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102-678: The Sloan Foundation makes grants to support original research and broad-based education related to science, technology, and economics. The foundation is an independent entity and has no formal relationship with General Motors. As of 2022, the Sloan Foundation's assets totaled $ 2.0 billion. During the initial years of Alfred P. Sloan ’s presidency, the foundation devoted its resources almost exclusively to education in economics and business. Grants were made to develop materials to improve high school and college economics teaching; for preparation of and wide distribution of inexpensive pamphlets on

204-527: A collective bargaining agreement with the unions because the violence, work disruptions, and bitter stalemates could not go on forever. But Ford, who still had the final veto in the company on a de facto basis even if not an official one, refused to cooperate. For several years, he kept Bennett in charge of talking to the unions trying to organize the Ford Motor Company. Sorensen's memoir makes clear that Ford's purpose in putting Bennett in charge

306-475: A one-room school , Springwells Middle School. He never attended high school ; he later took a bookkeeping course at a commercial school. His father gave him a pocket watch when he was 12. At 15, Ford dismantled and reassembled the timepieces of friends and neighbors dozens of times, gaining the reputation of a watch repairman. At twenty, Ford walked four miles to their Episcopal church every Sunday. Ford said two significant events occurred in 1875 when he

408-646: A sawmill . They had one child, Edsel Ford (1893–1943). In 1891, Ford became an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company of Detroit . After his promotion to Chief Engineer in 1893, he had enough time and money to devote attention to his experiments on gasoline engines . These experiments culminated in 1896 with the completion of a self-propelled vehicle, which he named the Ford Quadricycle . He test-drove it on June 4. After various test drives, Ford brainstormed ways to improve

510-593: A $ 5 daily wage ($ 152 in 2023), which more than doubled the rate of most of his workers. A Cleveland, Ohio , newspaper editorialized that the announcement "shot like a blinding rocket through the dark clouds of the present industrial depression". The move proved extremely profitable; instead of constant employee turnover, the best mechanics in Detroit flocked to Ford, bringing their human capital and expertise, raising productivity, and lowering training costs. Ford announced his $ 5-per-day program on January 5, 1914, raising

612-559: A 48-hour week, but in 1926 it was announced as five 8-hour days, giving a 40-hour week. The program apparently started with Saturday being designated a workday, before becoming a day off sometime later. On May 1, 1926, the Ford Motor Company's factory workers switched to a five-day, 40-hour workweek, with the company's office workers making the transition the following August. Ford had decided to boost productivity, as workers were expected to put more effort into their work in exchange for more leisure time. Ford also believed decent leisure time

714-539: A Detroit-area coal dealer. They formed a partnership, Ford & Malcomson, Limited, to manufacture automobiles. Ford went to work designing an inexpensive automobile, and the duo leased a factory and contracted with a machine shop owned by John and Horace E. Dodge to supply over $ 160,000 in parts. Sales were slow, and a crisis arose when the Dodge brothers demanded payment for their first shipment. In response, Malcomson brought in another group of investors and convinced

816-496: A German organization. ... We have no right to shut down the plant." As the war drew to an end, most economists and New Deal policy makers assumed that without continued massive government spending, the pre-war Great Depression and its huge unemployment would return. The economist Paul Samuelson warned that unless government took immediate action, "there would be ushered in the greatest period of unemployment and industrial dislocation which any economy has faced." Many adhering to

918-467: A bigger challenge for GM than was getting there; and it turned out that he was right. But he also seemed confident that the management style of GM under his leadership, if continued and adapted, could meet these challenges. He said, "There have been and always will be many opportunities to fail in the automobile industry. The circumstances of the ever-changing market and ever-changing product are capable of breaking any business organization if that organization

1020-495: A bombshell with the flathead Ford V8 , the first low-price eight-cylinder engine. The flathead V8, variants of which were used in Ford vehicles for 20 years, was the result of a secret project launched in 1930 and Henry had initially considered a radical X-8 engine before agreeing to a conventional design. It gave Ford a reputation as a performance make well-suited for hot-rodding. Ford did not believe in accountants; he amassed one of

1122-523: A commercial device to help their business. Sales skyrocketed—several years posted 100% gains on the previous year. In 1913, Ford introduced moving assembly belts into his plants, which enabled an enormous increase in production. Although Ford is often credited with the idea, contemporary sources indicate that the concept and development came from employees Clarence Avery , Peter E. Martin , Charles E. Sorensen , and C. Harold Wills . (See Ford Piquette Avenue Plant .) Sales passed 250,000 in 1914. By 1916, as

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1224-423: A company's operation and induces significant hidden costs. This criticism must be viewed in the context that it is provided in hindsight. During the period in which Sloan advocated carrying what would now be considered excess inventory, the industrial and transportation infrastructure would not support what is now known as just-in-time inventory. During this period, the auto industry experienced incredible growth as

