...Great American Innovators America has gone through great change from its foundation to present day. Many people have helped to shape the great country in which we proudly call home. Our nation has produced some of the great innovators who shaped the industrial revolution, modern day communications and the use of electric light bulb. The simplest things that we take for granted once were the greatest innovations of their time. Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell and Henry Ford are three of the greatest men that have contributed directly to a many things that we use in our day to day lives and without these men we would not be the advanced society that we are today. Reaching for a light switch is something we do every day. This is possible due to the contribution of Thomas Alva Edison, the inventor of the light bulb. Edison was born on February 11, 1847, in Milan, Ohio (Frith 5). He did not attain a formal education due to the poor family in which he was raised instead he started working on the railroad at age 12(Frith 14). Although Edison did not complete school, he continued to learn and experiment. Edison set up a printing press in the baggage car on the train and sold his own newspaper to the passengers (Frith 17). He retold the news from one end of the rail line to the other end of the rail line, allowing the people to be better informed of their neighboring towns. He was also able to have a small lab to perform scientific experiments, at least until his chemicals...
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...Buffan U.S. History Mr. Campbell March 5, 2018 Henry Ford: Road to Success Henry Ford was one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the 1900’s with the invention of the assembly line and the creation of some of the first affordable cars for the common public. He is arguably one of the greatest, most famous businessmen in American History. Henry Ford had become a master in the development of automobiles, mastered business essentials , and had a personality that skyrocketed his capabilities to become a successful man. This man can be acclaimed as the one who pushed the U.S. into the American Century with the mass production of the automobile, but he didn’t start out in the automotive industry or in any industry for that matter....
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... Electrical Dependency As a society I don’t believe we consciously realize how electrically dependent we have become. At approximately 4 p.m. Thursday September 8, 2011 reality struck nearly six million people in the Southwest and Mexico when the power went off line. The outage impaired or stopped most our daily operations and functions. I felt vulnerable to the electrical system and began to realize just exactly how deeply this type of event impacted my family. I found myself examining means of backup power for the sole purpose of avoiding the incontinence of being without power. In truth, electricity is a convenience we have turned into a necessity. Critical to Henry Ford’s success and accomplishments was the implementation of assembly lines to create mass production of his vehicles. Before assembly lines, automobile production was a very slow process that involved groups of highly experienced workers producing expensive automobiles for the well to do. Ford saw this as a serious problem. “Mr. Ford looked to innovations in production to solve that problem, and was particularly interested in the production model being used by Chicago meat packer Gustavus Swift” (McDonough, 2003). Ford took the disassembly line in the meat packing plant and modified the process for assembly of his vehicles. “Ford did not conceive the concept; he perfected it” (Eye Whitness to History, 2005, p. 1). Henry ford began introducing assembly lines in his plants in 1913. Assembly lines permitted...
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...Henry Ford Biography Assignment Econ 220 – Entrepreneurship Instructor: Geoff Malleck Submitted By: Salvatore Curcio ID#20300001 Jenna Ortwein ID#20383970 Matthew Montgomery ID#20338248 Fatima Munir ID# 20239890 Kyle Georges ID# 20298815 “People can have the Model T in any colour--so long as it's black.” - Henry Ford “All Fords are exactly alike, but no two men are just alike. Every new life is a new thing under the sun; there has never been anything just like it before, never will be again. A young man ought to get that idea about himself; he should look for the single spark of individuality that makes him different from other folks, and develop that for all he is worth. Society and schools may try to iron it out of him; their tendency is to put it all in the same mold, but I say don't let that spark be lost; it is your only real claim to importance.” - Henry Ford What made Henry Ford… ------------------------------------------------- Questions & Answers Question: From a very young age, what characteristics and events were significant in foreshadowing Henry Ford was a truly innovative engineer with a love for machinery? Answer: When Ford received his first watch at the age of 13, unlike most adolescents, he took the watch apart to analyze the mechanical components of it. Ford was seen to all people as inherently curious, which was a key characteristic for engineering the fuel powered vehicle. Another significant event that peaked Ford’s interest...
