[1] July 30, 1863.

CONTENTS

[Foreword]
I.[One Summer’s Day]
II.[Mending a Watch]
III.[The First Job]
IV.[An Exacting Routine]
V.[Getting the Machine Idea]
VI.[Back to the Farm]
VII.[The Road to Hymen]
VIII.[Making a Farm Efficient]
IX.[The Lure of the Machine Shops]
X.[“Why Not Use Gasoline?”]
XI.[Back to Detroit]
XII.[Learning About Electricity]
XIII.[Eight Hours, but Not for Himself]
XIV.[Struggling with the First Car]
XV.[A Ride in the Rain]
XVI.[Enter Coffee Jim]
XVII.[Another Eight Years]
XVIII.[Winning a Race]
XIX.[Raising Capital]
XX.[Clinging to a Principle]
XXI.[Early Manufacturing Trials]
XXII.[Automobiles for the Masses]
XXIII.[Fighting the Seldon Patent]
XXIV.[“The Greatest Good to the Greatest Number”]
XXV.[Five Dollars a Day Minimum]
XXVI.[Making It Pay]
XXVII.[The Importance of a Job]
XXVIII.[A Great Educational Institution]
XXIX.[The European War]
XXX.[The Best Preparedness]

HENRY FORD’S OWN STORY

CHAPTER I
ONE SUMMER’S DAY

It was a hot, sultry day in the last of July, one of those Eastern summer days when the air presses heavily down on the stifling country fields, and in every farmyard the chickens scratch deep on the shady side of buildings, looking for cool earth to lie upon, panting.

“This weather won’t hold long,” William Ford said that morning, giving the big bay a friendly slap and fastening the trace as she stepped over. “We’d better get the hay under cover before night.”

There was no sign of a cloud in the bright, hot sky, but none of the hired men disputed him. William Ford was a good farmer, thrifty and weather-wise. Every field of his 300-acre farm was well cared for, yielding richly every year; his cattle were fat and sleek, his big red barns the best filled in the neighborhood. He was not the man to let ten acres of good timothy-and-clover hay get caught in a summer shower and spoil.