1326-404: A congressional investigator that Germany could not have attempted its September 1939 blitzkrieg of Poland without the performance-boosting additive technology provided by Alfred P. Sloan and General Motors". During the war, GM's Opel Brandenburg facilities produced Ju 88 bombers, trucks , land mines and torpedo detonators for Nazi Germany. Charles Levinson, formerly deputy director of

1428-539: A consultant; Ford, in response, left the company bearing his name. With Ford gone, Leland renamed the company the Cadillac Automobile Company . Teaming up with former racing cyclist Tom Cooper , Ford also produced the 80+ horsepower racer " 999 ," which Barney Oldfield was to drive to victory in a race in October 1902. Ford received the backing of an old acquaintance, Alexander Y. Malcomson ,

1530-525: A decade. It was finally published in 1964. Sloan died in 1966. Sloan was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1975. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is a philanthropic non-profit organization established by Sloan in 1934. The foundation's programs and interests fall into the areas of science and technology , standard of living , economic performance , and education and careers in science and technology. For

1632-607: A focus on business efficiency would discourage warfare because, "If every man who manufactures an article would make the very best he can in the very best way at the very lowest possible price the world would be kept out of war, for commercialists would not have to search for outside markets which the other fellow covets." Ford admitted that munitions makers enjoyed wars, but he argued that most businesses wanted to avoid wars and instead work to manufacture and sell useful goods, hire workers, and generate steady long-term profits. Ford's British factories produced Fordson tractors to increase

1734-503: A massive new assembly plant at River Rouge for the new Model A, which launched in 1927. In addition to its price ladder, GM also quickly established itself at the forefront of automotive styling under Harley Earl 's Arts & Color Department, another area of automobile design that Henry Ford did not entirely appreciate or understand. Ford would not have a true equivalent of the GM styling department for many years. By 1926, flagging sales of

1836-799: A means to foster employment, but Ford saw this as self-defeating because, in his view, productivity was necessary for economic prosperity to exist. He believed that productivity gains that obviated certain jobs would nevertheless stimulate the broader economy and grow new jobs elsewhere, whether within the same corporation or in others. Ford also believed that union leaders had a perverse incentive to foment perpetual socio-economic crises to maintain their power. Meanwhile, he believed that smart managers had an incentive to do right by their workers, because doing so would maximize their profits. However, Ford did acknowledge that many managers were basically too bad at managing to understand this fact. But Ford believed that eventually, if good managers such as he, could fend off

1938-463: A meeting called to discuss the book, Sloan immediately rose to my defense. 'I fully agree with you,' he said to his colleagues. 'Mr. Drucker is dead wrong. But he did precisely what he told us he would do when we asked him in. And he is as entitled to his opinions, wrong though they are, as you or I. ' " Drucker related that for 20 years after that meeting, Sloan and Drucker had a good relationship, in which Sloan would invite Drucker to lunch once or twice

2040-423: A mid-range make to challenge Dodge and Buick, although Henry also displayed relatively little enthusiasm for it. Ford was a pioneer of " welfare capitalism ", designed to improve the lot of his workers and especially to reduce the heavy turnover that had many departments hiring 300 men per year to fill 100 slots. Efficiency meant hiring and keeping the best workers. Ford astonished the world in 1914 by offering

2142-500: A protege of GM vice-president John J. Raskob . Raskob came to GM as an advisor to Pierre S. du Pont and the du Pont corporation; the latter was a principal investor in GM whose executives largely ran GM in the 1920s. Sloan is credited with establishing annual styling changes , from which came the concept of planned obsolescence . He also established a pricing structure in which (from lowest to highest priced) Chevrolet , Pontiac , Oldsmobile , Buick and Cadillac , referred to as

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2244-520: A senior executive and later as the head of the organization, helped GM grow from the 1920s through the 1950s, decades when concepts such as the annual model change, brand architecture , industrial engineering , automotive design (styling), and planned obsolescence transformed the industry, and when the industry changed lifestyles and the built environment in America and throughout the world. Sloan wrote his memoir, My Years with General Motors , in

2346-521: A series of short films that would extol the virtues of capitalism and the American way of life. This resulted in the production of a series of animated cartoons by John Sutherland (producer) which were released on the 16mm non-theatrical market, and also distributed theatrically in 35mm by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer . According to Edwin Black , Sloan was one of the central, behind-the-scenes 1934 founders of

2448-756: A statement pledging not to further support the Sentinels. Also according to Black, the GM chief continued to personally fund and organize fund-raising for the National Association of Manufacturers , which was critical of the New Deal. The Sloan Foundation has made three grants, of $ 3 million each, to the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF). These are some of the largest grants that the WMF has received. According to O'Toole (1995), Sloan built

2550-548: A time, over half of the company's bearings went to Ford. In 1916 Hyatt merged with other companies into United Motors Company , which soon became part of General Motors Corporation . Sloan became vice-president of GM, then president (1923), and finally chairman of the board (1937). In 1934, he established the philanthropic, nonprofit Alfred P. Sloan Foundation . GM under Sloan became famous for managing diverse operations with financial statistics such as return on investment; these measures were introduced to GM by Donaldson Brown ,

