View source for Henry J Ford's Concept for the Perfect Factory

Henry J. Ford owned a factory. It was called ''On Pointe Ltd''. He was in the ballet shoe making business. People often confused him for his brilliant contemporary Henry Ford, maker of automobiles and revolutionary industrialist, so he added his middle initial 'J' to his name to make a distinction. Yet, people still confused him with Henry Ford, maker of automobiles and revolutionary industrialist.

Henry J. Ford was born in 1865 to parents of unknown origin, but didn't enter into the ballet shoe making business until he was 40 years old. He spent his 20s and much of his 30s working odd jobs around New York City, occasionally travelling further afield during times of economic strife. In his 30s, he had often supplemented his meagre income by making stepdancing shoes for the Irish diaspora until somebody told him that members of the Irish diaspora caused the Great Fire of New York in 1835. Most of the money he made, he saved obsessively, waiting for his 'great opportunity'. 

One day he saw a picture of the great Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova in the ''New York Times''. He thought she was beautiful, and foresaw the great impact ballet would have on the United States. 'High-culture, for high-minded people', he often said. 

Henry J. Ford immediately opened a magnificent factory with his savings. ''On Pointe'', he called it, after the ''pointe shoe'' worn by ballerinas. It was to be his great opportunity. It was 1905, three years before Henry Ford, maker of automobiles and revolutionary industrialist, changed the systems of American industry with the mass production of the Model T Ford.

The hours Henry J. spent on the railroads, in the kitchens, and on the streets, he had been thinking about factories. He spent a summer in an abattoir. He saw that each man had his place. Each man was a cog in the machine. In the process of slaughtering and preparing animals for the market, the men had to work fast, and the best way to do this was for each man to have his place.

The factory building was much longer than it was wide, as it was originally built for a rope-making business. The factory floor was 115 meters long, including stairwell and canteen, with 10 large windows on the right hand side. It was 18 meters in width. He shared the building with a toothbrush company that operated next door. The day Henry J. Ford moved into the building, his new neighbour promised him that he would provide all his staff with one toothbrush each, every Christmas.

Henry J.'s wonderful factory opened on the first day of April, 1905. He hired 130 men, women, and children (all unskilled) to work there. The employees were ordered alphabetically by surname, assigned a task, and given 5 minutes personal training with Henry J. Ford himself. Soon, he had every employee working in unison, a masterpiece in choreography. 

They all sat at a very long table, 97 meters long. He divided the ballet shoe production process into stages. He had the children pick out the satin sheets, and prepare the cotton. The women cut the pieces from the satin and cotton for each shoe with a cutting press at the 15 meter point. At the 30 meter point, the men sewed the pieces together to form the shaped cloth for the shoe, passing it along the assembly line as their part in the process was complete. The shoe was then ribboned (57 meters), measured for size (63 meters), and finally soled, toe-hardened and dried by a group of men and women (at 69 through 97 meters). Henry J. sat on a tall chair at the top of the table, either telling jokes or shouting at them to hurry up.  The men, women and children could produce 130 pairs of shoes every day, on average – that's two shoes for every employee.

Henry J. Ford's factory was magnificent, but he did not get the recognition he deserved. Ballet shoes weren't big business in 1905. Automobiles were big business in 1905. And even bigger business in 1908. ''On Pointe Ltd'' closed its doors in 1908.