Ford has always been thought of as the "father" of the car, when of course he wasn't. But how did his name become so popular? And what happened when his innovation, wasn't so innovative anymore?
The way people see ourselves is almost always different from the way we really are. It's not uncommon for people to fall back on some cognitive bias to justify actions that fall outside our perceived norms.
@@bonkboye8191 ford is literally credited for standardizing the assembly line in a practical way that people could copy which created a massive amount jobs and basically created the foundation of the middle class of america. he will forever be remembered for that whether or not you bitch about his views (which by the way were very common views back then, nearly all nations whether black white asian middle eastern etc disliked jews for centuries until some western nations could use it to their advantage during ww2 to demonize germany) you're using a modern point of view to complain about the general line of thinking 100 years ago, it makes you sound really stupid
You uh, forgot to mention one of the most notorious lawsuits involved with Ford: Dodge vs. Ford Motor Company. In it, the Dodge brother's accused Ford of spending the profit of the company on higher wages for the employees and lowering the price of goods, rather than maximizing profits for the shareholder's (as the Dodge brothers owned about 10% of the company, second only to Ford himself). The courts ruled in FAVOR of Dodge, setting the precedent. Oh, and then the Dodge bros used the money from the lawsuit to open their own competitor company. I get why Ford was upset.
The lawsuit happened in 1919 and Dodge was already in production for over 5 years by that time. You are correct about the other aspects of the lawsuit though as Ford wanted his workers happy and share in the American dream so that they could be better employees. Ford was selfish and conceited on some levels as far as not giving individual credit to those under him and a good employer to those who didn't desire recognition in that regard.
That was pretty much what I was taught in school. I remember being shown a video in high school which said that, prior to the invention of the Model T, everyone got around in a horse and buggy.
Brittney Brisbin well that isn’t wrong, he definitely popularized it and made it affordable, but it was invented before he was even born if I remember correctly
@@jrcautomotive4319 I was going to edit my comment and say that I knew it wasn't technically wrong, because he did make the car more accessible to everyday working class people, but the program I saw did state that he invented the car rather than improved on and popularized it. Also, I just did a couple quick Google searches. Henry Ford was alive when the first car was invented. He was born in 1863, while the first car was invented in 1885.
You didn't mention that Ford revolutionized working hours, being the main drive in making working days 8hrs instead of 12-16hrs, while still earning the same.
muuubiee Yeah, he definitely wasn’t a good guy by our current standards, but he certainly was by then standards, and the improvements he made to their lives are still felt to this day
Gerard Kean Well, he was partially correct. “On 5 January 1914, the Ford Motor Company took the radical step of doubling pay to $5 a day and cut shifts from nine hours to eight, moves that were not popular with rival companies, although seeing the increase in Ford's productivity, and a significant increase in profit margin (from $30 million to $60 million in two years), most soon followed suit.”, from that Wikipedia article that you cited.
Henry Ford was not a saint. But he fought with his investors to get better pay for workers. At least in the beginning. He believed the workers should share in the profit and they should be able to afford a car. I don't see that by any company today.
Biao Wang hard to buy anything when your community has all its jobs shipped overseas by greedy capitalists trying to make billions rather than just be happy with millions they already have.
Yingyanglord1 that’s because greed is blinding not innovative, we can see this in Henry’s own life with his fear of trying new ideas because he was afraid of losing profits. Causing him to wait too long and then lose out anyway because the Great Depression hit, but these sociopaths can’t ever take the blame themselves so instead he blamed his son’s good idea.
The Success wasn't meant to go fast. It was a highwheeler. It was meant to drive through high water, mud, rocks, debris in fields. It was like an off road vehicle. Besides, it was considered dangerous to drive 20MPH at that time. Roads weren't smooth and clear. You don't judge a tractor by its top speed. Now don't get me started on Edison, innovator until he wasn't...
Edison was an innovator until the very end. Innovator just means you are constantly trying new and inventive ideas. It doesn't have to mean those ideas are going to be successful. For example he tried to make an entire house from only concrete. The upside was that it was dirt cheap, the downside was that people don't like looking at walls of concrete or want to have other people look at it. He didn't allow for his homes to be plastered as it would add to the price and he seemed to like the look of concrete. He made over 10.000 of the concrete homes, almost none sold. He even sold concrete furniture like chairs and couches. He also tried to get into the car making business but unlike most he was insistent on an steam powered car. The thinking was that it would be cheaper and could run on any fuel available. The problem of course is that steam engine don't have anywhere near the power to weight ratio of internal combustion engines. Henry stopped being an innovator because he stopped innovating and became very conservatist.