2652-421: A two-cylinder four horsepower motor, with a two-and-half-inch bore and a six-inch stroke, which was connected to a countershaft by a belt and then to the rear wheel by a chain. The belt was shifted by a clutch lever to control speeds at 10 or 20 miles per hour , augmented by a throttle . Other features included 28-inch wire bicycle wheels with rubber tires , a foot brake, a 3-gallon gasoline tank, and later,

2754-417: A very objective organization, a company that paid significant attention to "policies, systems, and structures and not enough to people, principles, and values. Sloan, the quintessential engineer , had worked out all the intricacies and contingencies of a foolproof system." But this system left out employees and society. One consequence of this management philosophy was a culture that resisted change. Proof that

2856-493: A water jacket around the cylinders for cooling. Ford added that "in the spring of 1893 the machine was running to my partial satisfaction and giving an opportunity further to test out the design and material on the road." Between 1895 and 1896, Ford drove that machine about 1000 miles. He then started a second car in 1896, eventually building three of them in his home workshop. Ford married Clara Jane Bryant (1866–1950) on April 11, 1888, and supported himself by farming and running

2958-402: A year to discuss Sloan's philanthropic plans and the memoir that Sloan was working on assembling (what became My Years ). Drucker said, "He asked for my opinions and carefully listened—and he never once took my advice." History seems to have vindicated Drucker in his belief that Sloan's faith in rationality alone—and in the ability of other white-collar managers to be as astute as Sloan himself —

3060-416: Is the stuff of his vocabulary." In 2005, Sloan's work at GM came under criticism for creating a complicated accounting system that prevents the implementation of lean manufacturing methods. Essentially, the criticism is that by using Sloan's methods a company will value inventory just the same as cash, and thus there is no penalty for building up inventory. Carrying excessive inventory is detrimental to

3162-489: Is unprepared for change—indeed, in my opinion, if it has not provided procedures for anticipating change. In General Motors these procedures are provided by the central management, which is in a position to appraise the broad long-term trends of the market. ... As the industry has grown and evolved, we have adhered to this policy and have demonstrated an ability to meet competition and the shifts of customer demand." As these words of Sloan (1964) show in juxtaposition with

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3264-668: The American Liberty League , a political organization whose stated goal was to defend the Constitution, and who opposed Franklin D. Roosevelt 's New Deal . In turn, the league would finance other groups with openly more extreme agendas. One such group was the Sentinels of the Republic to which Sloan himself made a $ 1000 check. After a Congressional investigation into this group went public in 1936, Sloan issued

3366-578: The Detroit Dry Dock Company. In 1882, he returned to Dearborn to work on the family farm, where he became adept at operating the Westinghouse portable steam engine . He was later hired by Westinghouse to service their steam engines. In his farm workshop, Ford built a "steam wagon or tractor" and a steam car, but thought "steam was not suitable for light vehicles," as "the boiler was dangerous." Ford also said that he "did not see

3468-742: The Great Depression , unemployed Detroit auto workers staged the Ford Hunger March to the Ford River Rouge Complex to present 14 demands to Henry Ford. The Dearborn police department and Ford security guards opened fire on workers leading to over sixty injuries and five deaths. On May 26, 1937, Bennett's security men beat members of the United Automobile Workers (UAW), including Walter Reuther , with clubs. While Bennett's men were beating

3570-576: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1895. While attending MIT he joined the Delta Upsilon fraternity. In 1898, Sloan married Irene Jackson of Roxbury, Massachusetts. The couple had no children but Sloan was very close to his younger half-brother, Raymond. Sloan became president and owner of Hyatt Roller Bearing , a company that made roller- and ball-bearings , in 1899 when his father and another investor bought out

3672-653: The Nazi period including the war, dealing with other GM companies in Axis and Allied countries including the United States. Sloan presents Opel at the end of the war as a black box to GM's American management, an organization with which the Americans had had no contact for five years. According to Sloan, GM in Detroit debated whether to even try to run Opel in the postwar era, or to leave to the interim West German government

3774-729: The Sloan Fellows , started in 1931 at MIT under the sponsorship of Sloan. A Sloan Foundation grant established the MIT School of Industrial Management in 1952 with the charge of educating the "ideal manager", and the school was renamed in Sloan's honor as the Alfred P. Sloan School of Management , one of the world's premier business schools. Additional grants established a Sloan Institute of Hospital Administration in 1955 at Cornell University -the first two-year graduate program of its type in

3876-528: The $ 5-day wage. Real profit-sharing was offered to employees who had worked at the company for six months or more, and, importantly, conducted their lives in a manner of which Ford's "Social Department" approved. They frowned on heavy drinking, gambling, and on what are now called deadbeat dads . The Social Department used 50 investigators and support staff to maintain employee standards; a large percentage of workers were able to qualify for this "profit-sharing". Ford's incursion into his employees' private lives