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...business world! Upon reading the book by Richard Shell, the title alone captures the pure essence of how businesses have utilized the legal system to their advantage since the early 1800's. Businesses are formed on a daily basis and can range from a mom and pop sole proprietorship, a big corporate giant to the masses, or a huge conglomerate government business to maintain the laws of the land. Law and business are interrelated and one cannot survive without the other and the glue that binds them together is legal strategy. The legal environment in which businesses operate is becoming more complex and companies must understand the basics of business law if they want to avoid legal entanglements. Situations that present potential legal problems arise everyday in most businesses and owners need to be aware and posture themselves to handle these issues effectively and quickly. There would be pure chaos in today's capitalistic society if there was not a standard way of doing business because business needs are always evolving from decade to decade. Back in the 1800's there were not any class action lawsuits, litigation explosions, securities regulations or antitrust laws. The business arena needs a way to change the rules as it relates to the business environment and maintain healthy competition amongst businesses in the world. Legal strategy is the ammunition used to change the laws as it relates to business. According to the author Shell, laws and legal institutions can...
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...finish a map like Lewis and Clark, but to strive for “The American Dream” and never settle for less than absolute success. Each man researched is from a different time period, with different circumstances surrounding them. With different presidents, different rules and regulations, even with different life expectancies. However, all men had one dream, to make America a better place. From oil pipelines to windows operating systems, these men truly did create things that changed the lives of all Americans for the better. They are the unspoken heroes. Not of war or battle, but of ingenuity, hard work and of sound mind. These are America’s Wealthy. Findings John D Rockefeller was born on July 8, 1836. He began with humble beginnings and is a perfect definition of a rags to riches dream that many Americans that try to live by. His life at home was somewhat shaky. His father was never at home very much because he was a traveling salesmen who sold elixirs. In his early teens his family moved to a suburb of Cleveland, there he took a 10 week business course that would help him later in his life as the richest man in America. His first job was with a bookkeeper at a commission firm. He excelled at keeping track of transportation cost. His first salary was $50, but he wanted more much more, he said that he wanted to make $100,000 and live for 100 years. Rockefeller opened his first oil refinery in 1870, and called it the world renowned Standard Oil Company. He eventually started...
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...HENRY FORD : THE GREAT INNOVATOR Henry Ford : The Great Innovator Henry Ford, the man who gave America wheels, the creator of the first automobile assembly line had humble beginnings. At the age of 16, he ran away from his home in Michigan and changed quite a few jobs. He was a gregarious and well liked. He loved exploring and tinkering with devices. Henry Ford displayeddedication and conscientiousness. He put up a huge amount of effort and persisted with his dream of an automobile. He had a larger amount of drive and passion within him to realize his dream. Also by the implementation of the assembly line and then the moving assembly line shows us how organized and how good a planner Ford was. On the Myers-Briggs type Indicator (MBTI), individuals are classified as extraverted or introverted (E or I), Sensing or intuitive (S or N), thinking or feeling (T or F) and judging or perceiving (J or P). Henry Ford is believed to be an ISTJ which stands for introverted, sensing, thinking and judging. Introversion is how he directed his energy and related to his employees and also the world around him. Sensing is how he focused on the details rather than thinking about abstract information. Thinking is how he made his decisions based on logic thinking and not on personal feelings. Judging is how he oriented himself with his organization and employees and how he planned things out well in advance. He experimented with petrol driven engines and horseless carriages for...
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...How far were the policies of the Republican Party the main reason for America’s economic success in the 1920’s [50 marks] Although America remained neutral and did not join World War One until 1917, they were already increasing their country’s profits by selling goods such as: weapons, food, equipment and other ammunition to both sides of the war. During World War One, as well as selling goods, America became ‘the banker’ to the rest of the world: loaning countries money at a very high interest. According to the First World War commissions “Britain, France and Italy owed the USA $22 billion plus interest”, this is showing that USA was at a very stable place financially even before the 1920s began. When the war ended Woodrow Wilson put forward his 14 Points which included a League of Nations. The League of Nations’ overall aim was to prevent war from breaking out again. America’s congress at the time decided that it would be best for America in the long run not to join the League of Nations because, congress believed that the USA should not interfere in any European or world affairs. Refusal to join the League of Nations made America an isolationist country. When Warren G. Harding won the presidential election and became president in 1921 a political party called the Republicans took over from the Democrats and the American government. 1920s America was known as the ‘Roaring twenties’ because of the entertainment and the crazes sweeping the country. There were lots of...
