The series The Men Who Built America is perhaps one of the best shows an American can watch in order to learn a plethora of knowledge over our great nation’s history, while also being entertained. Episode 8 titled The New Machine goes over the origin of the Ford Model T, while also describing various different political events happening across the country. We learn Henry Ford created a car where he was trying to get permission by the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers (ALAM), in order to build a monopoly. He fails multiple times when creating his models, and is even rejected by ALAM at first, which determines him even more to succeed. Ford comes up with the genius, but risky idea to challenge the owner of the biggest car company in the country to a race, despite not even knowing how to race a car. He wins, making him instantly famous and raising $28,000 ($700,000 today), allowing him to build his first factory in Highland Park, Michigan. ALAM hits him with a lawsuit claiming he is breaching their patent, so he takes them to court. Henry Ford shockingly wins, with the court claiming ALAM has no legal claim for the design of the car, allowing for Ford to sell his Model T to the public for $825 per car.
What makes this documentary so interesting is the desire to succeed for Henry Ford despite the monumental challenges he knew he would face along the way. During Ford’s tenure to try and get his company off the ground, ALAM was referred to as the powerful cartel of the automobile business, due to their complete control of the market. Knowing that the odds were heavily stacked against him, he realized challenging Alexander Winton to a race would win over the public if he could beat the fastest driver in America, who was also a prominent member of ALAM. he was correct, and his victory is what brought him his investors, and power to officially get his business off the ground. Henry Ford realized he could capitalize on all of this momentum, and hoped the courts would rule in favor in order to allow for his innovation. He had hope considering that at the same time as this John Rockefeller’s Standard Oil was completely dismantled by the court hoping to break up the monopoly. The federal court ruling in favor of Ford, and breaking up Standard Oil was a massive step in the right direction for a company hoping to inspire new innovations and inventions.
Throughout this course Henry Ford has been perhaps the most talked about man in class when we relate entrepreneurship to society. There are countless scenarios you could bring up with Ford that relate to what we have learned in the course, but two specifically catch my mind. The first is the involvement of regulations that are put in place in order to stifle innovation. ALAM was seen as the Goliath of the automobile industry, and believed everything must be run through them. They saw how big of a threat Ford’s ideas were to their success, and therefore tried to shut his business down before it could even start. However, unlike most stories, Ford was actually able to beat the system, and overcome these regulations with the court ruling in his favor. The second scenario that comes to mind is of course, innovation. You can go on and on about Ford’s innovations due to his impact within society, and how he literally changed the American business structure forever. His invention of the assembly line transformed production across the country, and was implemented in factories across the country, including Milton Hershey's chocolate factories. Ford also cared about the welfare of his workers, and standardized the 8 hour work day, 5 days a week. In addition, he paid his workers much better than anywhere else, and approved safe working conditions. In conclusion, Henry Ford inspired innovation for the future of America by creating a product for the American people, and not trying to build a monopoly.