Who is Henry Ford and what did he do?

(born July 30, 1863, Wayne county, Mich., U.S. - died April 7, 1947, Dearborn, Mich.) U.S. industrialist and pioneer automobile manufacturer. Ford worked his way up from a machinist's apprentice (at age 15) to the post of chief engineer at the Edison Company in Detroit. He built his first experimental car in 1896. In 1903, with several partners, he formed the Ford Motor Company. In 1908 he designed the Model T; demand became so great that Ford developed new mass-production methods, including the first moving assembly line in 1913. He developed the Model A in 1928 to replace the Model T, and in 1932 he introduced the V-8 engine. He observed an eight-hour workday and paid his workers far above the average, holding that well-paid labourers become the consumers that industrialists require, but strenuously opposed labour unions. As the first to make car ownership affordable to large numbers of Americans, he exerted a vast and permanent influence on American life
Henry Ford was the founder of the Ford Motor Company. He invented the Quadricycle, the first "horseless carriage" that he produced. Its popularity helped fund and launch Ford's business, and the new Ford Motor Company was founded 7 years later, on 16 June 1903.

Ford used the assembly line concept to build his cars relatively cheaply, and revolutionized transportation by making automobiles affordable to the common man, and not just to the rich, as had been the case previously. His mass production methods included the use of completely interchangeable parts. His massive River Rouge plant began with raw materials (e.g. iron) and produced finished cars.

Ford's other innovation was to pay the then unheard of high wage of $5 a day. He believed that the producers of his automobiles should be able to afford to buy them.