3978-460: The 1890s worked with a division of Edison Electric . He founded the Ford Motor Company in 1903 after prior failures in business, but success in constructing automobiles. The introduction of the Ford Model T automobile in 1908 is credited with having revolutionized both transportation and American industry. As the sole owner of the Ford Motor Company, Ford became one of the wealthiest persons in

4080-507: The 1950s. Like Henry Ford , the other "head man" of an automotive colossus, Sloan is remembered with a complex mixture of admiration for his accomplishments, appreciation for his philanthropy, and unease or reproach regarding his attitudes during the interwar period and World War II. Born in New Haven, Connecticut , Sloan studied electrical engineering initially at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute , then transferred to and graduated from

4182-795: The City of New York". The Alfred P. Sloan Museum , showcasing the evolution of the automobile industry and traveling galleries, is located in Flint, Michigan . Sloan maintained an office in 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Rockefeller Center , now known as the GE Building . He retired as GM chairman on April 2, 1956. His memoir and management treatise, My Years with General Motors , was more or less finished around this time; but GM's legal staff, who feared that it would be used to support an antitrust case against GM, held up its publication for nearly

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4284-488: The Dodge brothers to accept a portion of the new company. Ford & Malcomson was reincorporated as the Ford Motor Company on June 16, 1903, with $ 28,000 capital. The original investors included Ford and Malcomson, the Dodge brothers, Malcomson's uncle John S. Gray , Malcolmson's secretary James Couzens , and two of Malcomson's lawyers, John W. Anderson and Horace Rackham . Because of Ford's volatility, Gray

4386-673: The European office of the CIO , alleged that Sloan remained on the board of Opel . Sloan's memoir presents a different picture of Opel's wartime role. According to Sloan, Opel was nationalized , along with most other industrial activity owned or co-owned by foreign interests, by the German state soon after the outbreak of war. But Opel was never factually nationalized and the GM-appointed directors and management remained unchanged throughout

4488-608: The Ford company adopted an annual model change system similar to that recently pioneered by its competitor General Motors (and still in use by automakers today). Not until the 1930s did Ford overcome his objection to finance companies, and the Ford-owned Universal Credit Corporation became a major car-financing operation. Henry Ford still resisted many technological innovations such as hydraulic brakes and all-metal roofs, which Ford vehicles did not adopt until 1935–1936. For 1932 however, Ford dropped

4590-467: The Model T finally convinced Ford to make a new model. He pursued the project with a great deal of interest in the design of the engine, chassis, and other mechanical necessities, while leaving the body design to his son. Although Ford fancied himself an engineering genius, he had little formal training in mechanical engineering and could not even read a blueprint. A talented team of engineers performed most of

4692-601: The Netherlands to meet with peace activists. A target of much ridicule, Ford left the ship as soon as it reached Sweden. In 1915, Ford blamed "German-Jewish bankers" for instigating the war. According to biographer Steven Watts, Ford's status as a leading industrialist gave him a worldview that warfare was wasteful folly that retarded long-term economic growth. The losing side in the war typically suffered heavy damage. Small business were especially hurt, for it takes years to recuperate. He argued in many newspaper articles that

4794-647: The Quadricycle. Also in 1896, Ford attended a meeting of Edison executives, where he was introduced to Thomas Edison . Edison approved of Ford's automobile experimentation. Encouraged by Edison, Ford designed and built a second vehicle, completing it in 1898. Backed by the capital of Detroit lumber baron William H. Murphy, Ford resigned from the Edison Company and founded the Detroit Automobile Company on August 5, 1899. However,

4896-536: The Sloan Foundation made a gift of more than $ 5 million to establish a School of Industrial Management, now known as the MIT Sloan School of Management. Alfred P. Sloan Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr. ( / s l oʊ n / SLOHN ; May 23, 1875 – February 17, 1966) was an American business executive in the automotive industry . He was a long-time president , chairman and CEO of General Motors Corporation . Sloan, first as

4998-520: The UAW representatives, the supervising police chief on the scene was Carl Brooks, an alumnus of Bennett's Service Department, and Brooks "did not give orders to intervene". The following day photographs of the injured UAW members appeared in newspapers, later becoming known as The Battle of the Overpass . In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Edsel—who was president of the company—thought Ford had to come to

5100-766: The US, a Sloan Fellows Program at Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1957, and at London Business School in 1965. They became degree programs in 1976, awarding the degree of Master of Science in Management . Sloan's name also lives on in the Sloan-Kettering Institute and Cancer Center in New York. In 1951, Sloan received the Hundred Year Association of New York 's Gold Medal Award "in recognition of outstanding contributions to

