Ford R. Bryan joined Ford Motor Company as a spectrochemical analyst following World War II. Over the course of thirty-three years, he would move on to the Ford Scientific Laboratory, publishing more than seventy technical papers on optical spectroscopy. Following his retirement from Ford, he became a volunteer at the Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village. His yen for writing led him to the Ford Archives, where he found a gold mine of material about his own family and about his favorite subject, Henry Ford. He has written many books about Henry Ford, including Rouge: Pictured in Its Prime; Friends, Families & Forays; Clara: Mrs. Henry Ford; Beyond the Model T: The Other Ventures of Henry Ford; Henry's Attic: Some Fascinating Gifts to Henry Ford and His Museum; and Henry's Lieutenants (all published or distributed by Wayne State University Press).