My Life and Work

Summary

My Life and Work is Henry Ford's account of his life and business ideas, written with the journalist Samuel Crowther and published in 1922, when the Ford Motor Company was the largest carmaker in the world. Ford tells how a Michigan farm boy who loved machines became an engineer at the Edison company in Detroit, built his first car in 1896, and founded the Ford Motor Company in 1903. He explains his decision to build one simple, sturdy model, the Model T, and to keep lowering its price so that ordinary families could buy it. Much of the book sets out his principles: service before profit, the elimination of waste, the moving assembly line, high wages such as the five-dollar day, and suspicion of bankers and speculation. He describes how the moving line at the Highland Park plant broke the making of a car into many small operations, and he answers critics who said such work was monotonous. He recalls meeting Thomas Edison, who encouraged his gasoline engine, and he tells how the company survived the slump of 1920-21 without borrowing from bankers by cutting waste and selling off surplus stock. Later chapters turn to tractors and farming, the railroads, charity, education and democracy. Ford writes plainly and confidently, mixing stories from the shop floor with blunt opinions, and he presents his own career as proof that his methods work. The book is a primary source for the rise of mass production and the modern consumer economy, and students can test its confident claims against the historical record, including the costs of repetitive factory work and Ford's hostility to labor unions. Readers should also know that Chapter XVII defends the antisemitic articles published in Ford's newspaper, The Dearborn Independent; teachers should prepare students for that passage and discuss it directly. Read in sections alongside a textbook account of the industrial age, the book helps students see both the energy and the blind spots of one of the most influential Americans of the twentieth century.

Top Lessons

• A car for the great multitude

  Ford decided to build one simple, durable model and to cut its price year after year so that families of modest means could own a car. Students can see how a product changed daily life by becoming cheap enough for ordinary people.

• Men and machines

  Ford describes the moving assembly line and admits that much factory work is repetitive. He argues that most workers prefer simple tasks and that high wages and low prices repay them. Students should weigh his claims against what workers and later historians said.

• Reading a primary source critically

  My Life and Work is Ford speaking for himself, with a professional writer's help. It shows his real achievements and also his prejudices, including the Chapter XVII defense of antisemitic articles in his newspaper. Christian readers can admire diligence and ingenuity while naming falsehood and contempt for neighbors as wrong.

Verified Quotes