5202-437: The United States, and they eventually undermined the ability to compete with companies that used different accounting, according to Waddell & Bodek's 2005 analysis. Sloan's memoir, particularly Chapter 8, "The development of financial controls", indicates that Sloan and GM appreciated the financial dangers of excess inventory even as early as the 1920s. However, Waddell & Bodek's 2005 analysis indicates that this theory

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5304-528: The actual work of designing the Model A (and later the flathead V8) with Ford supervising them closely and giving them overall direction. Edsel also managed to prevail over his father's initial objections in the inclusion of a sliding-shift transmission. The result was the Ford Model A , introduced in December 1927 and produced through 1931, with a total output of more than four million. Subsequently,

5406-546: The attacks of misguided people from both left and right (i.e., both socialists and bad-manager reactionaries), the good managers would create a socio-economic system wherein neither bad management nor bad unions could find enough support to continue existing. To forestall union activity, Ford promoted Harry Bennett , a former Navy boxer, to head the Service Department. Bennett employed various intimidation tactics to quash union organizing. On March 7, 1932, during

5508-760: The automobiles produced were of a lower quality and higher price than Ford wanted. Ultimately, the company was not successful and was dissolved in January 1901. With the help of C. Harold Wills , Ford designed, built, and successfully raced a 26- horsepower automobile in October 1901. With this success, Murphy and other stockholders in the Detroit Automobile Company formed the Henry Ford Company on November 30, 1901, with Ford as chief engineer. In 1902, Murphy brought in Henry M. Leland as

5610-601: The aviation business during World War I , building Liberty engines . After the war, it returned to auto manufacturing until 1925, when Ford acquired the Stout Metal Airplane Company . Ford's most successful aircraft was the Ford 4AT Trimotor , often called the "Tin Goose" because of its corrugated metal construction. It used a new alloy called Alclad that combined the corrosion resistance of aluminum with

5712-432: The broad workable plan of investment and participation will do more to solidify the industry and strengthen the organization than will any social work on the outside. Without changing the principle we have changed the method of payment." In addition to raising his workers' wages, Ford also introduced a new, reduced workweek in 1926. The decision was made in 1922, when Ford and Crowther described it as six 8-hour days, giving

5814-411: The change in the 1920s, propelled GM to industry-sales leadership by the early 1930s, a position it retained for over 70 years. Under Sloan's direction, GM became the largest industrial enterprise the world had ever known. In the 1930s GM, long hostile to unionization , confronted its workforce—newly organized and ready for labor rights—in an extended contest for control. Sloan was averse to violence of

5916-632: The company from the previous owner. An account stated that Sloan persuaded his father to buy a controlling interest in the company for $ 5,000 and let him manage it. Oldsmobile was Hyatt's first automotive customer, with many other companies soon following suit. Henry Leland was among his clients. By 1903, he was said to have summoned the young Sloan and castigated him for delivering inconsistent quality of his bearings' tolerances. According to Sloan, this conversation allowed him to gain "a genuine conception of what mass production should really mean." Ford Motor Company's Model T also used Hyatt bearings and, for

6018-421: The company rather than cooperate. Still, his wife Clara told him she would leave him if he destroyed the family business. In her view, it would not be worth the chaos it would create. Ford complied with his wife's ultimatum and even agreed with her in retrospect. Overnight, the Ford Motor Company went from the most stubborn holdout among automakers to the one with the most favorable UAW contract terms. The contract

6120-560: The company, but was too frail to make decisions and quickly came under the control of several of his subordinates. He turned over the company to his grandson Henry Ford II in 1945. Upon his death in 1947, he left most of his wealth to the Ford Foundation , and control of the company to his family. Henry Ford was born July 30, 1863, on a farm in Springwells Township, Michigan . His father, William Ford (1826–1905),

6222-509: The country, making the Ford brand known throughout the United States. Ford also was one of the early backers of the Indianapolis 500 . In 1909, Ford submitted for patent application for his invention for a new transmission mechanism. It was awarded a patent in 1911. The Model T debuted on October 1, 1908. It had the steering wheel on the left, which every other company soon copied. The entire engine and transmission were enclosed;

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6324-440: The decisions of his son. Ford started another company, Henry Ford and Son, and made a show of taking himself and his best employees to the new company; the goal was to scare the remaining holdout stockholders of the Ford Motor Company to sell their stakes to him before they lost most of their value. (He was determined to have full control over strategic decisions.) The ruse worked, and Henry and Edsel purchased all remaining stock from

6426-666: The early 1920s was far better than what it replaced (which was, in so many words, an undesigned cacophony in which financial controls mostly didn't exist). He said that years later, a professional accountant (Albert Bradley, longtime CFO of GM) "was kind enough to say [that it] was pretty good for a layman." Sloan was far from the sole author of GM's financial and accounting systems, as GM later had many trained minds in accounting and finance; but regardless of authorship, GM's financial controls, at one time considered top-notch, eventually proved to have latent drawbacks. Systems similar to GM's were implemented by other major companies, especially in

