Ford Motor Company. Office of the Treasurer.

By 1903 the first company Henry Ford initiated to produce automobiles had failed and he had quit a second company in dispute with his financial backers. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Ford convinced a new group of investors that there was money to be made manufacturing automobiles designed by Henry Ford. On June 16, 1903, a group of twelve investors filed articles of incorporation for the Ford Motor Company and on June 22 one of the investors, James Couzens, began keeping the checkbook. (Alexander Y. Malcolmson was elected the Company's first treasurer; however Malcolmson's assistant James Couzens actually managed financial functions.) Investors were to put up a total of $100,000; however the new company began with only $19,500 in its checking account. Henry Ford and Malcomson put up no cash since each got credit for $25,500 based on plans, machinery, patents, etc. Of the other ten investors, only a few actually made their full investment in cash. Some put up part of the money and signed a note to pay the rest; others simply signed a note. The first check reimbursed Malcomson for money he had alread paid John and Horace Dodge for engines, transmissions, and chassis of the new Ford; the second went to the Hartford Rubber Company for tires. Other checks were written for blueprints, rent, postage stamps, and salaries. By July 10, the account balance was down to $223.65 and no cars had yet been sold. On July 11, Albert Strelow, one of the investors, sent a check for $5,000, which kept the company going. Four days later, a check arrived from the Illinois Trust and Saving Bank in Chicago on behalf of Dr. E. Pfennig, Ford Motor Company's first customer. He ordered a car and paid the full price of $850. Soon checks for $300 and $170 arrived, deposits for two more cars. By August 20, when the last check in the first checkbook was written, the checking account contained $23,060.67. In order to meet the growing demand for the Model T, the company opened a large factory in 1910 at Highland Park, Michigan, where Henry Ford combined precision manufacturing, standarized and interchangeable parts, a division of labor, and, in 1913, a continuous moving assembly line. By 1918, half of all cars in America were Ford Model Ts. In 1919 a conflict with stockholders over the millions to be spent building the giant Rouge manufacturing complex in Dearborn, Michigan led to the company becoming wholly owned by Henry Ford and his son, Edsel, who then succeeded his father as president.