The American automobile manufacturer Henry Ford (1863–1947) is, along with Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers, one of those who best symbolized the use of technology to transform human life in the early twentieth century. Ford himself recognized the social orientation of his efforts. As he explained in his 1922 autobiography, he believed that successful manufacturing was rooted in public service rather than in money making. He was equally clear about his own public service goal: "To lift farm drudgery off flesh and blood and lay it on steel and motors has been my most constant ambition." Somewhat unexpectedly, however, his focus shifted when he discovered "that people were more interested in something that would travel on the road than in something that would do the work on the farms".

Ford was born on a farm in Wayne County, Michigan, on July 30 and died in Dearborn, Michigan, on...