after disputes with the financial backers) Henry started constructing the Model A in 1903; in 1913, the Ford Motor Company began building and selling the Model T, selling 15 million of them by 1928 (Halberstam, 1986, p. 60).
In 1913 he introduced the modern assembly line and increased the Ford workers' wages to $5 per day; so as not to lead his workers into depravity with the money, Ford established the Ford Sociological Department to keep track of the workers and instruct them on how to live (Collier and Horowitz, 1987, pp. 67-8). Drawing on his mother and the McGuffey Reader for his wisdom, Ford became a celebrity philosopher, with reporters literally hanging around his office, quoting his every word (Collier and Horowitz, 1987, pp. 19-20; Halberstam, 1986, p. 58). Originally consisting of basic common sense and truisms, his sayings eventually degenerated into nonsense and anti-semitic ranting (Halberstam, 1986, p. 58).
Ford's public utterances reflected the state of his mind; throughout the 1920's the Ford Motor Company fell behind General Motors both in sales and in earnings as GM introduced new technology and more appealing models. In addition, the company itself fell into disarray as Henry pitted executives against each other and l
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