6528-432: The economy boomed. One of the greatest periods of economic expansion in American history resulted. Henry Ford Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist and business magnate . As the founder of the Ford Motor Company , he is credited as a pioneer in making automobiles affordable for middle-class Americans through the system that came to be known as Fordism . In 1911, he

6630-579: The first years of World War I , although during the war his company became a major supplier of weapons. He promoted the League of Nations . In the 1920s Ford promoted antisemitism through his newspaper The Dearborn Independent and the book The International Jew . He opposed his country's entry into World War II , and served for a time on board of the America First Committee . After his son Edsel died in 1943, Ford resumed control of

6732-665: The foundation as major program areas: The Sloan Work and Family Researchers Network supports research and education about work-family issues. The foundation also funded the national workplace flexibility campaign as part of the Working Families program led by Kathleen E. Christensen . The Sloan Research Fellowships are annual awards given to more than 126 young researchers and university faculty, to further studies in chemistry , computational and evolutionary microbiology, computer science , economics , mathematics , neuroscience , ocean sciences and physics . In March 2008,

6834-742: The foundation awarded a $ 3 million grant to the Wikimedia Foundation . It made additional grants in July 2011 and January 2017. The Sloan Foundation is the primary funder of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey , a major astronomical survey that began data collection in 2000. In 1945, the Sloan Foundation donated $ 4 million to launch the Sloan Kettering Cancer Institute, now the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. In 1950,

6936-596: The foundation. The Sloan Foundation also made many civic contributions to the foundation's home city of New York, including grants to Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts , Channel 13 , New York Public Library , New York University , and the Fund for the City of New York . Starting January 2018, Adam Falk, past president of Williams College, assumed the presidency of the foundation. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation makes grants in seven broad subjects, known within

7038-446: The four cylinders were cast in a solid block; the suspension used two semi-elliptic springs. The car was simple to drive, and easy and inexpensive to repair. It was so inexpensive at $ 825 in 1908 ($ 27,980 today), with the price falling every year, that by the 1920s, a majority of American drivers had learned to drive on the Model T. Ford created a huge publicity machine in Detroit to ensure every newspaper carried stories and ads about

7140-556: The ladder of success, did not compete with each other, and buyers could be kept in the GM "family" as their buying power and preferences changed as they aged. In 1919, he and his corporate deputies created the General Motors Acceptance Corporation , a financing arm that practically invented the auto loan credit system, that allowed car buyers to bypass having to save for years to buy Ford's affordable car. These concepts, along with Ford's resistance to

7242-450: The low-end market. Although Henry Ford was against replacing the Model T, now 16 years old, Chevrolet was mounting a bold new challenge as GM's entry-level division in the company's price ladder. Ford also resisted the increasingly popular idea of payment plans for cars. With Model T sales starting to slide, Ford was forced to relent and approve work on a successor model, shutting down production for 18 months. During this time, Ford constructed

7344-506: The minimum daily pay from $ 2.34 to $ 5 for qualifying male workers. Detroit was already a high-wage city, but competitors were forced to raise wages or lose their best workers. Ford's policy proved that paying employees more would enable them to afford the cars they were producing and thus boost the local economy. He viewed the increased wages as profit-sharing linked with rewarding those who were most productive and of good character. It may have been James Couzens who convinced Ford to adopt

7446-462: The new product. Ford's network of local dealers made the car ubiquitous in almost every city in North America. As independent dealers, the franchises grew rich and publicized not just the Ford but also the concept of automobiling; local motor clubs sprang up to help new drivers and encourage them to explore the countryside. Ford was always eager to sell to farmers, who looked at the vehicle as

7548-459: The one personal element in the book, he makes passing reference to his wife: he abandons her on the first day of a European vacation to return to business in Detroit . His language is as calculating as that of the engineer-of-old working with calipers and slide rule, as cold as the steel he caused to be bent to form cars: economizing, utility, facts, objectivity, systems, rationality, maximizing—that

7650-472: The other investors, thus giving the family sole ownership of the company. In 1922, Ford also purchased Lincoln Motor Co. , founded by Cadillac founder Henry Leland and his son Wilfred during World War I. The Lelands briefly stayed to manage the company, but were soon expelled from it. Despite this acquisition of a premium car maker, Henry displayed relatively little enthusiasm for luxury automobiles in contrast to Edsel, who actively sought to expand Ford into

7752-440: The pacifist Rosika Schwimmer gained favor with Ford, who agreed to fund a Peace Ship to Europe, where World War I was raging. He led 170 other peace activists. Ford's Episcopalian pastor, Reverend Samuel S. Marquis, accompanied him on the mission. Marquis headed Ford's Sociology Department from 1913 to 1921. Ford talked to President Woodrow Wilson about the mission but had no government support. His group went to neutral Sweden and

