Ford motor company

When Ford Motor Company was founded in 1903, Alexander Y. Malcolmson was elected the Company's first treasurer, but his assistant James Couzens actually managed financial functions. People holding the position of Ford Motor Company treasurer from 1903 to 1955 included Alexander Y. Malcolmson, 1903-1906; James J. Couzens, 1906-1915; Frank L. Klingensmith, 1915-1921; Edsel B Ford, 1921-1943; B. J. Craig, 1943-1946; and L. E. Briggs, 1946-1955. In 1903, the business office was in a small building on Mack Avenue in Detroit, Michigan. This building quickly became too small and a much larger building was constructed on Piquette Avenue in Detroit in 1904. In 1910, the administrative offices moved from Piquette Avenue to the newly constructed plant in Highland Park, Michigan. In 1917, Ford Motor Company began construction on the River Rouge Plant in Dearborn, Michigan. The majority of the central administration offices remained in Highland Park, but a separate accounting system was also established at the Rouge Plant by George Brubaker. The Highland Park and Rouge financial offices operated autonomously until 1928 when a new Administration building was added to the Rouge complex and the two regimes merged under one supervision. By 1919, the financial operations at Highland Park were organized into three departments: Accounting, Auditing, and Factory Accounting. The Accounting Department, later called the Disbursement Department, was responsible for paying the bills. Ned Fuller was in charge of the Disbursement Department from at least 1919 until the company reorganization in 1946. The Auditing Department audited the financial records of all Ford Motor Company plants and also functioned as a general accounting department. The department maintained the general ledger of Ford Motor Company and its wholly owned subsidiaries, and handled real estate and personal property taxes. Ford Motor Company auditors from 1919-1949 included L. H. Turrell, 1919-1920; H. L. Leister, 1921-1928; H. L. Moekle, 1928-1941; L. E. Briggs, 1941-1946; Gordon R. Cornwell, 1946-1948; and Victor Z. Brink, 1949. The Factory Accounting Department, later called the Accounting Department (not to be confused with the Accounting Department later called the Disbursement Department), was responsible for cost accounting. The department also created monthly operating reports of the manufacturing plants. Heads of the Accounting Department from 1919 to 1945 included W. E. Carnegie, 1919-1933; C. L. Martindale, 1933-1945; and O. H. Husen, 1945. September 1945, Henry Ford II became president of Ford Motor Company and began a massive reorganization of the company. Henry Ford II hired Ernest R. Breech as executive vice president to realign Ford Motor Company's organizational structure to mimic General Motors. Breech hired Lewis D. Crusoe to take charge of reorganizing the financial operations. The old Accounting, Auditing, and Disbursement Departments were abolished and a Finance Division and a Planning and Control Division were established in 1946. From 1946 to 1948, the organizational structures of financial operations were under constant change and revision. Finally on January 1, 1949 a new, more permanent finance structure was created. Vice Presidents of Finance from 1946 to 1959 included Herman L. Moekle, 1946-1947; Lewis D. Crusoe, 1947-1949; and Theodore O. Yntema, 1949-1959.

In 1895, George B. Selden successfully patented a combustion engine for road carriages and in concert with the Columbia and Electric Vehicle Company in Hartford, Connecticut, worked to enforce the patent on automobile manufacturers springing up throughout the country. On October 22, 1903, the reorganized Electric Vehicle Company and George B. Selden filed a patent infringement law suit against C.A. Duerr, a Ford distributor in New York City, and Henry Ford. The landmark court case pitted powerful automobile manufacturers of the day against a group of independent companies led by Ford Motor Company. The suit against Ford lasted until 1909 when Judge Charles M. Hough declared in favor of Selden and upheld the patent. Ford Motor Company appealed the decision in 1910. In January 1911, an appeals court in New York City reversed the original decision and declared that George B. Selden's patent only narrowly defined a specific type of engine and could not be used to cover all internal combustion engines. The successful challenge not only assured Ford Motor Company's legal standing but also propelled Henry Ford and his company into the American public consciousness.

