Henry Ford
| Noun | 1. |  Henry Ford - United States manufacturer of automobiles who pioneered mass production (1863-1947) |
| 单词 | henry ford | |||||||||||||||
| 释义 | Henry Ford
Henry Ford
Ford, Henry,1863–1947, American industrialist, pioneer automobile manufacturer, b. Dearborn, Mich.The Inception of the Ford Motor CompanyFord showed mechanical aptitude at an early age and left (1879) his father's farm to work as an apprentice in a Detroit machine shop. He soon returned to his home, but after considerable experimentation with power-driven vehicles, he went (1890) to Detroit again and worked as a machinist and engineer with the Edison Company. Ford continued working in his spare time as well, and in 1896 he completed his first automobile. Resigning (1899) from the Edison Company he launched the Detroit Automobile Company. A disagreement with his associates led Ford to organize (1903) the Ford Motor Company in partnership with Alexander Malcomson, James CouzensCouzens, James Later YearsIn 1915, in an effort to end World War I, he headed a privately sponsored peace expedition to Europe that failed dismally, but after the American entry into the war he was a leading producer of ambulances, airplanes, munitions, tanks, and submarine chasers. In 1918 he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate on the Democratic ticket. After weathering a severe financial crisis in 1921, he began producing high-priced motor cars along with other vehicles and founded branch firms in England and in other European countries. Faced with increasing competition and lost sales, Ford nonetheless long resisted introducing a new model. A new design to replace the Model T—the Model A—was advocated by his son Edsel and finally produced beginning in 1928 in a variety of styles; it marked the beginning of the Ford Motor Company's regular development of new models and styles. Strongly opposed to trade unionism, Ford—who incurred considerable antagonism because of his paternalistic attitude toward his employees and his statements on political and social questions—stubbornly resisted union organization in his factories by the United Automobile Workers until 1941. A staunch isolationist before World War II, Ford again converted his factories to the production of war material after 1941. In 1945 he retired. Other Accomplishments and ControversiesHis numerous philanthropies, in addition to the Ford FoundationFord Foundation, Ford's international reputation made him a natural target for journalists. His libel suit against the Chicago Tribune in 1919 led to an examination by the Tribune attorney, intended to show Ford's lack of education. Anti-Semitic articles in Ford's Dearborn Independent brought further legal controversy; he was forced to apologize for the articles. In the 1930s, Ford was widely attacked for employing Harry Bennett, a former boxer who established a squad of thugs to spy, beat up, and otherwise intimidate union organizers. Ford was also a poor manager who failed to capitalize on his company's early success. In the 1920s he failed to respond to consumer tastes by introducing new models and the company fell far behind General Motors. By the time of his retirement, the company's accounting procedures were so primitive that Ford's managers were unable to accurately tell how much it cost to manufacture a car and the company was losing $9.5 million a month. Later GenerationsHenry Ford's son, Edsel Bryant Ford, 1893–1943, b. Detroit, shared in the control of the vast Ford industrial interests. He was president of the Ford Motor Company from 1919 until his death, when his father once more became (1943) president of the company. The eldest Ford soon retired again when his grandson, Henry Ford 2d, 1917–87, b. Detroit, succeeded him in 1945. The younger Henry Ford moved quickly to restructure and modernize the company, which had slipped from the world's largest automobile manufacturer in 1920 to number three in the U.S. market in 1945. He removed a number of long-time Ford executives, such as Bennett, and for the first time in company history, recruited outsiders for positions of responsibility. The company spent $1 billion between 1945 and 1955 to expand its operations, introduced successful new models, and raised $690 million in capital by offering stock to the public (1956). Although Ford modernized and revitalized the company, his tenure also saw the introduction of the Edsel, which lost the company $250 million, and Ford's autocratic management style forced a number of top executives, such as Lee IacoccaIacocca, Lee Although family shareholders continued to have voting control of the company, nonfamily members headed Ford until 1999, when Bill Ford (William Clay Ford, Jr.), 1957–, became chairman. Working at Ford Motor