Henry Ford: Highlights of His Life

This intimate portrait of Henry Ford comes from the institution he himself created, and that distinction matters. Written in 1938 by Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, the book traces the arc of a farm boy's obsession with machinery into the making of the modern world. Ford didn't simply build automobiles; he dismantled the ancient relationship between time and work, inventing the assembly line and proving that efficiency could be revolutionary. The Model T that emerged from his Highland Park factory in 1908 didn't just move people from point A to point B - it redrew the map of American life, making the open road a birthright of ordinary families rather than the preserve of the wealthy. Yet this biography also reveals Ford's softer ambitions: his reverence for American craft, his creation of Greenfield Village as a living memorial to the pre-automobile era, and the Edison Institute meant to shape future generations. Here is Ford in full complexity - the visionary who changed everything, the eccentric who collected America's past while building its future.