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...How far were the policies of the Republican Party the main reason for America’s economic success in the 1920’s [50 marks] Although America remained neutral and did not join World War One until 1917, they were already increasing their country’s profits by selling goods such as: weapons, food, equipment and other ammunition to both sides of the war. During World War One, as well as selling goods, America became ‘the banker’ to the rest of the world: loaning countries money at a very high interest. According to the First World War commissions “Britain, France and Italy owed the USA $22 billion plus interest”, this is showing that USA was at a very stable place financially even before the 1920s began. When the war ended Woodrow Wilson put forward his 14 Points which included a League of Nations. The League of Nations’ overall aim was to prevent war from breaking out again. America’s congress at the time decided that it would be best for America in the long run not to join the League of Nations because, congress believed that the USA should not interfere in any European or world affairs. Refusal to join the League of Nations made America an isolationist country. When Warren G. Harding won the presidential election and became president in 1921 a political party called the Republicans took over from the Democrats and the American government. 1920s America was known as the ‘Roaring twenties’ because of the entertainment and the crazes sweeping the country. There were lots of...
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...the Ford Motor Company Archives, With Reflections on Archival Documentation of Ford of Europe's History Elizabeth W. Adkins, Certified Archivist Director, Global Information Management Ford Motor Company Introduction: The Ford Motor Company Archives and the Story of the Company The history of the Ford Motor Company Archives is intertwined with the efforts to tell the story of the company. Both of these initiatives – the creation of the Archives and the telling of the Ford Motor Company story – began with the approach of the fiftieth anniversary. Company executives and the Ford family realized the importance of Henry Ford and his company in the development and progress of the twentieth century. They accepted the obligation to gather and organize the company's historical legacy to ensure that the broader story could be told. As a result, the first fifty years of the company (including its early international expansion) are fairly well documented and accessible to the public in research materials and in books. The historical record of the next fifty years, including the company's modernization and further international development under Henry Ford II, is less complete. By the early 1960s, for various reasons, the Ford Archives began to experience the "down side" of the up and down cycle that characterizes the history of American corporate archives. Most of the Ford archival holdings were donated to a nonprofit educational institution, Henry Ford Museum...
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...time of new reforms throughout our nation and these changes have shaped the country we live in today. This era was the nation’s response to the Industrial Revolution. It affected all Americans and transformed the role of government in American society. Most racial issues and women's rights, were ignored during the progressive era, but the groundwork was laid for future reforms in those areas. Many events occurred during the time of the Progressive Era and Great Depression that made a big contribution to today’s society. One of the first turning points of this era was the founding of the Anti-Saloon League. It was a non-partisan political pressure group established in 1893 with Protestant churches as its primary support in rural areas and the South. In the words of leader Ernest Cherrington, it was "the united church militant engaged in the overthrow of the liquor traffic.” The League also used churches more directly to achieve its objectives. For example, it arranged for pastors in over 2,000 churches in Illinois to discuss a pending temperance measure and urge congregations to ask their representatives to support it. The Anti-Saloon stressed its religious character and since it acted as an agent of the churches and therefore was working for God, anything it did was seen as moral and justified because it was working to bring about the Lord's will. This became the first modern, single-issuing lobbying group in the America and opened the doors for more groups to establish new...
