#128 Henry Leland (Cadillac)

What I learned from reading Master of Precision: Henry Leland by Ottilie Leland and Minnie Dubbs Millbrook. ---- [0:17] Henry Leland laid the foundation for the future of American industry. He had established manufacturing procedures never previously so effectively employed and took a position of leadership. In the next decades would be comparable in statute with, although quite different from, William Durant, Henry Ford and Alfred Sloan.  [0:40] It should be pointed out that Leland's contribution to the development of the motor car was the establishment of high standards of manufacturing.  [2:33] Henry Leland always got deep satisfaction out of anything which was made right. He had—in high degree—the pride of craftsmanship that had marked the master workman down the centuries.  [3:07] He developed the Cadillac, the self-starter, The Lincoln car, held up high standards of performance for the industry, and established the first notable school of automotive mechanics.  [4:05] A lesson Henry Leland learned from his Father: He bequeathed a singularly trustful disposition to his son, who could never believe that other men were not inherently as good and honorable as he himself. He was several times to pay a stiff penalty for this faith in human nature.  [4:56] A lesson Henry Leland learned from his Mother: “There is a right way and a wrong way to do everything. Hunt for the right way and then go ahead.” This simple admonition was to become a creed that would govern all of his actions as he rose in industry.  [6:10] He lives through the beginning of two industries in his life: Manufacturing in general and the automobile industry in specific.  [7:24] Henry Leland was not sure he wanted to become an apprentice machinist. The hours were long—10 hour days, 6 days a week—and most factories did not pay high wages. Moreover, farming was still the traditional American operation, which offered a possibility of independence and did not shut a man indoors with noisy machinery.  [9:0