Henry Jones Ford

Henry Jones Ford (August 25, 1851 – August 29, 1925) was an American political scientist, journalist, university professor, and government official. He served as president of the American Political Science Association. He was appointed by Woodrow Wilson as the Banking and Insurance Commissioner of New Jersey in 1912.

Biography

He was born on August 25, 1851, in Baltimore, Maryland. He graduated from Baltimore City College at the age of seventeen.

Ford worked as a managing editor and editorial writer from 1872 to 1905, at six different newspapers in three cities Baltimore, New York City, and Pittsburgh.

Later returning to Baltimore, Ford taught at Johns Hopkins University, and afterwards taught at the University of Pennsylvania. Known to say that politics was a "dirty business" unsuitable for women, his students at Penn included suffragist Alice Paul, whose experiences in his classes informed her decision to pursue master's and doctoral degrees in sociology instead of politics. Ford later took a job as professor of politics at Princeton University, at the request of the university's then-president, Woodrow Wilson.

Ford's association with Wilson also took him also into politics. When Wilson became governor of New Jersey, he appointed Ford Commissioner of Banking and Insurance; after Wilson became president, Ford was sent to the Philippines on a special mission, reporting directly to the President, and toward the end of Wilson's presidency, Ford was named to a position on the Interstate Commerce Commission. Their association also resulted in Ford's book Woodrow Wilson, the Man and His Work, which was an account of Wilson's experience on the presidential campaign trail.