Preview

How Did Henry Ford Build The Automobile Industry

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
593 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
How Did Henry Ford Build The Automobile Industry
The 1920s had a large influx of jobs thanks to the methods implemented by Henry Ford involving his assembly line. The mass production of cars would lead to other innovations in roads, transportation, and the everyday life of the common United States' citizen. Henry Ford did not invent the assembly line, but only perfected it in such a way that automobiles could be put together in large numbers by people who only had to know how to apply one part to do their job. Ford didn’t stop there, he changed the life of every city dwelling American by not only changing how companies treated their workers and how they conducted themselves, but also triggered a domino effect in all businesses related to the car industry.

Henry Ford started his reign of the car enterprises when he started to use the technology to make cars that manufacturers were already using to make sewing machines and other small machinery. The Model T, available only in black, was introduced in 1908. Ford’s moving assembly line brought the automobile to the American people. He hired scientific management experts to help reduce the time, effort, and expense in the manufacturing process. By studying the manufacturing process in meat packinghouses, Ford realized on a moving assembly line workers could work one step or station and add something to build the automobile. This innovative technique drastically reduced the manufacture time of the Model T. What once took twelve hours to complete could be achieved in only ninety minutes. This method also allowed Ford to drop the sale price. Now more people than ever were
…show more content…
He doubled the daily wages of some of his workers in 1914 from $2.35 to $5.00. Workdays were reduced from nine hours to eight hours. The almost unheard of “weekend” was instituted. These changes positively affected the American workforce and made Ford a rich man. More money and more free time created more customers for his

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Henry Ford revolutionized the way factories worked with his system of an assembly line. The assembly line had workers working individually on one job and one job only all day to put together automobiles. Ford’s system was very effective as he could produce many reliable cars that an average family could afford. With new farming techniques, production was on the rise and many farmers left the agricultural industry to work in factories. Workers were starting to receive benefits such as pensions and longer work vacations. Most employers wanted to keep the production costs low even though the workers’ wages were increasing. In the early 20th century electricity was starting to be used in factories, majority of the factories using this electricity was Ford’s company. They were using the…

    • 1415 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Ford Motor Company was founded on June 16, 1903 by Henry Ford, a chief engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company with years of experience working on steam engines. Having sufficient knowledge on how the automotive industry works, Ford establishes a company with the appropriate leadership and a strong foundation. After many different trails and configurations Ford introduced the Model T in October of 1908, and for several years the company posted hundred percent gains. Ford created the moving assembly line technique of mass production and simultaneously paying his workers steady wages as a method of keeping the best workers loyal to his company. In 1918 more that half of the cars were the Ford Model T in the United States. Henry Ford is considered one of America’s leading businessmen by building the economy during the nation’s early…

    • 845 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Henry Ford's Inventions

    • 126 Words
    • 1 Page

    Henry Ford was a brilliant engineer, who had an assortment of inventions producing to the automobile industry in the early 1900s. Of these inventions, arguably the most essential, was the Model T. The Model T was invented to give the public a more accessible and affordable automobile, which the ordinary person could drive. After being invented in Detroit, Michigan and introduced to the public in 1908, the accessibility of the Model T made it extraordinarily popular for several years. The inspiration for this ingenious invention was that Ford wanted a car that was affordable and able to be produced in great volume. Over the course of a year, Ford invented and tested the Model T on rough roads before its introduction to the public in 1908.…

    • 126 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Henry Ford revolutionized American society through the assembly line, Model T, and his implementation of a five-day work-week. Henry Ford, born July 30, 1863 in Michigan. Henry was born into a farming family that he soon disliked. Ford's parents were Protestant immigrants from Ireland. Ford left his father's farm to become an apprentice at the Michigan Car Company.…

    • 670 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    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).…

    • 1307 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Henry Ford changed the worked day from 11 - 12 hours to 8 hours stated in paragraph 1 of the first artical. He did this with an assembly line in 1914, but it was 8 hours. Six…

    • 289 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Although automobiles existed before Henry Ford created his model, he was still a great influence on the country. Ford Motor Company was established in 1905 and "by 1929, half of all Americans owned a car" (Foner, 612). One of the most important thing that Ford had done was adopt the moving assembly line in 1913. This contributed to more people owning cars, which in turn stimulated the economy and increased the need for supplies. Spurring consumerism within the nation, Henry Ford and the automobile were great for a number of things in the economy.…

