biography of Henry Ford

 

Henry Ford was born July 30, 1863 in Wayne county, Michigan. He was the son of Irish immigrants, William and Mary Ford, who had settled on a farm in Dearborn. In addition to helping his father with the harvest, Ford also attended school in a one-room schoolhouse. However, Ford disliked both school and farm life, and at age 16, he walked to Detroit in search of employment.

Ford was employed as an apprentice in a machine shop, where he learned about the internal combustion engine. After several years of learning his trade, Ford returned to the family farm and worked part-time for the Westinghouse Engine Company. Ford set up a small machine shop on the farm and began tinkering with engines and machines. During this time, Ford fell in love with Clara Bryant, who he married in 1888.

Several years later, Ford and his wife moved back to Detroit when Ford was made chief engineer at the Detroit Edison Company. The position required Ford to be on-call 24 hours a day, but the irregular hours allowed him time to experiment. He had experimented with gasoline-powered vehicles and horse-less carriages for several years before his first vehicle was completed. The "Quadricycle," a vehicle with a buggy frame mounted on four bicycle wheels was completed in 1896. Ford sold the "Quadricycle" to raise capital for more creations.

During the next several years, Ford continued to fine-tune his passenger vehicles. In addition, he built racing cars and even drove them himself. In 1903, Ford produced an automobile he was ready to market, and he formed the Ford Motor Company with capital from Detroit citizens. In 1908, Ford introduced the successful Model T, which was manufactured for 19 years. However, Ford's successes were not without problems. Soon after the incorporation of the Ford Motor Company, Ford was threatened by the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers. After years of legal battles, Ford won his case in 1911, which made it possible for more people to become automobile manufacturers.

Ford was able to market the Model T to the general public because of his advanced production technology. The Ford Motor Company's plant in Highland Park, Michigan, Ford introduced the first assembly line in 1913, which drastically reduced production time. As a result, more automobiles were made available at a lower cost. Ford also instituted the $5.00/day minimum wage, which he claimed increased productivity.

However, not everyone was impressed with Ford's business practices, and in 1917, he was sued by his stockholders for diverting profits into company expansion. Although the court ruled in favor of the stockholders, by 1920, Ford was able to buy them out. He built a huge plant in River Rouge, and the company became almost entirely self-sufficient.

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In 1926, Ford began losing sales to General Motors because the Model T was becoming outdated. The Ford plants were shut down for five months, after which Ford introduced the Model A and later the V-8. Both models received moderate success but were outsold by General Motors and Chrysler.

The problems Ford Motor Company encountered can be attributed to Ford's stubborn and authoritarian management style. Although Ford's only child Edsel had been named president in 1919, his father remained in strict control. When General Motors and Chrysler signed contracts with the United Automobile Workers, Ford refused to follow suit. He employed spies and company police to prevent his workers from unionization. Ultimately, Ford was persuaded to sign a contract with the UAW in 1941.

Ford's son Edsel died in 1943, and Ford resumed the presidency. However, he had experienced two strokes by that time, and two years later handed over the presidency to his grandson, Henry Ford II. Ford died at his home on April 7, 1947.

Biography of Duke Ellington

 

Edward Kennedy Ellington was born in Washington, DC in 1899. His mother, Daisy Kennedy Ellington, recognized her son's talents when he was a child. Daisy's husband worked as a blueprint maker for the U.S. Navy. Occasionally he worked as a butler, sometimes at the White House. Neither parent could have imagined that their son would be an honored guest and performer at the White House before four different presidents. In 1969, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his accomplishments as a musician and conductor.

Nicknamed "Duke" by his boyhood friends because of his love for dressing in fine clothes, Ellington displayed talent as a pianist when he was quite young. His piano teacher tried to make Duke learn the piano in a conventional way. Duke did learn, but he always added creativity and expression to his playing.

Ellington strove for excellence and elegance in everything he did. When still in high school, he designed the winning poster for a contest sponsored by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He graduated from high school in 1917 and was offered a scholarship from the Pratt Institute of Applied Art in New York City, but music was his first love, and he followed his instincts.

Ellington struck out on his own. He organized a band in Washington and began to play regular engagements. His band went to New York City, where they made their first recordings. When Duke Ellington and his Washingtonians played at the famous Cotton Club in Harlem, they were on their way to success.