Company from 1979, Bill Ford became vice president of the commercial truck vehicle center in 1994, chairman of the finance committee in 1995, and chairman of the board in 1999. In 2001 he also became chief executive officer of Ford, but the company's difficulties led him to resign that post in 2006. BibliographySee biographies by A. Nevins and F. E. Hill (3 vol., 1954–62), B. Herndon (1969), R. Lacey (1986), and S. Watts (2005); R. M. Wik, Henry Ford and Grass-Roots America (1970); P. Collier and D. Horowitz, The Fords (1987); N. Baldwin, Henry Ford and the Jews (2001); D. Brinkley, Wheels for the World (2003). Ford, HenryBorn July 30, 1863, near Dearborn, Mich.; died Apr. 7, 1947, in Dearborn. American industrialist; one of the founders of the automobile industry in the USA. In 1879, Ford became a machinist’s apprentice in Detroit, and he worked for several years as a machinist for various companies. In 1893 he became the chief engineer for the Edison Illuminating Company, and from 1899 to 1902 he was chief engineer for the Detroit Automobile Company. In 1892–93, Ford built his first automobile, which had a four-stroke internal-combustion engine (4 horsepower). In 1903 he founded the Ford Motor Company, which subsequently became one of the largest automobile companies in the world. Ford introduced standardization on a broad scale in his plants and made use of the assembly-line method of production. Ford described his ideas about work organization and production in My Life and Work (1922; Russian translation, 1924), Today and Tomorrow (1926), and Moving Forward (1930). Ford, Henry(1863–1947) industrialist, innovator; born near Dearborn, Mich. Son of a farmer, he left school at age 15 and worked at a series of jobs where he enlarged his mechanical skills and knowledge of engines. By 1892 he had built his own "gasoline buggy" and by 1896 was driving an improved model in public. In 1899 he left a secure post as engineer of the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit to start an automobile company. It went out of business in 1900 and he concentrated on making racing cars. In 1903, realizing that the future of automobiles lay in making them faster and cheaper, he established the Ford Motor Company with $100,000 from investors. His firm's early models sold well but his big breakthrough came with the introduction of the Model T in 1908, the first car designed for average people's use. Its low price, in turn, depended on his company's adoption of innovative production methods such as assembly-line operations and standardized parts. A paternalistic employer, he introduced the $5-a-day wage in 1914 and generally paid wages above industry standards, but he fiercely resisted unionization (United Auto Workers did not appear in his plants until 1941). He became so widely admired that the term "Fordismus" was coined to describe his brand of capitalism—efficient production, good pay, and mass distribution. He had also taken to promoting his views in articles and books, including My Life and Work (1922) (which, like most of his writing, was the work of a hired hand). Blinded by his early successes, he tended to isolate himself from new advances in technology and design—for years his cars were available only in black, and his Model A, introduced in 1927, lagged years behind in its technology. By the mid-1930s, his company slipped behind other American car manufacturers. By then he himself was fabulously rich and although he continued his autocratic control of the company, he turned over much of the operations to his only son, Edsel. Meanwhile, he had already begun to devote himself to other pursuits. He had strongly opposed World War I, and after he lost a race for the U.S. Senate in 1918, he blamed the war and his defeat on "international bankers" and "the Jews," revealing a side he would never live down, provincial at best, bigoted at worst. At one stage he even expressed admiration of Hitler and he urged Americans not to get involved in World War II. Meanwhile, he devoted considerable time and money to establishing the historical village and museum in Dearborn. (His oft-quoted remark, "History is bunk," was intended to mean that, as conventionally taught in books, history failed to capture the true story of people in the past.) In 1936 he established the Ford Foundation, and with the bequests of his and his family's stock, it became one of the world's largest philanthropic institutions. Although not universally admired by the time of his death (and later biographies would further chip away at his image), he was undeniably one of the most influential men of the century.Henry Ford
Synonyms for Henry Ford
|
|||||||||||||||
| 随便看 |
|
|||||||||||||||
英语词典包含2567994条英英释义在线翻译词条，基本涵盖了全部常用单词的英英翻译及用法，是英语学习的有利工具。