Henry Ford:
A Technological Genius
Henry Ford spent most of his life making headlines, good, bad, but never indifferent. Celebrated as both a technological genius and a folk hero, Ford was the creative force behind an industry of unprecedented size and wealth that in only a few decades permanently changed the economic and social character of United States.
Once Ford realized the tremendous part he and his Model T automobile had played in bringing about this change, he wanted nothing more than to reverse it, or at least to recapture the rural values of his boyhood. He, then, is an apt symbol of the transition from an agricultural to an industrial America.
At age 16 he walked to Detroit to find work in its machine shops. He came in contact with the internal-combustion engine for the first time, he returned to the farm, where he worked part-time for the Westinghouse Engine Company and in spare moments tinkered in a little machine shop he set up. Eventually he built a small "farm locomotive," a tractor that used an old mowing machine for its chassis and a homemade steam engine for power.
A month later Ford was made chief engineer at the main Detroit Edison Company plant with responsibility for maintaining electric service in the city 24 hours a day. He had determined several years before to build a gasonline-powered vehicle, and his first working gasoline engine was completed at the end of 1893. By 1896 he had completed his first horseless carriage, the "Quadricycle", so calle because the chassis of the four-horsepower vehicle was a buggy frame mounted on four bicycle wheels. Unlike many other automotive inventors who had built self-powered vehicles before Ford but held onto their creations, Ford sold his to finance work on a second vehicle, and a third, and so on.
Some of whom, formed the company, but all eventually abandoned him in exasperation because they wanted a passenger car to put on the market while Ford insisted always on improving whatever model he ws working on, saying that it was not ready yet for customers. He left the Henry Ford Company, which subsequently reorganized as the Cadillac Motor Car Company. Ford was ready to market an automobile. The Ford Motor Company was incorporated, this time with a mere $28000 in cash put up by ordinary citizens, for Ford had, in his previous dealings with backers, antagonized the wealthiest men in Detroit.
亨利•福特(Henry Ford):
天才机械师
亨利•福特(Henry Ford)一生中的大部分时间都在制造头条新闻，有好有坏，但他从不漠不关心。福特被誉为技术天才和民间英雄，是一个规模空前、财富空前的产业背后的创新力量。短短几十年，这个产业就永久性地改变了美国的经济和社会特征。
一旦福特意识到他和他的T型车在促成这一变化中所起的巨大作用，他最想做的就是扭转这一趋势，或者至少重新找回他童年时代的乡村价值观。因此，他是美国从农业向工业转型的恰当象征。
16岁时，他步行到底特律的机械车间找工作。他第一次接触到内燃机，回到了农场，在那里他为西屋电气发动机公司做兼职，业余时间他在自己开的一个小机器店里修修补补。最终，他制造了一辆小型的“农场机车”，一辆拖拉机，它的底盘使用一台旧割草机，动力则是一台自制的蒸汽机。
一个月后，福特被任命为底特律爱迪生公司(Detroit Edison Company)总厂的总工程师，负责全天24小时维护底特律的电力服务。几年前，他就下定决心要制造一辆以汽油为动力的汽车，1893年底，他的第一个工作用的汽油发动机完成了。到1896年，他已经完成了他的第一辆无马马车，“四轮车”，所以叫“四轮车”是因为这辆四马力汽车的底盘是一个装在四个自行车轮子上的婴儿车框架。不像其他许多汽车发明家，他们在福特之前就已经制造出了自动动力汽车，但却保留了他们的发明，福特将他的发明卖给了资助第二辆、第三辆汽车的研发工作，以此类推。
其中一些人成立了这家公司，但最终都愤怒地抛弃了他，因为他们想要一辆乘用车投放市场，而福特则一直坚持要改进他正在研发的任何车型，称尚未为客户准备好。他离开了亨利福特公司，该公司后来重组为凯迪拉克汽车公司。福特准备推销一种汽车。福特汽车公司(Ford Motor Company)成立了，这一次，普通民众仅拿出了2.8万美元的现金，因为福特在过去与支持者的交易中，得罪了底特律最富有的人。
In 1918 Ford bought a newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, and in it published a series of scurrilous attacks on the "International Jew," a mythical figure he blamed for financing war. He gave old-fashioned dances at which capitalists, European royalty, and company executives were introduced to the polka, the mazurka, the Virginia reel, and the quadrille; he built one-room schools in which vocational training was emphasized; he experimented with soybeans for food and durable goods; he sponsored a weekly radio hour on which quaint essays were read to "plain folks"; he constructed Greenfield Village, a restored rural town; and he built what later was named the Henry Ford Museum and filled it with American artifacts and antiques from the era of…
During the 1920s, under Edsel Ford's nominal presidency, the company diversified by acquiring the Lincoln Company, and venturing into aviation. In spite of age and infirmity, held it until 1945, when he retired in favor of his grandson.
Away from the shop floor he exhibited a variety of enthusiasms and prejudices and, from time to time, startling ignorance. His dictum that "history is more or less bunk" was widely publicized, as was his deficiency in that field revealed during cross-examination in his million-dollar libel suit against the Chicago Tribune in 1919; a Tribune editorial had called him an "ignorant idealist" because of his opposition to U.S. involvement in World War I, and while the jury found for Ford it awarded…
A similar pattern of authoritarian control and stubbornness marked Ford's attitude toward his workers. The $5 day that brought him so much attention in 1914 carried with it the overbearing paternalism. In 1929 Ford instituted a $7 day, but in 1932, as part of the fiscal stringency imposed by falling sales and the Great Depression, that was cut to $4, below prevailing industry wages. Ford freely employed company police, labor spies, and violence in a protracted effort to prevent unionization and continued to do so even after General Motors had come to terms with the United Automobile Workers.
福特对工人的态度也表现出类似的专制控制和固执。1914年，5美元一天的工资让他受到如此多的关注，同时也带来了专横的家长式作风。福特对工人的态度也表现出类似的专制控制和固执。1914年，5美元一天的工资让他受到如此多的关注，同时也带来了专横的家长式作风。1929年，福特制定了7美元的日工资，但在1932年，作为销售下降和大萧条所带来的财政紧缩的一部分，将其削减到低于当时行业工资的4美元。福特自由地雇佣公司的警察、劳工间谍和暴力来阻止工会的形成，即使在通用汽车公司与美国汽车工人联合会达成协议之后，福特仍然这样做。
Business Ups and Downs
The unprecedented scale of that success, together with Ford's personal success in gaining absolute control of the firm and driving out subordinates with contrary opinions, set the stage for decline. Trusting in what he believed was an unerring instinct for the market, Ford refused to follow other automobile manufacturers in offering such innovative features as conventional gearshifts, hydraulic brakes (rather than mechanical ones), six- and eight- cylinder engines. When he was finally convinced that the marketplace had changed and was demanding more than a purely utilitarian vehicle, he shut down his plants for five months to retool. The new model A enjoyed solid but not sectacular success. Ford's stubbornness had cost him his leadership position in…
Write an essay within 250 words, stating an historical event, using cause and effect technique.
写一篇250字以内的短文，用因果法叙述历史事件。
https://lanfeizi.wixsite.com/english-learning/blog/historical-causality