The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair was held on the same site as the earlier 1939-1940 New York World's Fair. Ford Motor Company hired Welton Becket and Associates, an architectural and engineering firm, to build the Ford Pavillion, a rotunda building similar to the Ford Rotunda. Ford Motor Company hired WED Enterprises, Inc., Walt Disney's exhibit design firm, to create the Magic Skyway exhibit where visitors boarded one of 160 convertibles for a twelve minute ride with narration taking them on a journey through time from prehistory to the space age.

Clarence W. Olmstead assisted Fred L. Black in planning and managing Ford Motor Company exhibits. After Black left Ford Motor Company in 1942, Olmstead took charge of exhibits.

Early in 1926 the Soviet government invited Henry Ford to send a Ford Motor Company delegation primarily to learn how the approximately 30,000 Fordson tractors were being serviced and to train staff in Ford methods for repair and upkeep. Ford Motor Company was interested in seeing how their tractors were performing, how the Fordson service schools were organized, and what the prospects might be for further expansion. Five executives, including H. C. Luedtke, Fordson Plant; M. R. Tuban, Los Angeles Branch; W. S. Ostendorf, Service Department; Bredo H. Berghoff, Fordson Plant; and William G. Collins, Italian Ford Company, were chosen to represent Ford. They sailed from New York on April 3, 1926 and subsequently traveled approximately 7,000 miles in four months visiting factories, touring tractor centers, and mounting exhibits. The delegates produced a detailed written report intended to communicate data "concerning the existing social, industrial, political, and general economic situations as would prove useful to the Company in its future business relations with the representatives of the Soviet government."

Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, Ford Motor Company engineers and designers created automobiles and trucks that defined the nascent industry. Henry Ford personally directed small teams of mechanics, die makers, and draftsmen in shops in the company's factories on Mack Avenue and Piquette Street in Detroit and in Highland Park, Michigan. Between 1917 and 1923, production engineering and tool design remained centered in the Highland Park plant while body, chassis, engine design, research, and experimental work moved to the former Henry Ford & Son tractor plant in Dearborn, Michigan. In April 1923, Ford announced the construction of a new engineering facility to be built in Dearborn to address the need for expanded engineering capabilities. This new engineering building, designed by Albert Kahn and completed in December 1924, was a dramatic departure from existing research facilities with its use of ambient lighting and an open and flexible floor plan. The exterior walls of limestone were carved with the names of renowned scientists from Leonardo De Vinci to Ford's personal hero, Thomas Edison. Throughout the production life of the Model T, product engineering at Ford Motor Company primarily focused on designing and incorporating cost efficiencies into production and tool design rather than large-scale product design. In 1937, day-to-day production engineering functions were moved from the Dearborn Engineering Laboratory, as it was then called, to offices in the Rouge plant under the supervision of Laurence S. Sheldrick. A core group of experimental engineers such as Joseph Galamb, Eugene Farkas, Emil Zoerlein, and Edward S. Huff remained in the Dearborn laboratory to conduct technical research for the company and Henry Ford. Non-company facilities such as the Fort Myers Laboratory in Greenfield Village, now part of The Henry Ford, were used for developmental projects such as the first Ford V8 engine. As part of a corporate-wide reorganization of Ford Motor Company in 1946, the company organized engineering departments and laboratories into an Engineering Division. Administrative functions for the entire division including finance, production scheduling, design, personnel, patent applications, trade show displays, model shops, and laboratories were separated and managed through executive staff offices. Ford executives realized the need for more advanced engineering facilities and construction of a new research center began in 1946. Completed in 1957, the Research and Engineering Center in Dearborn, Michigan, consolidated Ford Motor Company's engineering administration, technical research facilities, product design studios, and experimental laboratories in one location. The new research center also integrated engineering research work done at remote locations such as the vehicle test track in Dearborn, Michigan, the warm weather testing facility in Phoenix, Arizona, and the Dearborn Engineering Laboratory, which was renamed the Engine and Electrical Engineering building in the late 1950s.

Ford Motors created many promotional and educational films through the film production unite of its public relations division. The 1950s saw the development of several quality productions, including such award-winning films, "The American Road," "The American Farmer," and "Continental." The film program created over 150 films (1949-1976), specializing in topics such as the safe driving series, "Aids for Driver Education."

