Henry Ford was born in America nearly 150 years ago Henry Ford was born in America nearly 150 years ago. When he was a little boy he lived with his family on a farm. He was interested in how things worked and always wanted to know how things were made. Henry aged 2 As he grew older he knew that he wanted to invent machines that would make life easier for people. When he was 13 he saw a steam engine for the first time. He had never seen ‘a horseless carriage’ before and he was very Henry Ford 1863 - 1947 excited. From then on he was determined to invent and make his own horseless carriage.

When Henry was 16 he left home to work as an apprentice machinist in the city of Detroit. He worked very hard and by the time he was 28 years old he had become an engineer. Five years later he built his very own ‘Quadricycle’. It had four wire wheels that looked like big bicycle wheels but it also had an engine! In 1903, Henry Ford became the chief engineer at his own factory, the Ford Motor Company, where he began to make cars. At first the cars were very expensive because they took a long time to make but then Henry’s dream came true; he invented a way of making cars that would make them the cheapest cars ever made.

The picture shows his workers making a new car that he called the ‘Model T’ but soon it became known as ‘Tin Lizzie’. Tin Lizzie was easy to drive on rough roads and was easy to look after. All Tin Lizzies were black and so many people wanted one that Henry Ford had to open a large factory and employ lots of men to make his cars. The Tin Lizzie 1923