Henry Ford was one of America's first industrialists. He is best known for his revolutionary achievements in the automotive industry and his inventions are still admired in the modern world today. Henry Ford grew up on a small farm near Dearborn, Michigan. It was here that Henry Ford was born, on July 30, 1863. He attended the local district schools like the rest of his town's children and excelled in most subjects. As Henry grew up, he spent most of his free time tinkering and discovering exactly how things work. A pastime that developed thinking skills and logic, but being the son of a farmer, he had little free time, because there were always jobs to do. By the age of twelve, Henry was working a man's job on the farm and had begun repairing machinery for nearby farmers. His father was pleased when Henry repaired a harness, reseated a tool handle, or made furniture hinges, but he was not pleased, however, when his son repaired things for the neighbors, as he often did, without asking them for a cent. . It was one day when Henry saw a steam engine powering a farm machine that he dreamed that one day he would build a smaller engine that would power a vehicle and do the work a horse once did. Shortly after Henry turned thirteen, his mother died. Henry became very unhappy with life on the farm, but stayed for another three years. When he was sixteen, he finished his education at the district school. Against his father's wishes, Henry moved to Detroit, ten miles away. In Detroit, Henry worked eleven hours a day at the James Flower & Brothers machine shop for just $2.50 a week. Since this was not enough to pay for room and board, Henry found an evening job at Magill's Jewelers for $2 a week, at first his only option... middle of paper... n giving up his job. holding the Ford Motor Company, he named himself president once again. By then he was old and in 1945 he handed over all responsibility to Edsel's son, Harry II. The Ford Company took on a new life under young Henry, but Ford wasn't there to see it. On April 7, 1947, alone with his wife and a servant, Henry died of a stroke, aged eighty-three. After his death, a foundation was created to administer his vast fortune. Most of Ford's fortune, estimated at between $500 and $700 million, went to the Ford Motor Company, which founded the non-profit organization called the Ford Foundation. The foundation has given substantial support to various projects in the arts, medicine, and other important areas of American life. Ford was a great man who revolutionized our world. Ford put the world on wheels and, in doing so, made it a smaller world.