On September 21, 1945, Henry Ford II became president of Ford Motor Company and began the process of decentralizing company operations. On October 22, 1945, Lincoln-Mercury Division was established, which was responsible for the sale and distribution of Lincoln and Mercury automobiles. On February 11, 1949, Henry Ford II announced the formation of the Ford Division which was responsible for manufacturing, marketing, sales, and distribution of Ford cars and trucks. In 1952, Ford Motor Company added Special Product Operations, later known as Continental Division, to the organization chart. On April 15, 1955, Henry Ford II further decentralized the company by separating Lincoln-Mercury Division into two divisions and adding another, Special Products Division, later known as Edsel Division, totaling five: Continental Division, Edsel Division, Ford Division, Lincoln Division, and Mercury Division. In 1956, Continental Division was consolidated into Lincoln Division. In 1957, Lincoln Division and Mercury Division merged to re-form Lincoln-Mercury Division. In 1958, Edsel Division was merged with Lincoln-Mercury Division to form the M-E-L Division in an effort to boost Edsel automobile sales. With production of the Edsel automobile ending in 1959, M-E-L Division reverted back to Lincoln-Mercury Division. By 1960, all that remained of the automotive divisions were Ford Division and Lincoln-Mercury Division.

In 1946, Henry Ford II initiated a sweeping reorganization of Ford Motor Company, reflecting the need to modernize and streamline the company's administration and operations. Throughout the pre-war period, manufacturing and production at Ford was highly centralized with plant and building superintendents directly responsible for all production, purchasing, administration, and personnel decisions for their specific area. War time production requirements, contract oversight by outside personnel, and competition from other automakers required Ford to completely reorganize the company. Personnel and job duties were examined and reclassified according to whether the job was directly related to producing cars, trucks, or tractors, or administrative. Over the next 20 years, operational and administrative duties were shifted and altered to meet production demands, technological advances, and more logical organizational requirements.

George Brubaker was Henry Ford's brother-in-law, the husband of Clara Ford's sister Eva. He served the Ford Motor Company in various capacities, including general office manager and company representative, although without official titles. He was involved in the fringes of many company operatives including legal cases and personnel matters. Financially oriented, Brubaker is said to have developed the accounting system for the Rouge River Plant, an extension of the one he had previously operated at the original Henry Ford & Son tractor plant in Dearborn, Michigan. Thus an independent accounting system evolved at the Rouge, separate from the system managed by the staff at the Central Office, which was still operating at Ford's Highland Park Plant in Highland Park, Michigan. In 1928, the Ford Motor Company's Central Office moved from Highland Park to new offices in Dearborn, and all accounting functions were integrated.

Founded 1903. Automotive manufacturer.

In the 1960s, Ford Motor Company was recognized by several local and state gardening associations for the landscaping around its corporate offices. In particular, in 1967 Ford was honored by the Michigan Horticultural Society for the landscape gardening at the Central Office Building of its World Headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan, including the Michigan Arboretum (now the Arjay Miller Michigan Arboretum), which, started in 1960, is devoted exclusively to native trees and shrubs of Michigan and is one of the largest of its kind in the United States. Ford has continued to garner acclaim for its innovative and environmentally sensitive landscaping programs at its corporate headquarters and plants.

During the early years of Ford Motor Company, many of the legal requirements of the company were handled by a small staff reporting to the assistant secretary with litigation and court cases handled by Alfred Lucking, the consulting attorney. A combination of Ford's phenomenal growth, the need to protect Ford trademarks and patents, and a growing number of lawsuits brought by and against Henry Ford and Ford Motor Company led to an expansion in legal staff throughout the World War I era. In 1919, Clifford B. Longley joined the Legal Department, becoming the company's chief counsel in 1921 with legal staff in offices in Detroit, Dearborn, and the Rouge plant. The Legal Department managed company properties and purchasing contracts, patent applications and infringement issues, personal injury cases against the company, national and international legislative issues, and personal legal questions for Henry and Edsel Ford. In early 1929, Clifford B. Longley and Wallace Middleton, another department lawyer, entered private practice and established the law firm of Longley & Middleton, assuming much of the company's litigation duties. The Legal Department was disbanded soon after and by 1931 Ford's in-house legal functions consisted of former department attorneys specializing in patent applications, purchasing contracts, and employee compensation claims. Between 1929 and 1945, the Detroit firm of Bodman, Longley, Bogle & Middleton handled almost all the company's litigation with Clifford B. Longley acting as chief counsel for the company. Additional law firms throughout the country, such as labor law specialists Cravath, Swain & Moore in New York City, assisted in other court actions as needed. A Legal Department was reestablished in 1945. In 1946, Henry Ford II initiated a corporate-wide restructuring program focused on modernizing the management of Ford Motor Company, including the establishment of an Office of the General Counsel with twenty-nine staff attorneys and headed by William T. Gossett. From its inception, the Office of the General Counsel handled corporate legal functions including finance, general litigation, contract negotiations with suppliers and vendors, labor and employee relations, patents, trademarks, overseas contracts, dealer relations, real estate, construction, and import and export agreements and laws.

