Henry Ford

Henry Ford grew up on a farm in Michigan. As a child, he liked to take things apart and put them back together. In his teens, he left home to work as a machinist in Detroit and later became an engineer at a company established by Thomas Edison. Encouraged by Edison, Ford designed some early vehicle models. Ford went on to establish the Ford Motor Company in 1903. Eventually becoming one of the richest and best-known people in the world, Ford would revolutionize the American transportation industry with the Model-T, the first mass-produced automobile, introduced in 1908, and would also transform American industry with his assembly line method of production.