the book are contemporary figures. That means they are the amount for the time period discussed. You may want to convert some of the dollar figures to the equivalent amount today. One way to do this is to find an inflation calculator on the Internet, such as the US Inflation Calculator, www.usinflationcalculator.com. For example, in converting the $5-a-day figure Henry Ford paid many of his workers in 1914 to a 2015 dollar amount, you would arrive at $116.85. Regardless of the year in which youre reading this book, you can use an inflation calculator to convert monetary values from Henry Fords time to today.

H enry Ford did not invent the automobile. He was not the first to place an engine inside a buggy, thus creating a horseless carriage. What Henry Ford did do with the automobile, however, gave birth to a modern America.

Before Henry Ford, cars were owned mostly by the wealthy. If there were no Fords, it was said, automobiling would be like yachtingthe sport of the rich. In 1900, just 4,192 automobiles were registered in the United States. With Henry Fords introduction of the Model T in 1908, that number grew rapidly. By 1910, 181,000 cars traveled the streets and highways of America. By 1920, there were almost two million.

Henry Ford made such phenomenal growth happen. I will build a motorcar for the multitude, he declared. It will be large enough for the family but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own oneand enjoy with his family the blessings of hours of pleasure in Gods great open spaces.

This book is the story of the man who did just that, and, by so doing, put America on wheels.

1863		Henry Ford is born on July 30 in what is now Dearborn, Michigan.
1879		Henry leaves home to work in Detroit as a machinist.
1882		Ford returns to Dearborn to operate steam-engined farm equipment.
1888		Henry Ford marries Clara Jane Bryant.
1892		Husband and wife move to Detroit, where Ford takes a job as an engineer at the Edison Illuminating Co.
1893		Henry and Claras only child, Edsel, is born on November 6.
1896		Ford completes his Quadricycle.
	Ford meets his idol, Thomas Edison, in New York City.
1899		The Detroit Automobile Company is formed; Ford becomes chief engineer. Venture fails.
1901		The Henry Ford Company is formed with Ford as engineer.
1903		The Ford Motor Company is founded.
	First Model A is offered for sale.
1906		Henry Ford becomes president of the Ford Motor Company.
1908		Ford begins manufacturing the Model T.
1910		The Ford Motor Company begins operations at the Highland Park factory.
1913		First automobile moving assembly line is introduced at Highland Park.
1914		Henry Ford announces his plan for workers: $5.00 wage, eight-hour day, with profit sharing.
1915		Henry Fords Peace Ship, the Oscar II, sets sail for Norway on a mission to end World War I.