In January 1914, Ford Motor Company stunned American industry by announcing the five dollar-day wage based on company profit sharing, effectively doubling the average automobile worker's daily pay. The rest of the automobile industry was forced to meet Ford's wages making the American automobile worker one of the highest paid industrial workers in the world. The five dollar-day rate also included company oversight. In order to ensure that workers did not waste their pay, Ford Motor Company also established the Socioloigical Department, a department that oversaw, sometimes to an excessive extent, worker's private lives through home vists and personal finance investigations.

The Ford Motor Company as part of its purchasing system created part specification sheets. The sheets were drawn up by the Engineering Department and provide a detailed listing of the specifications the part was to be made to. A different sheet was created for each individual Model T part. The sheets, along with mechanicl drawings for the part were provided to outside parts vendors. These documents then served as the basis for price quotes to Ford. Information on the part specification sheets includes the material used for the part, finish of the part (if applicable), shipping weight and instructions, and sources of supply. The machine operation sheets identify the specific operations and order of assembly for various Model T parts. The sheets also list the estimated time required to perform each operation and the material or process used to paint or protect the part.

During the early years of Ford Motor Company, there were no organized public relations activities. Henry Ford occasionally talked to the press but he did not like interviews and therefore Ernest Liebold, Ford's secretary, turned down most press requests. During the 1920s and 1930s, William Cameron, editor of the Dearborn Independent, acquired the role as Henry Ford's chief spokesman. Harry Bennett inherited the role of Henry Ford's spokesman in 1940. Ford Motor Company did not have an organized public relations department. Most Ford Motor Company publicity was created by various outside advertising firms and supervised by Sales Department staff. In 1942, Edsel Ford hired Steve Hannagan to organize the News Bureau. In 1943, Edsel died, and Harry Bennett expanded his public relations powers, fired Hannagan, and took control of the News Bureau. On September 21, 1945, Henry Ford II assumed the presidency of Ford Motor Company and began a huge restructuring of the company. He fired many employees of the old Ford regime including Harry Bennett. Ford II hired Charles E. Carll to transform the News Bureau into an efficient organization. In 1946, Ford II organized the Office of Public Relations and hired the first Director of Public Relations. Public Relations Directors from 1946-1964 included: William D. Kennedy, 1946-1947; James W. Irwin, 1947; Charles E. Carll, 1947-1952; and Charles F. Moore, Jr., 1952-1964. The Office of Public Relations expanded and flourished under Moore's direction. He and his staff successfully planned and executed a year long celebration of Ford Motor Company's fiftieth anniversary in 1953. Theodore H. Mecke, Jr. succeeded Moore in 1965 as Vice President of Public Relations.

In 1909, Henry Ford bought a tract of land in Dearborn, Michigan near his boyhood home. He eventually acquired farm land throughout southeastern Michigan including land tracts in Belleville, Cherry Hill, and Macon, Michigan, and other places throughout Lenawee, Monroe, Washtenaw, and Wayne counties. Many small, family-sized farm houses were included in these land acquisitions. Henry Ford had the houses repaired, modernized, and furnished, and then rented them out to his employees. Ford donated most of the produce grown on the farms to needy families and individuals. Raymond C. Dahlinger served as the general superintendent of Henry Ford Farms, the official corporate name of the farms as a whole. On July 1, 1944, Henry Ford Farms was transferred to Ford Motor Company and thereafter considered an operating division of the company. Henry Ford Farms was not a profitable operation, forcing Ford Motor Company to later liquidate the farm land.

