
Ford was the automobile manufacturer that changed the way
Americans got around. They dominated the market and the ad
space in the old newspapers. I thought it deserved its own page
dedicated to the old news ads and articles about the Ford Car
Company in early 1900.
Oscar Ford - Henry Ford's Model A -
1929
New-York tribune, April 30,
1918
--Who can say what is a dream
and what is a vision? Who could have distinguished the Ford
vision from the countless automobile dreams of the last twenty
years? Henry Ford, at thirty-four, and James Cousens, at
twenty-eight, riding out Woodward Avenue in the sleepy old
Detroit of 1902, and anxiously debating whether the company,
that was to be formed, with its capital mostly in the form of
promissory notes, could stand a salary of $3,000 for Ford as
president and $2,500 for Cousens as business manager, were just
as likely to be branded get-rich quickers as they were solid
producers.
They turned out to be both, with no opprobrium to be
attached to the form or when Cousens and Ford, after twelve years of
perfect, harmony, fell out in 1915, because of their
widely differing views as to the war in Europe?
Fell out so badly that it affected their most
intimate relations? Cousens's dividends had already
reached more than $5,000.000. The concern wasn't six
months old before it was paying fat dividends and, after
that, it ran its dividends into such frequency and
juiciness that I hesitate to mention them, because of the
intoxicating effect they are likely to have on the boys
plodding along the good old road of 6 per cent and safety,
began With nothing but their idea starting with nothing
but an idea and the brains of Cousens and Ford, the
property, without aid or consent of banks or bond issues,
is now worth more than $250,000,000. Nobody knew it in
1902, but it is now apparent that both Ford and Cousens
were exceptional men. Any casual observer can tell you
that. But put them both In overalls to-day and smear their
faces with soot and nobody would pick them out at first
glance as supermen. Evolution has not progressed to a
point where our supermen have
godlike forms and face. But certainly
ordinary men would not let a little question like a war in
Europe cause them to fall into disagreements that would
separate one of them from about the greatest money-making
establishment in the
world.
New York Tribune July 15,
1919
Through reorganization of the Ford Motor
Company, now under way, Edsel Ford, president, and his
father, Henry Ford, will come into possession of 89
percent of the stock of the corporation, according to an
announcement made here to-day by Frank L. Klingensmith,
vice-president and general manager. By the transaction the
Fords secure the stock held by all minority holders,
including the Dodge brothers, except
one, James Cousens, millionaire Mayor of Detroit, who refused
to sell his 11 per cent of stock at any price. The Chase
Securities Corporation, the Old Colony Trust Company of Boston
and the commercial paper firm of Bond & Goodwin have agreed
to advance $75,000,000 to aid in acquiring the holdings of the
minority stock holders. The total purchase price, it is
understood, is approximately $100,000,000, and the remaining
$25,000,000, according to report, will be advanced by Henry
Ford.

"The purchase of the minority holdings," said the younger Ford,
"is for the purpose of reorganization, although there is not to
be any change in the personnel of the officers or in the policy
of the company at this time."
Mr. Couzens, who will retain his holdings in the company, left
the Ford organization early in the war because of Henry Ford's
views on preparedness and pacifism. Up to almost the end of
1915 Mr. Cousens had been general manager and treasurer of the
Ford company. He will continue as a director.

New York Daily Tribune – November 6, 1910
Everybody thinks Detroit and automobile at the same
time. Verily the City of the Straits is an Industrial miracle of the
twentieth century. In Detroit is the heart of the motor
world. In 1910 this motor city built 100,000 automobiles
and in 1911 there promises to be no let-up. The Ford Motor
Company, for instance, which has made more automobiles
than any other automobile company, will increase its
production to 200,000 during 1911.
Twenty years ago the man who mentioned the feat of
4,000 men making 30,000 perfected
machines in one year, each capable of running a mile a
minute, of going anywhere a rood
can run, of crossing the continent in twenty days, would
have been committed to
retreat and labeled incurable.Yet this is
what is scheduled for just one plant at Detroit. Already
the 4,000 have begun work on the first of 30,000 cars for
1911.
The Ford year of 1910
ended with September and showed a production of 20,000
cars, an increase of 10
percent over the business of 1909. The value of the year's
business totals 19,000,000.
This is more than the paint, pill, stove and freight car
industries of Detroit would have amounted to In 1900. This
business was conducted through
6,000 salesman, the largest
automobile sales force in the world.
The new Highland
Park plant of this company will turn out 285 cars in one
day. It will ship sixty carloads a day. This company, which
has has been known throughout the automobile world for Its
conservativeness, has made gigantic preparations for
business in 1911, based on the general trade outlook and the
healthy condition of its own business. The company at the
present time has $7,500,000 invested in its
business.
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