How Did Business Grow In The Early 1900's

It takes a great deal of bravery to influence an entire era, and one man succeeded to do so. Some of the greatest businessmen of all time, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, and Henry Ford, fiercely competed for the top spot in the business word. They were ruthless businessmen and did everything they could to help their businesses succeed. All this fierce competition allowed for the great economic growth known as the Second Industrial Revolution. The Second Industrial Revolution was a great period of growth between the 19th and 20th century. During this time, many advances in technology helped businesses succeed and allowed life to be lived in an easier fashion then before. Many inventors were making new things that
benefited society. The Second Industrial Revolution made living a lot easier and allowed businesses to succeed beyond what they could do before. All of these inventors and businessmen has great influence on society, but Henry Ford was the most influential person in the Second Industrial Revolution and he still influences society today. Today, the assembly line is one of the most well known production methods for producing goods in mass quantities. Before the Second Industrial Revolution, many businesses had skilled craftsmen building their products. This process was very slow and since they were handmade, they were also very expensive. Henry Ford saw an opportunity and introduced revolutionary new mass-production methods, including large production plants, the use of standardized interchangeable parts and, in 1913, the world’s first moving assembly line for cars (History.com Staff). It might have been just another of Ford’s wild ideas, except that it proved successful. In 1914, the company sold 308,000 of its Model Ts, more than all other carmakers combined. By 1915, sales had climbed to 501,000. By 1920, Ford was selling a million cars a year (Nilsson). Henry Ford used the assembly line to cut the amount of time it took to assemble a Model T from 12.5 hours to just 93 minutes (New York Daily News). Mass production significantly cut down on the time required to produce the Model T, from 12.5 hours to just 93 minutes, which allowed costs to stay low (History.com Staff). It was affordable because of the rate at which it was built. The remarkable production rate of the Model T was made possible by the moving assembly line and by the thousands of people who built the vehicle (Stanford). The assembly line also changed the way people worked and lived, accelerating the shift from rural areas to cities, and increasing the number of people doing repetitive, low-skilled jobs (New York Daily News). What's striking about modern automotive production lines is that they haven't changed all that much from the basic Ford system from so long ago (Deaton). The basic wage that every business was paying their workers back in the early 1900’s was $2.34 a day (citation with no author).
Henry Ford saw that his workers were struggling financially and saw how it affected their work. Ford wanted to make sure he could produce as many Model T’s as he could in a day and decided to raise his workers wage to $5.00 dollars a day, more than twice what it was before (Nilsson). Ford was hoping that this pay increase could keep the workers minds focused on the task at hand instead of focusing on whether they will have enough money to eat that day, or if they will have enough money to send their kid to school. To qualify for the pay increase, workers had to stop drinking, take care of their families, and support their family. Ford had inspectors come to there homes not only to check on these conditions but offered financial advice, advice on certain situations, and gave them the resources they needed (Anderson). The five-dollar day was eventually followed by the five-day work week, which meant Ford workers had both the money to buy his cars and the leisure time to use them(New York Daily News Staff). In addition, he also reduced the work day from 9 hours to 8 hours, a significant drop from the 60-hour work week that was the standard in American manufacturing (Nilsson).Now workers were only working a 40 hour work week. Since workers were not worried about financial problems, they were more productive. Higher productivity means more
profit, some of which is often returned to workers through bonuses. Workers then have more money to buy products, creating what economists call a virtuous cycle of growth (New York Daily News Staff). This virtuous cycle of growth boosted the economy because workers were getting paid more allowing for more people to purchase products from other stores. Since more people were buying products from other stores, those stores could then give bonuses to their workers. Then the cycle continues on and on, overall boosting the economy. Ford essentially created the middle class. In the end, other manufacturers would have to follow Fords idea and raise wages because no one wanted to work for low paying companies (Stanford). In time, workers in any number of fields were earning genuine “living wages” that afforded them comfort, security, basic food, shelter and clothing needs (Anderson). Henry Ford created a car for the common man. Ford is quoted as saying:
I will build a motor car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one—and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God's great open spaces. (Crowther)
This is how Henry Ford would tackle the idea for making a car for the common man.
Although automobiles had already existed for decades, they were still mostly scarce, expensive, and unreliable at the Model T's introduction in 1908 (Curcio). To get over the huge barrier of overpriced, unreliable cars, Ford priced the Model T at $850, a far cry from the $2,000 cost of most early cars. He also made sure that everything was perfectly safe for families and that it wouldn’t break down when you were driving (Davis). Since the Model T was positioned as reliable, easily maintained, and a mass-market transportation, the Model T was a runaway success (Curcio). It was so successful that 16.5 million Model T’s were sold. All these sales led to Ford’s company being the largest automobile manufacturer in the world(Davis) and led the Model T to become eighth on the top ten list of most sold cars of all time (Siu). When Ford first introduced the Model T, it was very cheap, but Ford knew he could do better. By the early 1920s, the Model T’s price price came down to just under $300 (Davis). Ford's Model T was successful not only because it provided inexpensive transportation on a massive scale, but also because the car signified innovation for the rising middle class and became a powerful symbol of America's age of modernization
(Folkmann). Henry Ford revolutionized the American workplace and helped boost the economy. Ford was one of the first to implement the assembly line into mass producing products, and it proved successful. Many companies are still using the assembly line today to mass produce their products. Ford also raised wages and made the work day shorter. Ford also created a car for the common man. Before the Model T, many people were walking to places or riding a horse and cars were very expensive, but Ford changed this when he made the Model T. Henry Ford has influenced society back in the 1900’s and is continuing to influence society today.