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N0KFQ > TODAY 15.08.15 15:16l 59 Lines 2746 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: Today in History - Aug 15
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Sent: 150815/1404Z 64024@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.63
1899
Henry Ford leaves Edison to start automobile company
On this day in 1899, in Detroit, Michigan, Henry Ford resigns his
position as chief engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company's
main plant in order to concentrate on automobile production.
Henry Ford left his family's farm in Dearborn, Michigan, at age
16 to work in the machine shops of Detroit. In 1888, he married
Clara Bryant, and they had a son, Edsel, in 1893. That same year,
Ford was made chief engineer at Edison. Charged with keeping the
city's electricity flowing, Ford was on call 24 hours a day, with
no regular working hours, and when not working could tinker away
at his real goal of building a gasoline-powered vehicle. He
completed his first functioning gasoline engine at the end of
1893, his first horseless carriage, called the Quadricycle, by
1896.
In the summer of 1898, Ford was awarded his first patent, in the
name of his investor and Detroit's mayor, William C. Maybury, for
a carburetor he built the previous year. By the middle of the
following summer Ford had produced his third car. A much more
advanced model than his two previous efforts, it had a water tank
and brakes, among other new features. Maybury's support, combined
with Ford's bold ideas and charisma, helped assemble a group of
investors who contributed some $150,000 to establish the Detroit
Automobile Company in early August 1899. Ten days later, Ford
left Edison, where he had worked for the previous eight years. He
turned down a considerable salary offer of $1,900 per year and
the title of general superintendent to become mechanical
superintendent of the new auto company, with a salary of $150 per
month.
The Detroit Automobile Company was one of some 60 aspiring
automakers in America at the time, and it struggled to keep up
with the stiff competition provided by the likes of Packard of
Ohio and Olds Motor Works of Lansing, Michigan. The company began
to collapse in the middle of its second year of operation and
ceased doing business in November 1900. Maybury and others
retained their faith in Ford, however, and in late 1901 they
backed him as chief engineer of the Henry Ford Company. This
effort failed as well, and Ford put all of his hopes into a
make-or-break third effort. The Ford Motor Company, founded in
mid-June 1903, rolled out its first car - a Model A-that July and
continued to grow steadily over the next several years. The
release of the now-legendary Model T or "Tin Lizzie" in 1908
catapulted Ford Motor Company into the leading ranks of American
automakers and turned its founder, a farm boy from Dearborn, into
one of the world's richest men.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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