Just thank the car gods every day that the Model-T's control layout never caught on. You had three peddles on the floor and none of them were the throttle, that was on the steering wheel next to the spark advance. You had one peddle that was your reverse gear, one that would shift either between high and low gear, or low gear and neutral, depending on where the handbrake lever was, and the third peddle was a brake. It was fine for cruising down the highway, but can you imagine how awkward it would be in heavy traffic.
Ray Ceeya You’re absolutely correct! I owned a 1926 for 12 years or so but I found it easy and was driving it within 5 minutes of bing shown by the previous owner! They layout was the right pedal was the brake,the middle was reverse and the left was how you went, down all way was low,out was high and in between was neutral. I only drove it around town but my leg would get sore since I could only keep it in low.
I’ve driven one. Nothing at all is intuitive to us today. I stalled it several times due to the neutral position on the left pedal only being half way down. The system is easy for someone that had never driven though. The owner of the T model’s son was seven and could drive it without issue. He didn’t know that that pedal should have been a clutch and go all the way to the floor to stop.
Yeah the one nice thing about it is you can cruise down the road without even the pedals. So I guess Henry Ford invented cruise control too... Really though, that's how a lot of old tractors work. When you're harvesting or plowing a field you just want to set your machine's speed and trundle off at the most efficient speed. When I was a kid, my dad had old two cylinder John Deeres with hand throttles, hand clutches, and differential brakes. So to come to a full stop, you throttled back, with your right hand, disengaged the clutch, with the same hand, and then used both feet on both brakes. Left hand stayed on the steering wheel. Also, if you were really good, you could change gears on the fly while turning by using your right hand on the clutch, your left hand on the snifter, and steering with your feet on the differential brakes. I never got that good.
no the Model A (the first one) was a dodge chassis and engine, Ford's "assembly" plant mated a purchased body to the Dodge sourced chassis, put wheels on it and it was complete. Without the Dodge brothers (or whoever would of made the engines, transmissions, chassis , steering, brakes and suspension had the Dodges not been around or declined to participate in Henry's little project) there would of been no Ford, but without all the money the Dodge Brothers made producing parts for Ford there wouldn't of been any Dodge cars either. I'm not to sure that Henry had much influence on what eventually started rolling out of the Cadillac plant.
"He might have some pro german sentiments"....c'mon he was awarded the Grand Cross of the German Eagle by the Nazis, the highest honor for a foreigner and the first American to receive one. Even though it's said that he despised nazi militarism he definitively had some sympathy for them (as many other people did back then before the war). Maybe you avoided mentioning Nazis for fear of demonetization but certainly his later years really show a lot about his character that the model T success usually overshadows
First car I ever changed an engine in, was a 1929 Model A Victoria. Car was owned by a good friend's parents. This friend has a sister. Yep, named Victoria! They also had a 1957 Ford Fliptop. (Skyliner.)Changed main bearings in THAT one, with the block in the car. My friend had a 1962 Chevy Corvair, a convertible model, that he turned into a Spyder. (In 62, the turbo Spyder model VINs ran consecutively with the base models, so no one ever found out.) THAT car was AMAZING, in that he "blueprinted" the engine, beefed up the turbo, and installed a 2 BBL Weber sidedraft, with vacuum secondary, controlled by a dash switch. steve
The fact that Henry Ford took credit for his son's accomplishments and bullied him to the point to reducing Edsel Ford to tears, while Edsel was dying of cancer no less just shows what kind of black heart Henry Ford had. The only excuse Henry Ford gave was that he wanted his son to get mad, but he never did. What a goddamn troll... I should also point at the realities of Ford's 5$ wage: the work required on the assembly line was absolutely exhausting, Ford had a worker turnover rate of 90%, and the high 5$ wage was just an attempt to hold onto their own workers from quitting on the first week.
