He grew up on a prosperous family farm in Dearborn, Michigan, and in 1879 he left home for the nearby city of Detroit to work as an apprentice machinist. Upon his marriage to Clara Bryant in 1888 Ford supported himself by running a sawmill. In 1891 Ford became an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company, and after his promotion to Chief Engineer in 1893 he had enough time and money to devote attention to his personal experiments on internal combustion engines. These experiments culminated in 1896 with the completion of his own self-propelled vehicle nameded the Quadricycle. Ford Motor Company was incorporated in 1903. The company produced only a few cars a day at the Ford factory on Mack Avenue in Detroit. Groups of two or three men worked on each car from components made to order by other companies. The [Model T]? design was created in 1908. Ford was forced to move to a larger factory to keep up with the demand for his automobile, and by 1913 had developed all of the basic techniques of assembly line production. By 1918 half of all cars in America were Model Ts.
Ford lost market share during the 1920s due to the rise of consumer credit. Ford's goal was to produce an inexpensive automobile that any worker could afford. This meant that the price had to be kept low, which meant that Ford automobiles were usually low on features. General Motors and other competitors began offering automobiles with more features and luxuries, and extended credit to consumers so that they could purchase these more expensive automobiles. Ford resisted following suit, stating his belief that such credit would be injurious to the consumer and the economy. However, Ford eventually gave in and imitated his competitors.
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