The band played in movies during the 1930s. They also toured Europe for extended periods of time. Each musician had his own style, but they all played together under Ellington's leadership to create wonderful sounds.

He and his band performed in all the major concert halls in the United States and Europe. Liberia, in West Africa, commissioned Ellington to write music to celebrate its 100th anniversary. Another West African nation, Togo, was honored by Ellington's work entitled "Togo Brava." Millions of fans around the world loved his music.

Although the 1950s were not popular years for bands, Ellington kept his band together. He stayed in business while he composed other types of music. He wrote pieces for his band, music for Broadway shows and ballets, jazz compositions, concert hall music, and sacred music. Altogether he wrote more than 6,000 pieces of music.

"He has made us all happier and richer by having lived among us. He will not be easily replaced on this earth." The great African-American singer Sarah Vaughan spoke these words of Duke Ellington after his death in 1974. Fans of Duke Ellington know they will never need to replace this great man - his creative spirit is still very much alive in his music.

Biography of Edward VIII

"I, Edward, do hereby declare my irrevocable determination to renounce the throne for myself and my descendants." These words were spoken by Edward VIII, the only British monarch to voluntarily abdicate the throne.

Edward VIII, later known as Edward, duke of Windsor, was the eldest child of George, duke of York and Princess Mary of Teck. He was born June 23, 1894 in Richmond, Surrey, England. With his father's accession on May 6, 1910, Edward became heir to the throne.

From ages 13 to 17, Edward trained at the naval preparatory college at Osborne, then attended the Royal Navy College. In addition, he was schooled at Magdalen College, University of Oxford. During World War I, Edward served as a staff officer in the Army?s Grenadier Guards. After the war, Edward traveled extensively throughout the British empire as a goodwill ambassador, and his popularity was great. In 1932, Edward instituted several occupational policies to battle growing unemployment, which also increased his popularity.

Edward lived in an 18th century home called Fort Belvoir, which was given to him by his father, King George V. He enjoyed the privacy of "the Fort" and became an expert on gardening, especially roses. Through his small, private circle of friends who visited him at the Fort, Edward met Wallis Warfield Simpson. At the time, she was married to Ernest Simpson, but by 1934, Edward considered himself "deeply in love."

Soon after, on January 20, 1936, George V died, and Edward was proclaimed king. Edward was determined to marry the now-separated Mrs. Simpson, and he attempted to gain the royal family's acceptance of the relationship. However, Edward's family, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, and British political leaders were opposed to a marriage. Through government pressure of the press, the relationship was kept secret from the British public until December 2, when the entire matter was revealed. Cries for abdication began the next day.

Edward submitted his abdication on December 10, and announced it to the public during a radio address the next evening, saying "I have found it impossible to carry on the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge the duties of King as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love." On December 12, after Edward had already departed for Austria to stay with friends, his brother, now King George VI, named him the duke of Windsor.

Mrs. Simpson's divorce became final several months later, and the two were married on June 3, 1937. They lived in France until the outbreak of World War II, at which time Edward accepted the governorship of the Bahamas offered to him by Winston Churchill. Edward remained in the Bahamas until the end of the war. Still, the division between he and his family was not yet remedied.

While living in Paris after the war, Edward returned only twice to Great Britain; in 1952, after the death of his brother, George VI, and in 1953, after the death of his mother, Queen Mary. He was not formally invited to an official public ceremony until 1967, when he and Simpson, now the duchess of Windsor, were invited to the unveiling of a plaque dedicated to his mother, Queen Mary.

For the rest of his life, Edward lived with Wallis in both Paris and the United States. He died in Paris on May 28, 1972. She died in Paris nearly 14 years later on April 24, 1986. The duke and duchess were buried side by side within the grounds of Windsor Castle.

Biography of Thomas Alva Edison

In his lifetime, Thomas Alva Edison profoundly affected the technology of modern society. The American inventor was born February 11, 1847 in Milan, Ohio. He was the seventh and last child of Samuel Edison, Jr. and Nancy Elliot Edison. When Edison was 7 years old, his family moved to Port Huron, Michigan, after his father hired on as a carpenter at the Fort Gratiot military post.

Edison entered school in Port Huron, but his teachers considered him to be a dull student. Because of hearing problems, Edison had difficulty following the lessons and his school attendance became sporadic. Nevertheless, Edison became a voracious reader and at age 10, he set up a laboratory in his basement.

