A Letter to you from…

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right”

I was born on July 30, 1863, in Dearborn, Michigan, to William and Mary Ford. I had four siblings.

I was a curious child. When I was around 14, my father gave me a pocket watch which I dismantled and reassembled by myself. Seeing this all my relatives started to give me their timepieces for repairs. I also practiced on the timepieces of friends and neighbors, and soon gained the reputation of a watch repairman. You could say I was quite the mechanic!

Mama died in 1876, leaving me helpless and devastated. I left the farm in which we were settled in, I realized that I did not want to live on the farm anymore since mama was no more.

I left home in 1879 to work as an apprentice machinist with James F. Flower & Bros. in Detroit. Later on I went to work for the Detroit Dry Dock Co. before returning home in 1882.

Back home, I started working on the family farm and became an expert at operating the Westinghouse portable steam engine. My technical skills gained recognition and was later hired by Westinghouse to service their steam engines.

My mechanical skills and ability to grasp new things led to my appointment as night engineer for the Edison Electric Illuminating Company in 1891. I found the job very exciting as I got the opportunity to learn more about electricity which was a fairly new concept back then.

You never get anything out of nothing. I know I worked hard and I compromised on comfort, I was highly determined and focused. I managed to rise to the position of a chief engineer of the Illuminating Company by 1896. Alongside working on my job, I also started working on something I was always fascinated with: building automobiles.

I got myself a team of friends and built a self- propelled vehicle, the Quadricycle. With four wire wheels that looked like heavy bicycle wheels, it could be steered with a tiller like a boat, and had only two forward speeds with no reverse.

I met with Thomas Edison who approved of my experimentation. Motivated, I continued on bettering my model of automobile, and completed a second vehicle in 1898.

I then decided to form my own company and resigned from my job.

This was a risk I took but I was enthusiastic and passionate about what I was doing. I founded the Detroit Automobile Company in 1899. However, the automobiles produced by the company did not perform well at the market and very soon I was forced to close down the business.

It was a huge fall back. Failure always knocks you down. But I realized failure is the only opportunity to ‘ intelligently’ begin again.

Being the ever resilient soul I started working on improving the quality of the automobiles and successfully raced a 26-horsepower automobile in October 1901. Then I teamed up the stockholders in his Detroit Automobile Company to form the Henry Ford Company in November 1901.

However, some issues came up between Ford and the other stockholders and I left the company which was later renamed Cadillac Automobile Company after my departure.

Second failure. Sigh. If you were me, would you have given up at this point?

The reason I was motivated to keep going was because I loved what I did. Dismantling and assembling when I was much younger was where I discovered my knack for mechanics.

You see, when you love something and you know you will do whatever it takes to keep doing it, you will never give up. And that is exactly what I did. I never gave up.

I continued to pursue my passion of building automobiles. I built several racing cars over the ensuing years, including the “999” racer which I would say at that time, looked quite promising.

In 1903, I incorporated the Ford Motor Company. The original investors included Myself, Alexander Y. Malcomson, the Dodge brothers, and John S. Gray, among others. Around this time, the race driver Barney Oldfield drove the “999” around the country, making the Ford brand known throughout the United States.

The company launched the Model T in October 1908. The vehicle had a steering wheel on the left— an idea which other automobile companies soon copied. The model proved to be highly successful as it was not only affordable, but also very simple to drive, and easy and cheap to repair.

The Model T was so successful that I had to greatly expand our production in order to meet the ever- increasing demand. For this, I along with the company staff developed a moving assembly line for automobiles in 1913. The company developed techniques of mass-production which enabled us to greatly increase the output.

The Model T dominated the automobile market for several years and by 1918, half of all cars in America were Model T’s. In 1918, I also handed over the presidency of Ford Motor Company to my son, Edsel Ford, even though I retained the final decision authority.

By the mid-1920s, the sales of the Model T had begun to decline. Then we introduced the Ford Model A in 1927 which sold profitably till 1931. But the company continued to decline in the 1930s and by 1936, Ford Motor Company had fallen to third place in the US market, behind both General Motors and Chrysler Corporation.

Well, everyone has their rising and falling but up till now Ford cars are considered luxurious beauties.

I was a pacifist and when the Second World War broke out in 1939, I opposed the United States’ entry into the war. However, when America entered the war, Ford Motor Company became one of the major US military contractors, supplying airplanes, engines, jeeps and tanks.

I did my part. And then in 1943 Edsel died of cancer. Even though I formally resumed control of the company after my son’s death, I no longer exercised absolute authority. The key decisions were taken by others in my name and I was increasingly sidelined. Eventually my grandson, Henry Ford II, was made the president.

Ford Motor Company is the second largest automobile producer in the U. S till now.

I had my fair share of excitement, failure and success. It is now time for some of you to try your own luck and embrace your true self.

And remember whatever you think you can and whatever you think you can’t you’re most definitely correct! Yours Truly, Henry Ford. Written by Devuni Goonewardene Email any Feedback to devuni@gmail.com