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...orHENRY FORD AND THE MODEL T O n May 26, 1927, Henry Ford watched the fifteen millionth Model T Ford roll off the assembly line at his factory in Highland Park, Michigan. Since his ‘‘universal car’’ was the industrial success story of its age, the ceremony should have been a happy occasion. Yet Ford was probably wistful that day, too, knowing as he did that the long production life of the Model T was about to come to an end. He climbed into the car, a shiny black coupe, with his son, Edsel, the president of the Ford Motor Company. Together, they drove to the Dearborn Engineering Laboratory, fourteen miles away, and parked the T next to two other historic vehicles: the first automobile that Henry Ford built in 1896, and the 1908 prototype for the Model T. Henry himself took each vehicle for a short spin: the nation’s richest man driving the humble car that had made him the embodiment of the American dream. Henry Ford invented neither the automobile nor the assembly line, but recast each to dominate a new era. Indeed, no other individual in this century so completely transformed the nation’s 76 FORBES GREATEST BUSINESS STORIES OF ALL TIME way of life. By improving the assembly line so that the Model T could be produced ever more inexpensively, Ford placed the power of the internal combustion engine within reach of the average citizen. He transformed the automobile itself from a luxury to a necessity. The advent of the Model T seemed to renew a sense of independence...
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...A – Income Statement for 5 Years B – Balance Sheet for 5 Years C – Horizontal Analysis of Income Statement D – Horizontal Analysis of Balance Sheet E – Company’s Rations compared to Industry Averages Industry Overview: The automobile industry is comprised of companies that design, manufacture, engineer, assemble, and market automobiles and motorcycles and provide leasing and financial services. Industry performance is closely linked with economic performance. The auto industry represents one of the largest segments of the U.S. economy. The U.S. industry is dominated by the Big Three, General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Chrysler. The auto industry employs nearly 6.6 million people nationwide which represents about 5% of private sector jobs. Surging oil prices have shifted demand away from SUV’s and light trucks to more fuel efficient options. This change in consumer preferences has caused German, Japanese, and Korean manufacturers market share of the industry to expand. The American...
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...CASE ANALYSIS ON FORD MOTOR COMPANY Name: sunil sharma Madonna ID: Subject: Business Policy Subject Code: MGT_4950_WB_58_01_2014_10 Date of Submission: The Ford Motor Company Brief Profile The Ford Motor Companyis an American multinational automaker headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobiles and commercial vehicles under the Ford brand and luxury cars under the Lincoln brand. In the past it has also produced heavy trucks, tractors and automotive components. Ford owns small stakes in Mazda of Japan and Aston Martin of the United Kingdom. It is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and is controlled by the Ford family, although they have minority ownership. Ford Motor Company was founded in 1903 by Henry Ford in Detroit, MI. Not only did Ford revolutionize the development of the automobile as a product, he is also the visionary behind the idea of mass production. Ford's ability to make automobiles affordable for the masses is cited as a driving force behind both the automobile industry and the creation of a middle class in America. Ford introduced methods for large-scale manufacturing of cars and large-scale management of an industrial workforce using elaborately engineered manufacturing sequences typified by moving assembly lines; by 1914 these methods were known around the world as Fordism. Ford's former UK subsidiaries Jaguar and Land Rover, acquired in 1989...
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...Introduction Ford Motor Company was founded in 1903 by Henry Ford and eleven business associates. The company was responsible for the innovation of the moving assembly line where employees would remain in the same place while performing the same task on each automobile that move along the assembly line. Ford Motor Company has been a prominent car producer for over 100-years – an icon of U.S. manufacturing. However, the company has reached a pivotal impasse where timely planning has become crucial. Hence, to reestablish the brand and Henry Ford’s original vision to produce “cars that were affordable to the masses” (What Would You Do? Ford Motor Company, n.d. p. 1). This case study will examine four options; the first option is whether to close down older plants in an effort to realign production and sales. The second option is to re-engineer the company to produce smaller cars eliminating or sharply reducing the SUV and truck lines. The third option is to take the unprecedented step of dramatically reducing North American presence and focus the company efforts on international markets where the company has been very successful. The fourth option is to sell the entire Premier Automotive Group (PAG). To determine what the criterion for the Ford Motor Company four options are, Ford’s management team should collectively utilize the rational-decision making model that is define as “a systematic process in which managers define problems, evaluate alternatives, and choose...
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