When his mother could not longer stand the smell of his chemistry lab, Edison took a job as a trainboy on the Grand Trunk Railway and established a new lab in an empty freight car. He was 12 at the time. Edison also began printing a weekly newspaper, which he called the Grand Trunk Herald.

While Edison was working for the railroad, something happened that changed the course of his career. Edison saved the life of a station official's child, who had fallen onto the tracks of an oncoming train. For his bravery, the boy's father taught Edison how to use the telegraph.

From 1862 to 1868, Edison worked as a roving telegrapher in the Midwest, the South, Canada, and New England. During this time, he began developing a telegraphic repeating instrument that made it possible to transmit messages automatically. By 1869, Edison's inventions, including the duplex telegraph and message printer, were progressing so well, he left telegraphy and began a career of full-time inventing and entrepreneurship.

Edison moved to New York City and within a year, he was able to open a workshop in Newark, New Jersey. He produced the Edison Universal Stock Printer, the automatic telegraph, the quadruplex, as well as other printing telegraphs, while working out of Newark. During this same period, Edison married Mary Stilwell.

Edison was a poor financial manager and by 1875, he began to experience financial difficulties. To reduce costs, Edison asked his widowed father to help him build a new laboratory and machine shop in Menlo Park, New Jersey. He moved into the new building in March, 1876 along with two associates, Charles Batchelor and John Kruesi. Edison achieved his greatest successes in this laboratory and he was dubbed the "Wizard of Menlo Park."

In 1877, Edison invented the carbon-button transmitter that is still used in telephone speakers and microphones. In December of the same year, he unveiled the tinfoil phonograph. (It was 10 years before the phonograph was available as a commercial product). In the late 1870s, backed by leading financiers including J.P. Morgan and the Vanderbilts, Edison established the Edison Electric Light Company. In 1879, he publicly demonstrated his incandescent electric light bulb. In 1882, he supervised the installation of the first commercial, central power system in lower Manhattan. In 1883, one of Edison's engineers William J. Hammer, made a discovery which later led to the electron tube. The discovery was patented the "Edison effect."

In 1884, Edison's wife Mary died, leaving him with three young children. He married Mina Miller in 1886, and began construction on a new laboratory and research facility in West Orange, New Jersey. The new lab employed approximately 60 workers and Edison attempted to personally manage this large staff. The story goes that when a new employee once asked about rules, Edison answered, "There ain't no rules around here. We're trying to accomplish something." However, the operation in West Orange lacked the intimacy of Menlo Park, and Edison's time was often consumed by administrative chores.

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During his time in West Orange, Edison produced the commercial phonograph, the Kinetoscope, the Edison storage battery, the electric pen, the mimeograph, and the microtasimeter. In 1913, Edison introduced the first talking moving pictures. In 1915, he was appointed president of the U.S. Navy Consulting Board. In all, Edison patented more than 1,000 discoveries. Edison's inventions were often in response to demand for new or improved products. However, others also came about accidentally or serendipitously.

Thomas Alva Edison died in West Orange, New Jersey on October 18,1931. At the time of this death, he was experimenting on rubber from goldenrod. After his death, Edison became a folk hero of legendary status. His inventions had truly and profoundly affected the shaping of modern society.

Biography of Amelia Earhart

  

"Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace with yourself." These are the words of Amelia Earhart, one of the world's most celebrated aviators, a woman who broke records and charted new waters.

Amelia Earhart was the first child born to Edwin Stanton and Amy Otis Earhart on July 24, 1897, in Atchison, Kansas. Amelia and her sister, Muriel, who was born three years later, had a difficult childhood. Their father was an alcoholic and because he often lost jobs, the family traveled a great deal. The girls frequently missed school but still excelled academically. They enjoyed books and often recited poetry while doing their chores. Amelia and Muriel also loved sports, including basketball and tennis. Their parents encouraged them to try new things, and they did.

After graduating from high school, Amelia planned to attend college, but her plans were put on hold after she met four wounded World War I veterans on the street. After hearing of their plight, Amelia decided to study nursing. During the war, Amelia worked as a military nurse in Canada. At the war's end, she became a social worker at the Denison House in Boston and taught English to immigrant children.

