Ford Motor CompanyFord Motor Company was officially incorporated on June 16, 1903, but many events occurred in the years preceding that date that affected its founder. Henry Ford was born on July 30, 1863, in Dearborn, Michigan, to an Irish immigrant father and an orphan mother. The Fords were Michigan farmers. Henry didn't like farm work growing up, so in 1879 he walked the eight miles to Detroit and took a job with the Michigan Car Company. As a child, Henry had always loved dismantling and reassembling machines. He was a rare talent and many consider Henry Ford to be a born mechanic. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"?Get the original essayIn Detroit, Henry's apprenticeship at Michigan Car Company lasted only a week because he embarrassed his foreman when he solved a mechanical problem that older mechanics could solve I didn't understand and was fired (Bak, 9 years old). Henry worked a series of other jobs in Detroit and later Dearborn before marrying Clara Jane Bryant in 1887. In 1891, Henry took a job with the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit. Two years later, he was promoted to chief engineer. The late 1800s marked the time of the first automobiles. Henry Ford monitored the state of the small American automobile industry when he worked for Edison. When he was chief engineer, he took advantage of his responsibility of being on call twenty-four hours a day to work late into the evening in his garden workshop. His goal was to make a gasoline engine from scrap materials. On Christmas Eve 1893, Henry hooked up his first gasoline-powered internal combustion engine to the kitchen sink of his home and asked Clara to pour gasoline into the intake valve while he turned the crankshaft. Several years later, Henry's first vehicle was ready for testing. Early on the morning of June 4, 1896, Henry Ford and one of his supporters, Jim Bishop, rolled the "quadricycle" out of the yard shed after first knocking down part of the wall because they did not have not measured the width of the vehicle in relation to the width of the door. Mr. Bishop rode ahead on his bicycle to warn all the horse-drawn travelers of the strange machine that was being tested. The quadricycle worked. He was capable of moving at speeds in excess of twenty miles per hour. He made some small adjustments after that night, and about a week later he was traveling to the countryside with his family and other guests. Later that year, Henry Ford was invited to the annual convention of the Association of Edison Illuminating Companies in New York for his abilities as an engineer and innovator. At the convention, Ford met Thomas Edison himself. Edison personally praised Ford's gasoline engine idea and encouraged him to "keep it going" (Bak, 27). When Henry Ford returned to Michigan, he immediately sold his quadricycle for two hundred dollars and began developing a better model. The Detroit Automobile Company was formed on August 5, 1899. Henry Ford, with the help of Detroit Mayor William Maybury, raised $15,000 from several wealthy citizens to start the company. Henry agreed to share ownership of his pending patents with his partners in order to conserve immediate funds and be able to continue experimenting with his new automobile (Bak, 29). He was designated chief engineer and had no authority over how the company was to be run. Fifteen months later, the company had lost $86,000 and had virtually nothing to gain. According to Ford, itsSupporters were “more interested in making a quick buck than building a better car” (Bak, 30). After the dissolution of the Detroit Automobile Company, Ford recognized the potential benefits of automobile racing. Auto racing quickly became a popular sport in the United States by 1900. The best drivers were considered the same as baseball players and boxers. Henry didn't care much about racing, but he figured it was a good way to get his car noticed and attract investors. On October 10, 1901, Henry Ford toppled Alexander Winton in a ten-mile track exhibition race. At that time, Winton was the premier auto racing company in the country. A month later, the Henry Ford Company was incorporated. The win over Winton resulted in five investors investing more than $30,000 in cash. Henry was a sixth owner and his title was chief engineer. As was the case with the Detroit Automobile Company, Henry Ford did not control the management of the company. Four months later, Ford resigned from the company that bore his name. He swore “never to put me under orders again” (Bak, 45 years old). Henry was not following the wishes of his supporters. He wanted to create a faster racing vehicle, but management wanted him to focus on passenger cars. The conflict of interest forced him to resign. Ford walked away with a $900 settlement, his drawings and agreement to change the company name. They chose Cadillac, named after the founder of Detroit. Ford spent most of 1901 and 1902 seeking investors to continue his automobile experiments. He managed to attract enough to form the Ford Motor Company on June 16, 1903. The company was capitalized at $100,000. John S. Gray invested $10,500 in cash, earning him ten and a half percent of the company and the title of president (Bak, 50). Unlike his two previous companies, Henry Ford was named vice president and general manager. Gray died in 1906, and Henry Ford became president and majority shareholder of his company. Ford enjoyed some success during the early years of the Ford Motor Company. The company, capitalized at $100,000 in 1903, had a net worth of over a million in 1907, but it was not until the announcement of Model T production in October 1908 that Ford became big ( Burlingame, 53). Twelve years later, nearly one in two cars in America was a Model T Ford (Watts, 111). Henry Ford faced several major dilemmas before co-founding the Ford Motor Company. One of the first major difficulties was finding investors. Ford first won over backers through his success with the Edison Illuminating Company. However, after some failures in manufacturing, finding wealthy men in Detroit who could finance it proved a little more difficult. He began using his racing cars to build his reputation. When he beat Winton in a ten-mile track race, fans around the world considered him a hero. This made Ford much more attractive to investors. During the Detroit Automobile Company and the Henry Ford Company, Ford was burned twice because he did not control how the company was operated. At that time, he wasn't really motivated by wealth or control. He was more concerned with building a better car. However, when he created the Ford Motor Company, he was much more motivated by control, as he felt that the reason his first two companies did not work was that management was too motivated by financial gain. His second company, which became..