    • 1372 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    On October 1, 1908, the first production Model T Ford is completed at the company’s plant in Detroit. The Model T was known as the "tin Lizzie" and was an immediate success. The orders were piling up and as a result he couldn’t fill all of them so Ford started using mass production techniques. He used large production plants, used interchangeable parts and the moving assembly line. These techniques led Henry Ford used eventually allowed Ford Motor Company to make one Model T in 24 seconds. Before the Model T, cars were a luxury item, being because of the way that they were made, with expensive machinery or expensive parts. At the beginning of 1908, there were fewer than 200,000 cars on the road. Though the Model T was built for ordinary people to drive every day. Ford wanted to make the Model T a common man vehicle so he lowered the price to $300.00. By him giving his workers a set salary not only would he be getting business from everyday people, his workers would also be buying his…

    • 967 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Henry Ford, American industrialist, greatly influenced production, wages, working conditions, and daily life. With his development of the assembly line, a technique used for mass production, Henry Ford made cars faster and cheaper than ever before. He allowed both wealthy and non-wealthy to afford cars. Today, thanks to automobiles, people are able to live farther from their jobs and the demand for car parts or necessities has fueled the economy by an…

    • 688 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Henry Ford, born on July 30, 1863, in Wayne County, Michigan, was an American industrialist who founded the Ford Motor Company. When he was just thirteen years old, Henry Ford received a pocket watch from his father, which he promptly took apart and put back together again. Everyone was impressed with his talent. At age 16, he apprenticed as a machinist and learned important skills that would help him in his chosen career path. Years later, he became an engineer. In 1908, he created the Ford Model T car (Biography.com. 2015, par.1-3). Although he accomplished all this, he is widely known for his invention of the assembly line, which revolutionized the industry and would still be…

    • 854 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    To start off with we have Henry Ford. Technically Ford never invented the assembly line, but he was a sponsor who used it to the point where it became important. A car was a luxury for America before Ford came along, his company soon started to develop cars the average middle-class American could afford. This practice is now known as Fordism as Henry Ford was the first to make use of the tactic of mass production and low costs. Ford was a pioneer when it came to fair wage going as far as to pay his workers 5$ a day. The work week was also reduced to forty hours, five eight hour work days a week. Ford’s companies was also responsible for producing a number of war materials in World War Two at a rate that could rival the production of their Model T. When it came to the B-24 Bombers Ford’s factory at Willow Run was able to produce one bomber every 58 minutes, and ended up making about half of the total bombers. In the end Ford has been known to be a producer in American history, the first producer to make automobiles accessible, something many…

    • 740 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The automobile drastically altered the way people lived and worked by allowing Americans the freedom to travel where they wanted. Henry Ford was responsible for the mass production of the automobile by two methods. First he priced his car to be as affordable as possible and second he paid his workers enough to be able to purchase the cars they were manufacturing. This system helped push wages and auto sales upward and…

    • 785 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Henry Ford used the assembly line and incorporated his own ideas to revolutionize the auto industry and make cars a reality for the average American. “That efficiency of mass production enabled him to reduce the cost of the Model T Touring car from $950 in 1908 to just $290 in 1925 while increasing production during that time from just more than 10,000 to nearly 2 million cars per year”. (1) This obviously changed America as the average person was able to afford an automobile, but also began a dangerous standard in the auto industry of cost cutting and finding the cheapest way possible to manufacture their products. Finding the cheapest or most inexpensive way to produce their products has not only caused the auto industry, but…

    • 1946 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Tragedy In Detroit

    • 465 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Although Mr. Ford has legendary status in our society, it is interesting to know what he did, and just as interesting to know what he did not do. He did not invent the gasoline engine. He did not invent the automobile, and he did not build the first fully operational automobile. What he did do took far more genius. He recognized the potential of the automobile as the future mode of transportation, replacing of course the horse and carriage, and he also envisioned the mass production of this “horseless carriage” as a means to put it within economic reach of the average worker. In short, Henry Ford put the world on…

    • 465 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Henry Ford was one of the most influential people in the early 1900s. He genuinely cared about the well-being of the people; he was not really concerned with wealth. Ford treated his employees with respect, which made the people greatly admire him. Ford’s ingenuity, caring attitude, wit, and ambition proves that he was a captain of industry that the world will never…

    • 905 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays