aaa-+Cat+Conroy+-+Civic+Hero

** Henry Ford: Civic Hero ** By: Catherine Conroy

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Much of today’s social engagement is facilitated through transportation. Without the means that allow our mobility as people, how could we be involved in the civis and really be able to make a difference in our society? This question sheds light on just how important transportation really is to strengthening civic engagement. Without Henry Ford, personal mobility would only be but a mere brushstroke in the grander painting of the idea of transportation. Not only did Henry Ford make the dream of American mobility a reality, but he also made it affordable and truly revolutionized the automotive industry.

**//Biographical//**  Henry Ford, born on July 30, 1863, grew up on a farm in rural Michigan. Even though he was blessed to be part of a prosperous family, he soon realized there was more to life than farm chores and began to take up a great interest in mechanical things. At the young age of sixteen, Henry left his quaint little town for the bustling city of Detroit, Michigan to work as an apprentice machinist. He would be an apprentice for the next three years until returning to his hometown of Dearborn. After his return home, Henry spent his time both operating and repairing steam engines, working in a Detroit factory, and learning about and bettering his father’s farm equipment (American Association of Museums 2003).

 It wasn’t until 1891 when the twenty-eight-year-old Ford would become an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company. This decision would indicate his interests to dedicate his life to industrial pursuits. In 1893, after only two years with the company, Henry Ford was promoted to chief engineer, which would allow him both enough time and money to devote himself to his true interests of internal combustion engines. This desire to work with and discover the properties of internal combustion engines would lead him to his first self-propelled vehicle: the Quadricycle. His invention hit the open market in 1896 and would be a small vehicle that steered with a tiller, had two forward speeds, and no reverse. With this vehicle, Ford led Americans to become a nation of motorists (American Association of Museums 2003).

**//Innovation//**  October 1, 1908 might have well been D-day. The Model T was introduced and made the majority of Americans mobile with its incredibly low price of $825, or $20,100 today (Wikipedia 2011). Ford not only revolutionized the way the cars were built; having the steering wheel on the left, the entire engine and transmission being totally enclosed, and being so easy to drive and repair, but he also made them affordable for all of the American people. These were not just cars for the rich. Henry Ford realize d the need for all of Americans to be mobile, for everyone to be able to contribute in their own ways to the community. He was really inspired by Thomas Edison and his ideas for furthering the whole of America for the better. It was these ideas for the bettering of all Americans that led Henry Ford to become a civic hero, and also to coming up with a great marketing innovation: the Model T as the All-American car. What better way to market a product to Americans than to tell them it was made by Americans for Americans. This really meant that people could stand by the quality of Ford’s products, since he was connecting his cars with the nationalistic ideas of what it really meant to be an American. It was important to have a sense of pride for one’s country back then, as it is now, but Henry Ford really pioneered the idea of having motor vehicles truly represent Americans in their reliability. Marketing the Model T as the All-American car also insinuated that to not own one was un-American, a brilliant marketing plan.

With the popularity of the Model T came the need for a better mode of production. Henry Ford was the founder of the assembly line that he coined in 1913 with moving belts where his workers would each have a specific part that they would deal with in respect to his automobiles. When workers didn’t have to worry about gathering surplus knowledge about more than one car part for their job position, it allowed for them to be more involved in their family lives, as well as other civic participation, which Ford found very important for the greater good and quality of life for all Americans. Along with making the production jobs easier for his employees, Ford was also the first to institute the five-dollar work day in 1914, which doubled the pay of many workers in his factories in comparison to the other factories in the neighboring cities of Detroit (Wikipedia 2011). Henry Ford was a great advocate of positive corporate-worker relations and wanted his workers to be satisfied in the workplace so they could also have a satisfying life at home. He was a big believer in that you reap what you sow, and that he did. Detroit was already a high-wage earning city, but his competitors were faced with the problem of either raising wages or losing their best workers. Ford proved that with fair employee treatment, the turnover rate of his workers would be non-existent. With the higher pay, workers were able to better their families, and his corporation, by being able to purchase the cars they were building, and also benefit the country’s economy.

**//Outcomes//**  Ford’s vision of cutting costs and providing fair pay and benefits for his workers revolutionized the automotive industry. Not only were other factories trying to mirror Ford’s modes of production, but they were even failing to do so simply because Ford had done so first and had built up loyal customers and employees. Allowing Americans to be mobile and also to be able to provide properly for their families was at the forefront of Henry Ford’s ideals. These ideals were the key to having Americans be active in other aspects of society outside the workplace.

From Ford’s fame in the automotive industry also came fame in the respect of the American government. Ford was very supportive and was in favor of anti-war. In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson personally suggested that he run for a seat in the Senate. With the war on and the League of Nations becoming a growing issue in politics, the president thought Ford would be a great benefit to have in the Senate. Ford decided to run for the seat, but despite the 400,000 votes for him cast statewide, he still came up short just 4,500 votes (Wikipedia 2011). Even though he was not elected, his anti-war campaign reached the homes and hearts of many in the greater Detroit area.

**//Lessons//**  For future civic heroes, the life and accomplishments of Henry Ford can really be used as a guideline. It is important for individuals to be able to set objectives for themselves so they can know when they are on their way to accomplishing their main goal. In Ford’s case, he set his objectives as first becoming an apprentice, and then becoming the Vice President of a company before he could move on and be ready to run his own corporate operation. Another important thing was Ford’s personal relationship with Thomas Edison. It is always a great thing to have a mentor who both cares about and supports what one believes in. Having someone to look up to with a greater knowledge about the industry you want to someday become a part of can be a great motivator on the way to becoming a civic hero.

It can be said that Ford influenced America in a very positive way. From his belief that everyone deserved a reward for their hard work, to his anti-war campaign, Henry Ford will always be remembered for his accomplishments. Not only did Ford set the bar for what a great American businesses should be, but he also became the model for many American companies today. Without the civic hero of Henry Ford, we would be without the means of transportation that would facilitate great social change in our country.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Reference List

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">American Association of Museums. 2003. "The Life of Henry Ford." Greenfield Village. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> Retrieved October 1, 2011. (http://www.hfmgv.org/exhibits/hf/ ).

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Wikipedia. 2011. “Henry Ford.” Retrieved October 2, 2011. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford).

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">--- <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Brief Production Notes (For Full Plan and Execution see CuLearn):

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">For the written portion of my Civic Hero production, I worked really hard to proofread and take all of my classmates and your criticisms to heart. Through the writing process, I learned that I needed to take out parts of my paper that were extra unnecessary information, or stuff that was just simply repetitive. Adding the pictures in proved to be slightly difficult. When I first put my written portion up on the Wiki, I pasted it in from a word document that already had the pictures and picture captions embedded in it. However, when it pasted into the Wiki, the pictures showed up as "unavailable image", with the text boxes nowhere near the appropriate picture and awkwardly sized. I had to re-import all of the pictures, but I couldn't figure out how to get rid of the messy text boxes. I finally discovered that if you click on the chart icon next to the text box you can delete it, but only row-by-row. After I had rid my written portion of the ill-formatted text boxes, I then had to properly place the photos throughout my essay so that they made sense. After I had them aligned the way I liked, I worried about the appearance of how the surrounding text flowed around the pictures. I set the font to Georgia and chose not to bold any words because I wanted to stick to the olden-day theme of the black and white photos. After the text was arranged around the pictures the way I wanted, I added captions to each photo to clarify what they were for other readers. My one pet peeve about the set-up of the Wiki is that it doesn't allow indentations for new paragraphs or for you to simply put spaces to mimic indentations. In place of the indentations, I decided to just put an extra space between paragraphs to make sure the reader knew when new ideas and thoughts started in my essay.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">For the multi-modal portion of my project, I used iMovie to make a Ken Burns style video. I imported many different photos from online sources first. I really wanted my olden-day theme to continue into my multi-modal portion of the project, so I changed all colored photos into black and white by using the gradient tool in iMovie. After all pictures were set to black and white, I then inserted a title slide in the beginning of my presentation: "The Life of Henry Ford". After the title slide was added, I decided to add in some important motivational quotes that Henry Ford had said where appropriate in the iMovie. For these, I chose to format them a couple different ways. The first one was more of a one-liner phrase so I chose a script font and had it fade in, which I thought was appropriate. For the second quote I chose bold words with some key words sticking out, which we learned about in the in-class presentation. After all of the slides were in the proper order, I put in the slide transitions, which I tried to keep low key so as not to distract from the rest of the presentation. After the slide transitions were in place I added in the Ken Burns effect where appropriate and left some pictures as stills. On certain photos, I chose to make them longer so that the transitions weren't so abrupt. Once all of the photos were adjusted to the right time, I knew how long my audio had to be. I looked at my essay and picked out certain portions that went along with the photos I had. After having some experience on the This I Believe with GarageBand, I knew I couldn't get it all perfect with one take. Knowing this, I broke it up and recorded it in six different sections. When all six sections were to my liking, I put in some sounds that went along with my presentation. I put car horns, engines, and wheels into my presentation using fades to make them fit in with the spoken portion smoothly. For the opening slide and the photo credit slide, I used some olden-day music to fit with my theme. After the audio was cut to the proper time, I added it into my iMovie video and made sure everything fit together. I then imported it into YouTube so everyone in class could view it HERE. I also embedded the video in my Wiki page for easier access. Overall, I am very proud of my production and I hope everyone enjoys it! :)