Henry Ford
A farmer’s son who mended the neighbours’ watches and left for Detroit to be a machinist; he founded his own company at forty, on the third attempt. The Model T (1908) was meant as a car for everyone, and the moving assembly line of 1913 cut its build from twelve hours to one and a half and brought the price down threefold. In 1914 he doubled his workers’ pay — five dollars a day — and not out of generosity: turnover was eating the gains of the line, and a worker who could buy the car he built was also a customer. Fifteen million Tin Lizzies moved America from the village to the suburb. His name also stands under the antisemitic articles in his own newspaper, for which he had to apologise publicly, and under a stubborn war on the unions. He died in 1947.
He was born on a farm at Dearborn near Detroit on 30 July 1863 at 07:00 local mean time — America had not yet introduced time zones. The hour comes from the family record.