Established by Henry Ford in Michigan in 1903.

Ford Motor Company has long been lauded for production and manufacturing innovations dating back to the earliest days of progressive assembly. The epic production that Ford Motor Company achieved could not have been attained without an efficiently run purchasing organization. Beginning with James Couzens and Fred Diehl, purchasing operations at Ford Motor Company required talented individuals to negotiate agreements with suppliers, monitor material flow, and ensure timely shipping in order to meet increasing production demands. In 1927, Albert M. Wibel assumed charge of the Purchasing Department and under his direction over 500 purchasing agents worldwide supplied the basic materials for Ford's aircraft, automobile, truck, and tractor production. In addition, agents purchased a wide array of non-automotive materials used by Ford employees from the lumber camp at Alberta, Michigan to the company's rubber plantation in Brazil including food and medical supplies, construction materials, blast furnace equipment, and freighters. During World War II, Wibel and Ford's Purchasing Department supplied materials, men, and equipment to not only build thousands of tanks and armored vehicles but also to build and tool a plant that eventually produced 8,000 B-24 bombers by war's end. After World War II, Henry Ford II initiated a company-wide reorganization designed to bring the company's operations and administration up to modern standards. The Purchasing Department was re-organized into the Purchasing Division with responsibility for supplying all of Ford's administrative and production operations. Over the following two decades, production and administrative divisions assumed direct responsibility for their specific purchasing needs.

During model change and new product launches, the Assembly Engineering Department, Body and Assembly Operations at Ford Motor Company published Here's How booklets and manuals describing new production processes and model change information. The booklets and manuals covered chassis, body, trim, electrical, and paint change details for Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury cars and trucks. The booklets and manuals were also used by plant production and purchasing staff to determine tooling needs and parts and supplies purchases. The manuals preceded detailed process sheets that were published and distributed to plant management when production for the new model year began.

William John Cameron was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, on December 29, 1878. In 1918, Cameron joined the staff of Henry Ford's weekly newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, and became editor in 1920. During the 1920s and 1930s, he acted as Henry Ford's spokesman, always at Henry Ford's side during press interviews even though he had no official job title at Ford Motor Company. From 1934 to 1942, Cameron was the featured speaker during intermission of the Ford Sunday Evening Hour radio program featuring the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. From 1943 to 1945, he gave semiweekly talks at Greenfield Village chapel services and throughout his career, he was in demand as a public speaker. In 1946, Cameron retired from Ford Motor Company. He died in 1955 in Oakland, California.

For the first four years of Ford Motor Company's history James Couzens took charge of both sales and advertising as well as personnel, purchases, customer relations and the supervision of all agents and branches. In 1906, Couzens was promoted to general manager. Because of his new responsibilities, Couzens could no longer devote enough time to sales and advertising, so he hired Norval A. Hawkins as sales manager and LeRoy Pelletier as advertising manager. Couzens was reluctant to enlarge his staff and as a result both the sales department and advertising department each employed less than ten men by 1908. After Norval A. Hawkins resigned in 1918, there were many sales managers from 1918-1944 including: William A. Ryan (1918-1927); Fred L. Rockelman (1927-1930); Claude Nelles and John R. Davis (1930-1931); William C. Cowling (1931-1937); John R. Davis (1937-1939 and 1944-1946); Henry Clay Doss (1939-1943); and Henry Ford II (1943-1944). The advertising department, which was a part of the sales department, came in and out of existence over the first forty years of Ford Motor Company. LeRoy Pelletier left in 1907 after less than a year of service as advertising manager. Advertising managers from 1908-1946 include: Robert Walsh (1908); H.B. Harper (1908-1910); Glen Buck (1913); Charles A. Brownell (1914-1921); William A. Ryan (1921-1923); Fred Black (1927-1933); A. Roy Barbier (1930's-1941); and E.D. Bottom (1941-1946). The advertising manager position was vacant from June 1910-January 1913 and November 1913-July 1914. Because of all the free advertising Henry Ford was getting in the media in the late 1910's and early 1920's the advertising department, inactive in 1917-1918 because of the war, ceased work for five years. On September 21, 1945, Henry Ford II assumed the presidency of Ford Motor Company and began a huge restructuring of the company. He fired, demoted, or transferred more then 1,000 employees from all areas of the old Ford regime. Ford II organized the company into divisions to create organization within the company. He appointed John R. Davis as the Vice-President of the Sales and Advertising Division in December 1946. At the same time, Walker A. Williams was appointed sales manager and Ben R. Donaldson was appointed Director of Advertising.