Amelia enjoyed watching airplane stunt shows, which were quite popular during the 1920s. One day, after taking a ten minute plane ride, which cost $1, Amelia knew she must learn to fly. By working several odd jobs and with the help of her mother, Amelia earned the $1,000 fee to take flying lessons. Her first instructor was nicknamed "Snooky." Ten hours of instruction and several crashes later, Amelia was ready to fly solo. She made her first solo flight in 1921. Except for a poor landing, the flight was uneventful. By the next year, Amelia had saved enough money to buy a plane of her own.

During the 1920s, Amelia lived with her mother and sister in Boston and continued teaching at Denison House. Flying was merely a hobby for her at that time. However, in 1928, Amelia received a call from Captain Hilton H. Railey asking her to join pilots Wilmer Stultz and Louis Gordon on a flight from America to England. Although she was only a passenger, Amelia became the first woman to cross the Atlantic on a plane called the Friendship on June 17-18, 1928. A publisher named George Putnam covered the story, and in 1931, the two married.

Amelia's 1928 flight brought her tremendous publicity, and she subsequently endeavored to justify this renown. On May 20-21,1932, Amelia crossed the Atlantic on her own, establishing a new transatlantic crossing record of 13 hours, 30 minutes. Amelia was celebrated throughout Europe and the United States and received a medal from President Herbert Hoover. Several years later, Amelia became the first woman to successfully complete the hazardous flight from Hawaii to California.

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In June 1937, Amelia began what was to be her final flight. Amelia and navigator Fred Noonan set out in a twin-engine Lockheed Electra in an attempt to fly around the world. They departed from Miami, Florida to South America, and then across the South Atlantic Ocean to Dakar, Africa. After crossing the Sahara desert, they flew to Thailand, Singapore, Java, and Australia. However, after departing Lae, New Guinea for Howland Island, the U.S. Coast Guard lost contact with the plane. They received a final message on July 2 at 8:45 a.m., and Amelia's tone was described as frantic.

The United States Navy searched extensively but never found a trace of the aviators or the plane. The mysterious disappearance of Earhart and her plane has raised considerable speculation throughout the years. Some believe that she and Noonan were captured and executed by the Japanese. Others speculate that President Roosevelt sent Earhart on a secret spy mission. However, none of the many theories for her disappearance have ever been confirmed. In 1939, Earhart's husband published a biography entitled Soaring Wings, in tribute to Amelia.

Biography of Frederick Douglass

 

Born: February, 1818
Died:  February 20, 1895
Birthplace: Maryland

If the old adage "The Pen is Mightier than the Sword" ever needed substantiation, one need look no farther than the life of Frederick Douglass.

Born a slave, Douglass embraced both the written and spoken word to achieve political and social heights no African-American of his time, and precious few since, even dared dream of.

Like many second-generation and after slaves, Douglass was the product of a slave woman and her white master in February 1818 on Maryland’s eastern shore.

His youth didn’t offer any insight into the man he was to become, as he lived the life of most slaves, enduring backbreaking labor and witnessing his peers suffer intense whippings.

Unlike many other slaves, young Douglass was taught to read, an avocation he engulfed with pleasure.  As a teenager, he organized illegal schools to help other slaves learn to read and write.

His ever increasing knowledge made the shackles of slavery all the tighter and, after a failed attempt that landed him in jail, Douglass escaped for good and fled to New Bedford, Massachusetts with his young bride in 1838.

Douglass continued to educate himself and became caught up in the Abolitionist movement to end slavery forever.  William Lloyd Garrison, one of the Abolitionist leaders, became Douglass’s mentor.

"No face and form ever impressed me with such sentiments (anti-slavery) as did those of William Lloyd Garrison," Douglass wrote in his autobiography.

At the tender age of 23, Douglass gave a speech to the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society that stirred passion into even the most obtuse heart.  It was the start of a public speaking career that continued throughout his life.

In 1845, Douglass published his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written By Himself.  Fearing recapture as a slave, Douglass went to the British Isles for two years.

While in Britain Douglass spoke in favor of Irish home rule and eventually would speak on behalf of the European peasantry, women's suffrage, prison reform, free public school education and universal peace.