IMO those workers should've burned his god damn factory to the ground. Nah just playing but yeah this is pretty sad but very interesting. Henry comes off like vito corleone in that he refuses to adapt to the changing times until it's too late but it ends with a game of thrones style wrestle for leadership of the company
@Wellrock Commentary Well, to Henry Ford's credit, when he held the meeting to discussing raising the wage, most of the Ford people in that meeting were absolutely outraged. You weren't supposed to be paid well for hard work, that went against Social Darwinism and Laissez-Faire Capitalism. 5$ a day for a bottom level grunt worker was completely scandalous at the time, so I will give Henry Ford credit for not succumbing to the peer pressure from the 1%.
You mean to say that the self described second channel of alternate history hub is owned by the same guy from alternate history hub?! Get ooouuuuttt no way
I think it’s funny how Edsel was mainly focused on the styling of cars, and then the brand which the company created named after him failed in part due to consumers thinking they were ugly
Went to the Ford Piquette Plant. I can’t believe how long the Model T went. They have some of the rarest models of Model Ts and they look the same. He milked the same car for 20 years. Just amazing, he just thought the car was that influential. Edit: They also have one of the last model Bs on Earth. The one they have was also the first one made.
It took "The Cars that Made America" on the History Channel 3 hours to explain all this and you did it in 16 minutes. Man you're good! And I would love to see a video on how the car changed American life! Please make one!
A random person who is too obsessed with old cars some not a lot though but some people just opposes since they don’t like the truth but I digress it’s a great documentary another good one would be the great cars series
The chief designer of the Ford Model T was a Hungarian engineer called József Galamb. When he visited back to Hungary, he was invited to dine with the Admiral Miklós Horthy, Regent of Hungary (the head of state in the absence of a monarch) and he asked if Galamb could help his elder son to get an internship at Ford. He responded: "Only if he has the best school grades." He indeed had, as he was a very talented young man, so he was allowed to travel to America. István Horthy soon began at Ford as a simple factory worker and soon worked himself up to become an engineer. When he returned to Hungary he became a chief engineer at the Royal Hungarian Railways and oversaw the design process of one of the most successful steam engines ever, the MÁV Model 424 "Bivaly" (Bison). He even managed to beat the British in a tender and sell this engine to the Indian railways. Unfortunately the outbreak of WW2 prevented the actual delivery. The 424 was pretty much the Model T of railway locomotives. Horthy's experience at Ford helped the Hungarian railway industry to thrive, to the point that MÁV produced a super fast steam engine, Model 242 "Nurmi" (nicknamed after a Finnish olympic runner) which was only slightly less powerful than the fastest one ever, the British "Mallard". He served as a fighter pilot in the war, as a 1st Lt. of the Royal Air Force. He met a sad and early demise when he crashed with a Hungarian-built Re-2000 "Héja" (Kestrel) fighter on the Eastern front. If that never happened, Hungary's history would've probably taken somewhat different turns.
Hey man I would love to see you doing how Henry Ford II brought the legendary Mustang and how he won with the GT 40 on Le Mans with the help of Carrol Shelby
George B. Selden was a New York lawyer who literally drew a crude design for an internal-combustion powered car on a napkin at a restaurant. He cleaned it up, submitted it to he USPO, and got the patent, despite the fact that he had no working model to go with it (as was usually required, to demonstrate practicality of the idea). Through the years he threatened to sue anyone who infringed, and they backed down -- all except Ford. In the years between, the Selden Patent had almost as much of a restraining effect on American innovation in automobiles as those silly "man-waving-a-red-lantern", 5MPH speed limits, and horsepower taxes did in Britain.
They were around before patents! Caveman who discovered fire was forced to give away his wife and best mammoth rug to man who claim he created it. A lot of crap was thrown during the trial... probably literally.
@@breakingbacon658 Ya basically what I was saying except theirs a difference between a caveman discovering fire and someone filing a broad patent that can be applied to so much that millions of products can be under the patent. If a caveman discovered fire it wouldn't matter if another caveman somehow communicated to him that he discovered it first. And i know you were joking, but a lot of idiots aren't going to realize that and they'll think cavemen actually had trials.
Had to scroll way too far to find this; thank you for posting it! We need more info on the impact that bringing cars to the masses had on infrastructure and society as a whole.
Dude just so you know you could get a model T in any colour. The one colour thing is a myth as the dark blue/black models lasted better due to the treatment of the metal and they were seen as more desirable.
