The film director John Ford (February 1, 1895–August 31, 1973) has been celebrated both for his mythification of the American experience and for his signature approach to cinema. Born Sean O’Feeney to Irish immigrants in Maine, Ford followed his brother Francis into the film industry and began directing in 1917. Many of his early films were Westerns, often starring Harry Carey. This attention to the genre would first culminate in The Iron Horse (1924), one of many of Ford’s films that seemed to glorify the march of American progress