Henry and Edsel: The Creation of the Ford Empire

Henry and Edsel

One hundred years after a rawboned mechanical genius transformed his vision of a car for the masses into one of the world's first major automobile manufacturers, a great story remains to be told. It is a multigenerational saga of fathers and sons and the epic struggle for control of an industrial empire.

Biography founders Ford Motor Company

Henry and Edsel is the first biography to focus on both the legendary founder of the Ford Motor Company and the son who led the company's transformation from successful manufacturer to business empire. Author Richard Bak offers a daring new perspective on the human drama that changed the shape of Ford. He examines the ongoing friction between Henry and Edsel over adapting to a changing competitive environment and lays bare the stark contrasts between the two men - both their personalities and their approach to the design, construction, and marketing of automobiles.

Creation of the Ford Empire

In these pages, Henry Ford emerges as a complex and self-contradictory man who was not entirely comfortable in the new world that he had done so much to create. Renowned as an innovator, he resisted desperately needed changes in his own company - everything from painting cars any color other than black to providing financing for car buyers. A self-styled friend of the working man, he despised labor unions and appointed the ruthless Henry Bennett to squash any hint of unionization at Ford.

Ford family business

Among the many surprises in this fascinating exploration of the ultimate family business run by the quintessential business family is its portrait of Edsel Ford. Often viewed as a weak and ineffectual manager, Edsel is revealed as a gifted, levelheaded, and imaginative businessman with a keen sense of where the market was headed. When the company's very survival was at stake during the tumultuous 1920s and 1930s, it was Edsel who envisioned and pushed for the daring changes that turned Ford into a powerful, modern corporation.

Henry Bennett

Another compelling character in this classic American story is Henry Bennett, often referred to as Ford's second son. A hard-drinking barroom brawler in his youth, Henry Bennett rose through sheer toughness and force of will to become Henry Ford's heir apparent. The climactic struggle among these three very different men to control the vast and growing Ford empire was one of the most dramatic conflicts in the history of American business.

Henry and Edsel: The Creation of the Ford Empire

Complete with compelling portraits of important Ford competitors, executives, and family members, as well as a fascinating array of family and official company photos, Henry and Edsel is must reading for anyone interested in business, the auto industry, or the fascinating world of the early twentieth century.
Henry and Edsel: The Creation of the Ford Empire by Richard Bak
ISBN: 0471234877

Evolution of the American auto factory

Witness the evolution of the American auto factory beginning with the basic hand-built assembly of cars in the earliest part of the twentieth century, through the age of the assembly line, and up to today's robotically-operated lines. Concentrating on the 1920s to 1950s, large photographs of the assembly lines in action send readers into nostalgic old factories.

Workers, tools, methods and machines

See the workers, the tools, the methods and the machines that combined their efforts with the ingenuity of industry players like Henry Ford, Ransom Olds. Walter Chrysler, and others to make possible the automobile's worldwide proliferation and availability. Flash back in time to witness the factories decade by decade in never-before-published vintage photographs. Featured automakers include Ford, GM and Chrysler, along with smaller companies like Packard, Studebaker, and Auburn

American Auto Factory

The American Auto Factory by Byron Olsen
ISBN: 0760310599

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