7854-580: The pressing economic and social issues of the day; for weekly radio airing of round table discussions on current topics in economics and related subjects; and for establishing a Tax Institute at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania to interpret new taxes and new trends in public finance for the average citizen. From 1936 to 1945, Harold S. Sloan , an economist and Alfred's younger brother, served as director and vice president of

7956-420: The prevailing Keynesian economic wisdom predicted economic disaster when the war ended. Sloan, however, felt otherwise and predicted a post-war boom. He pointed to workers' savings and pent-up demand, and predicted a huge jump in national income and a rise in standard of living. In line with his predictions, and despite a precipitous cut-back in government spending and the wholesale closure of defense plants,

8058-456: The price dropped to $ 360 for the basic touring car, sales reached 472,000. By 1918, half of all cars in the United States were Model Ts. All new cars were black; as Ford wrote in his autobiography, "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black." Until the development of the assembly line, which mandated black because of its quicker drying time, Model Ts were available in other colors, including red. The design

8160-432: The public eagerly sought to purchase this life-changing utility known as the automobile. The cost of lost sales due to lack of inventory was likely greater than the cost of carrying excess inventory. Sloan's system seems to have been widely adopted because of its advance over previous methods. In his memoir, Sloan (who would freely acknowledge that he was not a trained accountant) said that the system that he implemented in

8262-520: The question of who would pick up the pieces. Defending the German investment strategy as "highly profitable", Sloan told shareholders in 1939 that GM's continued industrial production for the Nazi government was merely sound business practice. In a letter to a concerned shareholder, Sloan said that the manner in which the Nazi government ran Germany "should not be considered the business of the management of General Motors. ... We must conduct ourselves as

8364-576: The sort associated with Henry Ford . He preferred spying, investing in an internal undercover apparatus to gather information and monitor labor union activity. When workers organized the massive Flint sit-down strike in 1936, Sloan found that espionage had little value in the face of such open tactics, and instead the successful strike legitimized the United Auto Workers as the exclusive bargaining representative for GM workers. The world's first university-based executive education program,

8466-409: The strength of duralumin . The plane was similar to Fokker 's V.VII–3m. The Trimotor first flew on June 11, 1926, and was the first successful U.S. passenger airliner, accommodating about 12 passengers in a rather uncomfortable fashion. Several variants were also used by the U.S. Army . The Smithsonian Institution has honored Ford for changing the aviation industry. 199 Trimotors were built before it

8568-403: The system did not remain foolproof forever was seen in GM's problems of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. In fact, Sloan's memoir and management treatise, My Years With General Motors , foresaw some of these problems. About them, Sloan implied that only vigilant, intelligent management could meet them successfully. He predicted that remaining at the top [of its industry and the economy] would prove

8670-582: The upscale market. The original Lincoln Model L that the Lelands had introduced in 1920 was also kept in production, untouched for a decade until it became too outdated. It was replaced by the modernized Model K in 1931. By the mid-1920s, General Motors was rapidly rising as the leading American automobile manufacturer. GM president Alfred Sloan established the company's "price ladder" whereby GM would offer an automobile for "every purse and purpose" in contrast to Ford's lack of interest in anything outside

8772-403: The use of experimenting with electricity, due to the expense of trolley wires , and "no storage battery was in sight of a weight that was practical." In 1885, Ford repaired an Otto engine , and in 1887 he built a four-cycle model with a one-inch bore and a three-inch stroke . In 1890, Ford started work on a two-cylinder engine. Ford said, "In 1892, I completed my first motor car, powered by

8874-420: The words of Peter F. Drucker (1946), Sloan (and his fellow GM executives) never agreed with Drucker on the lessons that Drucker drew from his study of GM management during the war. However, unlike many GM executives, Sloan did not put Drucker on his blacklist for writing the 1946 book; Drucker, in his new introduction [foreword] for the 1990 republishing of Sloan's memoir, said, "When his associates attacked me in

8976-436: The world's largest fortunes without ever having his company audited under his administration. Without an accounting department, Ford had no way of knowing exactly how much money was being taken in and spent each month, and the company's bills and invoices were reportedly guessed at by weighing them on a scale. Not until 1956 would Ford be a publicly-traded company. Also, at Edsel's insistence, Ford launched Mercury in 1939 as

9078-419: The world. He was also among the pioneers of the five-day work-week . Ford believed that consumerism could help to bring about world peace . His commitment to systematically lowering costs resulted in many technical and business innovations, including a franchise system, which allowed for car dealerships throughout North America and in major cities on six continents. Ford was known for his pacifism during

9180-460: The year ending December 31, 2014, the total assets of the Sloan Foundation had a market value of about $ 1.876 billion. The Sloan Foundation bankrolled the 1956 Warner Bros. cartoon Yankee Dood It , which promotes mass production. In the late 1940s, the Sloan Foundation made a grant to Harding College (now Harding University ) in Searcy, Arkansas . The foundation wanted to fund the production of