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While in England, a group got enough money to buy Douglass’s freedom from slavery.  He returned home and started a newspaper, the North Star, out of Rochester, NY.
Douglass was still firmly in the Abolitionist camp, but preferred using politics and debate as a means to an end, where Garrison was more radical, pushing for solutions that included the dissolution of the Union.  Douglass thought such a move would lead to even further isolation for Blacks in the South, and the two had a bitter falling out that lasted well into the Civil War.
Abraham Lincoln enlisted Douglass as a consultant during the war, using the African American leader to help enlist Black troops to fight for the Union.  Douglass continued to speak out for the rights of all people, throughout his life, emphasizing three keys for success in life:

1. Believe in yourself.
2. Take advantage of every opportunity.
3. Use the power of spoken and written language to effect positive     change for yourself and society.

"What’s possible for me is possible for you," Douglass said. 
Aside from being an advisor to the President, Douglass was also marshal of the District of Columbia, recorder of deeds for DC, and minister to Haiti.

Biography of Charles Dickens

 

Charles John Huffam Dickens was born February 7, 1812 in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England. Shortly thereafter his family moved to Chatham, and Dickens considered his years there as the happiest of his childhood. In 1822, the family moved to London, where his father worked as a clerk in the navy pay office. Dickens' family was considered middle class, however, his father had a difficult time managing money. His extravagant spending habits brought the family to financial disaster, and in 1824, John Dickens was imprisoned for debt.

Charles was the oldest of the Dickens children, and a result of his father's imprisonment, he was withdrawn from school and sent to work in a shoe-dye factory. During this period, Dickens lived alone in a lodging house in North London and considered the entire experience the most terrible of his life. Nevertheless, it was this experience that shaped his much of his future writing.

After receiving an inheritance several months later, Dickens' father was released from prison. Although Dickens' mother wanted him to stay at work, resulting in bitter resentment towards her, his father allowed him to return to school. His schooling was again interrupted and ultimately ended when Dickens was forced to return to work at age 15. He became a clerk in a law firm, then a shorthand reporter in the courts, and finally a parliamentary and newspaper reporter.

In 1833, Dickens began to contribute short stories and essays to periodicals. He then provided a comic narrative to accompany a series of engravings, which were published as the Pickwick Papers in 1836. Within several months, Dickens became internationally popular. He resigned from his position as a newspaper reporter and became editor of a monthly magazine entitled Bentley's Miscellany. Also during 1836, Dickens married Catherine Hogarth. Together, they had nine surviving children, before they separated in 1858.

Dickens' career continued at an intense pace for the next several years. Oliver Twist was serialized in Bentley's Miscellany beginning in 1837. Then, with Oliver Twist only half completed, Dickens began to publish monthly installments of Nicholas Nickleby in 1838. Because he had so many projects in the works, Dickens was barely able to stay ahead of his monthly deadlines. After the completion of Twist and Nickleby, Dickens produced weekly installments of The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge.

After a short working vacation in the United States in 1841, Dickens continued at his break-neck pace. He began to publish annual Christmas stories, beginning with A Christmas Carol in 1843. Within the community, Dickens actively fought for social issues; such as education reform, sanitary measures, and slum clearance, and he began to directly address social issues in novels such as Dombey and Son (1846-48).

In 1850, Dickens established a weekly journal entitled Household Words to which he contributed the serialized works of Child's History of England (1851-53), Hard Times (1854), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), and Great Expectations (1860-61). At the same time, Dickens continued to work on his novels, including David Copperfield (1849-50), Bleak House (1852-53), Little Dorrit (1855-57), and Our Mutual Friend (1864-65). As his career progressed, Dickens became more and more disenchanted. His works had always reflected the pains of the common man, but works such as Bleak House and Our Mutual Friend expressed his progressing anger and disillusionment with society.

In 1858, Dickens began a series of paid readings, which became instantly popular. Through these readings, Dickens was able to combine his love of the stage with an accurate rendition of his writings. In all, Dickens performed more than 400 times. The readings often left him exhausted and ill, but they allowed him to increase his income, receive creative satisfaction, and stay in touch with his audience.

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After the breakup of his marriage with Catherine, Dickens moved permanently to his country house called Gad's Hill, near Chatham in 1860. It was also around this time that Dickens became involved in an affair with a young actress named Ellen Ternan. The affair lasted until Dickens' death, but it was kept quite secret. Information about the relationship is scanty.

Dickens was required to abandon his reading tours in 1869 after his health began to decline. He retreated to Gad's Hill and began to work on Edwin Drood, which was never completed. died suddenly at home on June 9, 1870. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.