Unit 6 A new factory

扩展资料

HENRY FORD

　　Henry Ford (1863 - 1947) . In 1896 a horseless carriage chugged along the streets of Detroit, with crowds gathering whenever it appeared. Terrified horses ran at its approach. The police tried to curb this nuisance by forcing its driver, Henry Ford, to get a license. That car was the first of many millions produced by the automotive pioneer.
　　Henry Ford was born near Dearborn, Mich. , on July 30, 1863. His mother died when he was 12. He helped on the family farm in summer and in winter attended a one-room school. The watches and clocks fascinated the boy. He went around the countryside doing repair work without pay, merely for the chance to tinker with machinery.
　　At 16 Ford walked to Detroit and apprenticed himself to a mechanic for $2.50 a week. His board was $3.50, so he worked four hours every night for a watchmaker for $ 2 a week. Later he worked in an engine shop and set up steam engines used on farms. In 1884 he took charge of the farm his father gave him. He married and seemed settled down, but after two years he went back to Detroit and worked as a night engineer for the Detroit Edison Company.
Ford built his first car in a little shed behind his home. It had a two-cylinder engine over the rear axle that developed four horsepower, a single seat fitted in a boxlike body, an electric bell for a horn, and a steering lever instead of a wheel. In 1899 Ford helped organize the Detroit Automobile Company, which built care to be ordered. Ford wanted to build in quantity at a price within the reach of many. His partners objected, and Ford withdrew.
　　In 1903 he organized the Fold Motor Company with only $ 28,000 raised in cash. This money came from II other stockholders. One investor put just $ 2,500 into Ford's venture (only $ 1,000 of it in cash). He drew more than $5,000,000 in dividends, and he received more than $30,000,000 when he sold all of his holdings to Ford in 1919.
　　Early automobile manufacturers merely l)ought automobile parts and assembled die cars. Ford’s objective was to make every part that went into Iris cars. He acquired iron and coal mines, forests, mills, and factories to produce and shape iris steel and alloys, his fuel, wood, glass, and leather. He built railroads and steamship lines and an airplane freight service in order to transport his products.
　　Mass production was Ford’s main idea, and he replaced the men with machines wherever possible. Each man was given only one task, which he did repeatedly until it became automatic. Conveyors brought the job to the man instead of having the man waste time going to the job. To cut shipping costs, parts were shipped from the main plants in the Detroit area and assembled into cars at the branch plants.
　　Ford also won the fame as a philanthropist and pacifist. He established an eight-hour day, a minimum wage of $ 5 daily (later raised to $ 6) , and a five-day week. He built a hospital in Detroit with fixed rates for service and physicians and nurses on salary. He created the Edison Institute, which includes the Greenfield Village and the Edison Institute Museum and Trade Schools. Independence Hall, Thomas Edison s early laboratory, and other famous old buildings were reproduced in the village, which is open to the public. During the World War I Ford headed a party of pacifists to Norway in a failed attempt to end the war, but during both World War I and World War II his company was a major producer of war materials.
　　In 1945 Ford yielded the presidency of the company to his 28-year-old grandson, Henry Ford II. Fold died on April 7, 1947, at the age of 83. Most of his personal estate, valued at about $ 205,000,000, was left to the Ford Foundation, one of the world's largest public trusts.

AUTOMOBILE DRIVING 汽车文化概貌

　　There are approximately 165 million registered automotive vehicles in the United States. In Canada there are more than 13 million; In Italy, 19 million; France, 21 million; And Japan, 37 million. Most of these automobiles, trucks, buses, and other motor vehicles travel along busy thoroughfares each day.
　　About 65 percent of all the people in the United States and some 45 percent of all the Canadians are licensed motor vehicle drivers. Unfortunately, not all of these drivers have the necessary physical or emotional makeup to operate such a complicated machine as the modern motorcar.
　　In the United States alone, more than 1.8 million persons have died in traffic accidents since 1900. More than 5,900 persons are killed each year in automobile accidents in Canada. In France more than 12, 0000 people per year lose their lives in traffic accidents. The same is true in Italy and Japan. In Mexico the toll is almost 9,000 deaths related to motor vehicles per year. Based on the numbers per population, Kuwait has the highest death rate in the world, followed by Portugal and Venezuela.

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