9282-549: Was 12: he received the watch, and he witnessed the operation of a Nichols and Shepard road engine, "...the first vehicle other than horse-drawn that I had ever seen". Ford was devastated when his mother died in 1876. His father expected him to take over the family farm eventually, but he despised farm work. He later wrote, "I never had any particular love for the farm—it was the mother on the farm I loved." In 1879, Ford left home to work as an apprentice machinist in Detroit, first with James F. Flower & Brothers, and later with

9384-430: Was awarded a patent for the transmission mechanism that would be used in the Ford Model T and other automobiles. Ford was born in a farmhouse in Springwells Township , Michigan , and left home at the age of 16 to find work in Detroit . It was a few years before this time that Ford first experienced automobiles, and throughout the later half of the 1880s, he began repairing and later constructing engines, and through

9486-616: Was born in County Cork , Ireland, to a family that had emigrated from Somerset , England in the 16th century. His mother, Mary Ford (née Litogot; 1839–1876), was born in Michigan as the youngest child of Belgian immigrants; her parents died when she was a child and she was adopted by neighbors, the O'Herns. Henry Ford's siblings were John Ford (1865–1927); Margaret Ford (1867–1938); Jane Ford (c. 1868–1945); William Ford (1871–1917) and Robert Ford (1873–1877). Ford finished eighth grade at

9588-604: Was discontinued in 1933, when the Ford Airplane Division shut down because of poor sales during the Great Depression . In 1985, Ford was posthumously inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame for his impact on the industry. Ford opposed war, which he viewed as a terrible waste, and supported causes that opposed military intervention . Ford became highly critical of those who he felt financed war, and he tried to stop them. In 1915,

9690-413: Was elected president of the company. Ford then demonstrated a newly designed car on the ice of Lake St. Clair , driving 1 mile (1.6 km) in 39.4 seconds and setting a new land speed record at 91.3 miles per hour (146.9 kilometres per hour). Convinced by this success, race driver Barney Oldfield , who named this new Ford model " 999 " in honor of the fastest locomotive of the day, took the car around

9792-418: Was fervently promoted and defended by Ford, and production continued as late as 1927; the final total production was 15,007,034. This record stood for the next 45 years, and was achieved in 19 years from the introduction of the first Model T (1908). Henry Ford turned the presidency of Ford Motor Company over to his son Edsel Ford in December 1918. Henry retained final decision authority and sometimes reversed

9894-634: Was good for business, giving workers additional time to purchase and consume more goods. However, charitable concerns also played a role. Ford explained, "It is high time to rid ourselves of the notion that leisure for workmen is either 'lost time' or a class privilege." Ford was adamantly against labor unions . He explained his views on unions in Chapter 18 of My Life and Work . He thought they were too heavily influenced by leaders who would end up doing more harm than good for workers despite their ostensible good motives. Most wanted to restrict productivity as

9996-548: Was highly controversial, and he soon backed off from the most intrusive aspects. By the time he wrote his 1922 memoir, he spoke of the Social Department and the private conditions for profit-sharing in the past tense. He admitted that "paternalism has no place in the industry. Welfare work that consists in prying into employees' private concerns is out of date. Men need counsel and men need help, often special help; and all this ought to be rendered for decency's sake. But

10098-600: Was not successfully implemented in GM's practice. For all of the intellectual understanding, the reality remained slow inventory turnover and an accounting system that functionally treated inventory similarly to cash. In August 1938, a senior executive for General Motors, James D. Mooney , received the Grand Cross of the German Eagle for his distinguished service to the Reich . "Nazi armaments chief Albert Speer told

10200-630: Was over-ardent. 40 years later, the management and board of directors who had run the original General Motors Corporation into the ground by 2009 were not "in a position to appraise the broad long-term trends of the market"—or were in that position, but not doing the job successfully therein. O'Toole described Sloan's style as follows: "[W]hereas Taylor occasionally backs off to justify his ardor for efficiency in human terms, not once does Sloan make reference to any other values. Freedom, equality, humanism , stability, community, tradition, religion, patriotism, family, love, virtue, nature—all are ignored. In

10302-639: Was signed in June 1941. About a year later, Ford told Walter Reuther, "It was one of the most sensible things Harry Bennett ever did when he got the UAW into this plant." Reuther inquired, "What do you mean?" Ford replied, "Well, you've been fighting General Motors and the Wall Street crowd. Now you're in here and we've given you a union shop and more than you got out of them. That puts you on our side, doesn't it? We can fight General Motors and Wall Street together, eh?" Like other automobile companies, Ford entered

10404-532: Was to make sure no agreements were ever reached. The Ford Motor Company was the last Detroit automaker to recognize the UAW, despite pressure from the rest of the U.S. automotive industry and even the U.S. government. A sit-down strike by the UAW union in April 1941 closed the River Rouge Plant . Sorensen recounted that a distraught Henry Ford was very close to following through with a threat to break up

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