During the early years of Ford Motor Company, James Couzens, vice-president of the company, took charge of personnel in addition to sales, advertising and customer relations. John R. Lee took over personnel responsibilities in 1913 and established the Sociological Department in 1914. Lee hired investigators to interview workers and document their living conditions to determine whether they met the strict guidelines for receiving the five-dollar day wage. Samuel Simpson Marquis, an Episcopalian minister, joined the Sociological Department in 1915 and soon replaced Lee as head of the department. Henry Ford's support for the Sociological Department waned through the years, which led Marquis to resign on January 21, 1921. The department was inactive after Marquis left, but was revitalized during the 1930s to help employees through the Great Depression. The Sociological Department was terminated in 1948 due to the rising cost of providing assistance and pressure from the United Automobile Workers union, which despised the department's investigative work. From the early 1920s to the mid 1940s, Harry Bennett was in charge of personnel and the Sociological Department after Marquis left Ford Motor Company. Because Bennett had the power to hire or fire anyone at the company, everyone, except Henry Ford, was said to fear him. By 1944, Bennett was in charge of all personnel, labor relations, and public relations and helped Henry Ford create company policy. When Henry Ford II became president of Ford Motor Company on September 21, 1945, he removed Bennett from power and began a huge restructuring of the entire company. He fired, demoted or transferred more than 1,000 employees who had connections to the old Ford regime. The Benson Ford Research Center does not have Harry Bennett's records. In 1946, as part of the new organizational structure, Henry Ford II appointed John S. Bugas, a former lawyer and FBI agent, Vice-President-Industrial Relations. Ford II and Bugas worked together to replace the harsh hiring practices of Bennett with fairer practices. Bugas served as Vice-President-Industrial Relations until 1959, followed by Kenneth D. Cassidy who served until his retirement in 1963. After Cassidy retired, the position was eliminated and the functions of industrial relations were split between the Labor Relations staff headed by Malcolm L. Denise and the Personnel and Organization staff headed by Edwin D. O'Leary.

In April, 1919, Ford Motor Company issued the first Ford Service Bulletin to dealers and authorized mechanics to address service, repair, and customer service issues. The bi-weekly publication provided detailed repair instructions and illustrations in response to customer and dealer questions and complaints as well as company initiated design, production, or materials changes. In time, various publications provided a line of communication between Ford Motor Company, field staff, and dealers. In addition to service bulletins, the company also issued Technical Service Letters to inform field staff and dealers of ongoing design and production changes occurring at the plants; weekly Product Information Letters, later called Product Service Letters, which detailed service and repair procedures for production design changes and part numbers; Fleet Service Letters, which focused on repair and service issues specific to large fleet owners, dealers, and mechanics; Service Manager's Information Letters, which focused on customer service, technical and product updates, and accessory sales; and Technical Standards Bulletins which were released to Ford's district field staff and detailed design changes, part changes, and repair procedures geared towards the company's customer service for dealers and mechanics. The technical letters and bulletins were published for all Ford products and contained information specific to the maintenance and repair of Ford cars and trucks, tractors, busses, Lincoln, Mercury, and Continental automobiles.