Hey Tyler, just a quick comment to say that your commentary and pace has improved a lot and i find your work much more enjoyable than before.Thanks for all the knowledges.
This is why I compare Elon Musk to Ford; Musk didn't invent the electric car, nor was he the first to propose or do spacecraft recovery, he simply made them more practical for common use.
I would have to agree I like that all teslas are at such a practical price and the fact that they make a very poor product in comparison to the competition in regards to finish,and having it built in such a way that if it catches fire its nearly impossible to put out because that really is what practicality is about
I say "more practical" since EVs before Tesla had these problems _and_ other issues that Teslas do take care of, such as the range and ascetic design. I know they still have a way to go in order to perfect their product.
I still can't see how spending upwards of 70 grand just so you can pop to the shops and back without having to charge your car for seven days is practical, you'd burn a lot of petrol before making up the difference of that practical decision
Definitely, would love to see the other videos going further into depth about the cars and Ford. I honestly doubt the Model T was the only major thing to help him launch the company. I remember seeing a show that mentioned how he bought a manufacturing plant, that was specifically built to help him mass produce cars (the Model T even, I believe), so, certainly seeing his innovations that lead to that, and many other things would be wonderful to have in future videos.
His dedication to making the Model T affordable was almost obsessive. It almost consumed him and destroyed the company. The passion or obsession he had to make the Model T as cheap as possible made the automobile available to people of modest to moderate means. This changed our country and society for both good and bad, probably in more ways then we'll ever know.
@not Shane kid judaism is an ethnicity as well as a religion, how else do you think israel enforces their judaic ethnic citizenship requirement, just to be able to even so much as live there?
Please more videos on this topic! Also, Henry Ford reminds me a lot of Samuel Colt, who was really the father of American assembly line manufacturing. A man who had tremendous drive and talent, a brilliant technical mind, who took something that existed but was unrefined and obscure, and through innovation more in production than technical aspect, created something remarkable and world changing. Both Ford and Colt built personal industrial empires, both innovated in terms of their treatment of workers, attracted the best and brightest in the respective fields. The other similarity they share is that as time went on and their unprecedented became merely a fact of life to them, they began to stop innovating, fired or let go talented individuals who would become the leaders of the next generation in their industry. Both Ford and Colt's companies exist to this day as once truly monumental giants of their industry, but both are now mere shells of their former selves, trading on a name that means less and less every year, is no longer associated with unparalleled quality and efficiency, and in the state both comapnies currently exist in, stand no chance in hell of recapturing their former glory. Frankly I'd love to see you do a video on Sam Colt, or one of the early American firearm pioneers, who as much as Rockafeller, Morgan and Ford, represent that American dream and the greatest successes, excesses, and failures of 19th century American capitalism.
Do a vid on car companies in japan like Toyota, Suzuki, Honda, and Nissan. All of these companies are extremely interesting and all contributed to WWII and are still the dominant forces in the auto market today, seeing that Toyota is the largest car company by far and the corolla has had over 7 million units in all of its years of production! Japanese cars and their history is just bonkers.
Fun fact: : both Dodge brothers drank themselves to death within a short interval of one another. The second brother's death was ascribed to some other proximate cause (unrecalled), but he had been a heavy drinker and, faced with running the Dodge co. alone after the death of Brother 1, drank especially heavily in the weeks prior to his own death.
Arjun Kaycee Vladimir Lenin modeled his entire program for the Soviet Union's industrialization on US industrial practices - especially on Taylorism and Fordism (a sort of "Soviet Americanism")
Huh, that was an interesting video. As a German I never thought of Ford as father of the car (that is Benz in my mind) or the father of the assembly line (while it is an older sentiment the best expression of it I saw thus far was by Adam Smith; while (IIRC) he doesn't mention production at physical assembly lines they began to crop up in his time and incorporating those was only logical). I always thought of him as one of the figures that didn't innovate, but improve. More specialisation in the assembly line (while not reaching the levels of Smith's famous pin, which was truly insane) and getting production to a large scale, using interchangeable parts to ease logistics and starting the five dollar day to solve the problem of workers going numb, which was already mentioned in Wealth of Nations.
Fun fact my sister was writting a book that mentioned the model T. After pointing out it wasn't invented yet I spent five hours in the dead of night finding the appropriate model for her. Listening to the audio book there are times when the car type switches and that is my fault.
it sounds like there would of still been a ford without the dodge brothers, they where just two of the many investors, the only reason they where the only ones named is because of the importance of Dodge becoming a car manufacturing company separate from ford.
