FORD at 120 By Marick Masters

FORD@120

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Marick F. Masters, Professor and Consultant

July 3, 2023

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In this year 2023 Ford Motor Company celebrates the 120th anniversary of its incorporation.?We join this celebration to honor the enormous contributions the iconic corporation has made to society.?Ford manifests a slice of Americana, overcoming flaws in a continual struggle to improve.?It embodies the entrepreneurial spirit that drives a more prosperous society, uplifting millions of workers in its factories and offices who manufacture products symbolized by the ubiquitous Blue Oval.?The automobile signifies the freedom of independent mobility which enables people to reach more distant horizons that connect them in a broader community.

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On June 16, 1903, Henry Ford led twelve investors who signed papers to incorporate Ford Motor Company. The indefatigable inventor who earned more than 160 patents had a powerful vision “to build a motor car for the great multitude.” ?Ford sold its first Model A on July 23, 1903 and had produced more than 15 million Model T’s by 1927, when it stood on the cusp of completing the River Rouge Plant, then the largest integrated manufacturing site in the world, with its own electricity plant, 100 miles of interior railroad, and 93 buildings covering 16 million square feet of floor space.?Henry Ford more than exceeded his ambition, refusing to “recognize that there are impossibilities.”?Through his Model T alone, Henry Ford “affected the world more than any other man in fifteen hundred years.”

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Through its iconic journey, Ford has become a cultural phenomenon, part of the folklore of Huxley’s Brave New World, in which AF (After Ford) demarked not only time but fealty to “Our Ford.”?The company has traversed the vicissitudes and triumphs of World Wars, struggles to advance worker and civil rights, and endeavors to improve workplace health, product safety, and environmental sustainability.?From the Ford Hunger March of March 7, 1932 to Bloody Sunday on March 7, 1965, the Arsenal of Democracy to Rosie the Riveter, and the rise and decline of American manufacturing, Ford Motor Company has withstood the test of time.?

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We celebrate Ford’s formal incorporation because it symbolizes the potential of what is good about an entrepreneurial spirit that survives adversity and flaw.?The rise of Ford as a manufacturing behemoth is synonymous with the rapid growth in Detroit, which had nearly as many people in 1950 as the city of Los Angeles, and its signature labels of Motor City and Motown. ?We will benefit from infusing in the entrepreneurs of today and tomorrow the unquenchable drive to realize new zeniths in our collective capacities to revitalize cities and manufacturing.

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Through the Model A and Model T to the Mustang and the All Electric F-150, Ford Motor Company has marked the progress of time.?It realized Henry Ford’s dream of enriching the life of the multitudes.?With his inventiveness we experienced the freedom provided by affordable mobility.?Let us hope that this journey, however imperfect and flawed it may have been, continues to allow us to see even greater heights of fulfillment.