Ford Motor Company began displaying its products at non-automotive exhibitions as early as 1904. In 1915, Ford Motor Company demonstrated the mass assembly of automobiles at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, California. In 1933, Henry Ford boycotted the Century of Progress International Exposition in Chicago and instead held his own exhibition in Detroit and New York called the Ford Exposition of Progress. Due to the success of this exhibit, Ford decided to join the Century of Progress International Exposition in 1934. He hired Fred L. Black to manage this exhibit, who later went on to take charge of all major Ford Motor Company exhibits during the 1930s. Ford Motor Company constructed the Ford Rotunda, to house their exhibit, which contained displays on the history of machine tools in the 1800s, a soybean processing exhibit, a collection of historic and new Ford vehicles, a "roads of the world" exhibit of nineteen famous highways, and exhibits from twenty-one Ford Motor Company suppliers. The Ford Rotunda was later dismantled and moved to Dearborn, Michigan and served as a permanent exhibit building until fire destroyed it in 1962. Ford Motor Company also built an exhibit building for the California Pacific International Exposition in 1935, which was later donated to the San Diego fair. 1936 was a busy year as Ford Motor Company exhibited at the Texas Centennial Exposition in Dallas, the Great Lakes Exposition in Cleveland, and the Ford Florida Exposition in Miami. Ford Motor Company was also a major exhibitor in 1939 and 1940 when the company exhibited at both the New York's World Fair and the Golden Gate International Exposition. Ford Motor Company became the number one automobile exhibiter by the middle of the 1930s. Following the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair, no world fairs or international expositions were held in the United States until the Century 21 Exposition in Seattle, Washington in 1962. Ford Motor Company also exhibited at the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair.

Fred Lee Black began working for Henry Ford in 1918 as business manager of the Dearborn Independent. From 1927-1933, Black was the advertising manager of Ford Motor Company. Afterwards he was in charge of the Ford Motor Company displays at six international expositions. Black also served as secretary and treasurer of the Edison Institute. He left Ford Motor Company in 1942.

The Ford Rotunda, designed by Albert Kahn, was originally built in 1934 to house Ford Motor Company product exhibits and activities at the 1933-1934 Chicago World's Fair. After the fair closed, Ford management elected to move the building to Dearborn, Michigan. It opened to the public in 1936 as a permanent exhibit area and a hospitality center for Ford Motor Company Rouge River Plant factory tours. From 1942 to 1952 it was used as office space by successive armed services teams and by Ford executive groups. In 1953 the Rotunda was refurbished as part of Ford's fiftieth anniversary celebration. Renovation included the development of a geodesic dome for the circular inner court designed by R. Buckminster Fuller, the first commercial application of his experimental dome. In the next nine years the Rotunda drew two million visitors a year. A fire destroyed the building in 1962.

Manufacturing at Ford Motor Company was concentrated at the company's plants in Detroit, Michigan on Mack Avenue, 1903-1904; Piquette Avenue, 1904-1908; and in Highland Park, Michigan, after 1908. While production levels were relatively low, day-to-day operations were managed by department foreman and supervisors in the plants. Over time, general superintendents, including Clarence W. Avery, William B. Mayo, and Charles E. Sorensen supervised various departments and buildings and managed a wide variety of production and non-production operations. These general superintendents oversaw all of Henry Ford and Ford Motor Company's industrial interests from airplanes to water power plants. In 1919, Henry Ford completed a buyout of minority stockholders and began a massive expansion program at the company's Rouge River plant outside Dearborn, Michigan. Charles Sorensen returned to Ford Motor Company to head up the Rouge plant expansion while P.E. Martin remained as superintendent of the Highland Park Plant. Throughout the 1920s, major manufacturing operations were gradually shifted to the Rouge, eventually leaving tractor, truck, and repair parts production in Highland Park. By 1929, most day-to-day manufacturing management was centered in the superintendent's offices at the Rouge complex. During the 1930s and World War II, the Superintendents Office was replaced by the Manufacturing Department with Sorensen, Martin, and Meade L. Bricker overseeing production and manufacturing operations, while ancillary departments including the Building Construction Department, Marine Department, Branch Assembly Department, and Production Department became part of Ford's manufacturing administration. After World War II and the return to civilian manufacturing, Henry Ford II initiated a company-wide reorganization to modernize the management structure and production efficiency of the company. Over the next two decades, manufacturing operations were decentralized into more logical operations groups with administrative Manufacturing Division staff coordinating all manufacturing and assembly operations.