I watched the History Channel special about the American Auto industry and took great pleasure in the fact Mr. Henry wouldn't have made his Model-T without the Dodge Brothers' help. If they had lived they might have succeeded in putting Ford out of business
How Ford changed is really unbelievable to me. He started off as an innovator in how work was done. He used the assembly line to make production faster, and it enabled him to make the greatest working hours and pay at the time. It became industry standard across the world because everyone wanted to work for Ford. Then he only ever wanted to make Model Ts, a car everyone already owned, and brutally went after workers asking for better. Serious disconnect, like young Ford and old Ford were exact opposites
The Men Who Built America and Ford's race with Alum president is what made me have so much respect for Ford. Honestly without him, there wouldn't Dodge, Chevrolet etc.
I would love to see a video on how the commercially affordable automobile changed the nation's dynamics. That said, I would also like to see a video addressing why the US has been so adamant about hindering the development of public transit in its own borders. Why is it the US has been so deadset on building its infrastructure around the personal automobile for so long? Why has it been only in the past decade or so that some US cities have decided to redesign themselves around pedestrians and public transit? Why is it taking the US so long to make things convenient for people who don't have immediate access to some kind of automobile or live in sparesly populated areas?
You forgot one big key. A Ford Model A saved Ford and when the 1932 Ford came out it was the first mass produced cheap V8 in a car that almost immediately became an icon.
@@imdone8243 no one cares about fanboys they dont even know how internal combustion works yet they claim theyre car guys just because they think they have good taste in cars
6:36 - you reeeeally downplayed that part. Employee turnover was a huge problem for automotive industry at that time, and Ford's rate was revolutionary and considered insane by many of his competitors, who prophesied he would soon get out of business due to it (competitors who not long after followed his exaple, seeing how crazy successful it was). Also, there were some conditions one had to meet to get it, some of them pretty... interesting (for example, you had to live an "American lifestyle"). Really cool video tho, I learned a lot new.
@@tristanovic2-531 yeah but lately, AHH hasn't been his "alternate" side... just today he posted a video about Paraguay that didn't have no alternate time line explanation
I did a history paper on Unions when I was in highschool and learned a little bit about Mr.Ford. He defiantly was one of those guys who, where it not for the competency of every one else around him, would have probably went bankrupt in the first year or 2.
you should do a continuation of the history of Ford (post Henry Ford/WW2 years); or a history of the automobile industry in the US in general (post WW2).Iwas definitely hoping this video would keep going.
4:42 ...The Model... *_"Hey how's it going? Have you ever heard of a game called League of Legends?"_* That ad was a major cliffhanger. How am I gonna know what the car was??
You can';t do a history of Henry Ford without talking about his book "The International Jew". Which he serialized in the Dearborn Independent (Ford owned newspaper) and published by Ford. Copies were given out with every Model T sold. The book was based on the phony "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" which itself was based on a satire of Napoleon III. FYI a certain radical in Bavaria in the 1920s would plagiarize "The International Jew" for his own work called, "Mien Kampf". (Contains many "Americanisms" and expressions not part of German at the time). Read any good biography of H. Ford and you'll find out this information. Otherwise read Will Eisner's "The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion" Also when Ford died in 1947 it was one day after watching unreleased film footage of the Dachau concentration camp. He suffered and massive stroke during the viewing and died the next day.
oduffy1936- Bottom line, Henry Ford was a piece of SHIT! He enslaved over 2,000 Jewish kids and they were forced to work in his factories in Germany in the 1930s to make equipment to help Hitler kill people. By all accounts, he should have been charged with War Crimes when WW2 ended.
@@maryjeanjones7569 not really while he was anti semite he was not responsible for war crimes or the forced labourers hell ford lost control over plants in germany
Very Semitic , last was big money, fed legal reserve, fed ex, many heckle island, Alex jokes, bring down and rob, dishonest money, money name money, wood row Wilson.
You missed the $5 work day, which was a big deal in it's time. Henry got tighter and more ruthless toward workers later, but he started out benevolent. Also, Ford and Edison had their own film and PR departments, which elevated their image over Westinghouse and all the other car makers. Early marketing genius.