Within a year of incorporating in the United States in 1903, Ford Motor Company licensed the newly formed Ford Motor Company, Ltd. (Canada) to assemble and distribute Ford vehicles in Canada and the rest of the British Commonwealth. In 1911, Ford Motor Company, Ltd. (England) started assembling and manufacturing cars and trucks for European markets in Trafford Park near Manchester. In 1928, the reincorporated Ford Motor Company, Ltd. in England purchased controlling interest in Ford companies throughout Europe, northern Africa and the Middle East. Ford of Canada purchased controlling interest in Ford companies throughout the rest of the British Commonwealth as well as Southeast Asia, Japan, and South Africa. Ford Motor Company in the United States retained controlling interest in markets in Central America and South America and overall control over production, purchasing and design of Ford products worldwide.

Throughout the production life of the Model T, product engineering at Ford Motor Company primarily focused on designing and incorporating cost efficiencies into production and tool design rather than large-scale product design. Between 1917 and 1923, production engineering and tool design was primarily located at Ford's Highland Park, Michigan plant while body, chassis, and experimental engineering was moved to the old Henry Ford & Son tractor factory in Dearborn, Michigan. In April 1923, Ford announced the construction of a new engineering facility to be built in Dearborn to address the need for expanded engineering capabilities. This new engineering building, designed by Albert Kahn and completed in December 1924, was a dramatic departure from existing research facilities with its use of ambient lighting and an open and flexible floor plan. The building included the general offices, research laboratories, dynamometers, drafting rooms, body design, and chassis design rooms that made up a new Experimental Department of Ford Motor Company.

Edward S. "Spyder" Huff helped Henry Ford design electrical and ignition systems for his earliest racing vehicles. He achieved racing immortality by riding on the running board of Henry Ford's race car during an event against the leading automobile manufacturer of the day, Alexander Winton, at the Detroit Driving Club's race track in Grosse Pointe, Michigan in October, 1901. Huff also rode into the record books helping to design and run Henry Ford's car that set the world land speed record on the ice of Lake St. Clair in January, 1904. Huff was instrumental in the concept, design and development of the flywheel magneto and insulated spark plug that made the Model T a highly reliable vehicle and helped spark the success of the company. Huff was an electrical engineer of uncommon abilities and played an important role in developing Ford ignitions and other electrical systems.

Cravath, Swaine & Moore, a law firm in New York City founded in 1819, has a long history in corporate law. During the 1930s and early 1940s, Cravath, DeGersdorff, Swaine & Wood, which became Cravath, Swaine & Moore, represented Ford Motor Company in labor suits brought by Ford's employees under the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, also known as the Wagner Act. Under the Wagner Act, industrial employees were given the legal right to collective bargaining to negotiate over wages, hours, and benefits with employers. If labor representatives believed employers were not bargaining in good faith or actively working to suppress union organization, charges against the company could be brought before the National Labor Relations Board, which could issue findings based on the merits of the cases.

As early as 1896, Henry Ford owned a camera and was taking photographs. Ford's interest in visual documentation extended to the automotive industry and Ford Motor Company when in 1913 he formed one of the earliest and and what would become one of the largest corporate photographic departments in the world. Initially staffed by one man, by 1916 the department had grown to a staff of twenty-four and was producing moving pictures as well as still photographs. By 1918, the Ford Motor Company was the largest motion picture distributor in the world. (Researchers should note that currently this collection is comprised wholly of still photographs.) Ford Motor Company photographers photographed all manner of activities, from the shop floor to surrounding communities. It is important to note, however, that Ford Motor Company photographic activities blur distinctions between personal and company documentation. In addition to capturing on film all aspects of the development and expansion of the automotive company, photographers took vast numbers of photographs of Henry Ford, his family, homes and retreats, travel experiences, pacifist and philanthropic activities, antiquarian interests, and relationships with friends. For the company, photographers contributed their skills to numerous departments. Documentation of Ford products and related processes included the creation of significant runs depicting plant construction, domestic and foreign plant operations, manufacturing and assembly methods, war production activities in two world wars, and the early years of the aviation industry. Photographers traveled to world fairs, photographed visits from dignitaries and celebrities, and documented varied and diverse Ford projects relating to mining, railroading, shipping, rubber production, lumbering, wood processing, and village industries. By the late 1950s, prints in various collections numbered over 470,000. In 1964, the photographs were donated to the Edison Institute (now The Henry Ford), a non-profit organization wholly independent of the Ford Motor Company, along with the personal papers of Henry Ford and early business records of the company.