Henry Ford: The Innovation of America
Through the creation of the first Ford car the Model T and the first assembly line, Henry Ford was able to revolutionize two different industries by himself that have had a positive impact on The United States and other countries around the world to this day. Born on July 30th, 1863 in Greenfield, Michigan, Henry Ford didn’t realize one day he would change the world for the better in terms of two different industries, with the first Ford car the Model T created in 1908, and went on to develop the assembly line mode of production. With the combination of both of these ideas, he found a need in the economy for a cheaper car and set off with that idea.
As a result of this, Ford sold millions of his cars and became world famous and Ford grew along with it. The company steadily continued this trend for quite some time and has to this day. When Henry was a child, he was given a pocket watch by his father, in which he took apart and reassembled. With
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Before Ford created a cheaper, more affordable car for the American people, Charles Edgar Duryea had created a car only affordable for the wealthy, not many Americans were as fortunate to be able to buy a car and it was considered a luxury to have. When Ford created the Model T, it changed the way cars were priced. The American people now had more options of cars to choose from so companies in the automobile business had to lower their prices to compete. As in this quote (Jim Luke, par. 7) “ With his invention of the assembly line, it allowed other industries to adopt this idea and decrease their production costs. This allowed the average American the ability to live a better life and be able to afford more than they would have before.” If Ford would have not done this cars may not have been as huge of a success for another 10-25
During this time he developed plans for a horseless carriage and Thomas Edison encouraged him to build a better model. In 1903, Henry Ford established the Ford Motor Company. He also introduced a revolutionary idea: an inexpensive automobile made by
By implementing this philosophy throughout his company, Ford successfully modernized the industry at the time. The affordable cost of the car significantly boosted the economy. “Due to the mass production of the vehicle, Ford Motor Company could sell the vehicle for between $260 and $850.” That is around $23,000 in today’s dollars. Ford first priced the car at $850, but he kept bringing it down to make it affordable to the typical American worker. With the rising concern about labor motivation and its impact on productivity, Ford introduced the Five-Dollar Day, which aimed to boost the workers’ productiveness and help bring the working class to the middle class.
Henry Ford is worthy of inclusion in HIST 1301 because of his innovations and his impact on the United States economy. He became one of the most significant industrialists in history, by contributing to changes in the age of mass production at the turn of the century, raising worker wages, lowering the cost of the automobile for the middle class and permanently altering American culture through these changes. First, Henry Ford envisioned making everyone have access to a reliable car that was affordable. So, in June 1903, Ford witnessed the founding of the Ford Motor Company, which sold its first car in July, made a profit in its first year, and over the course of 19 years, sold more than 15 million cars in the United States and extended internationally, accounting for half of the
This attracted Ford a lot of attention from investors, who were willing to fund the projects for the next seven years, and that is where he founded his own company which he called ‘The Detroit Automobile Company’, later named ‘The Henry Ford Company’ in 1899. Over the course of three years, his investors grew impatient with Ford, as he was busy perfecting his own designs until he eventually left to form his own company yet again, called ‘The Ford Motor Company’. Ford wanted his vehicles to be perfect for the consumer, and after a month of working in his new company, he finished his newest creation, known as a ‘Model-A’. The factory that made these cars were operating at a snail’s pace, only producing a handful of cars a day. This led Ford to try and invent new ways to make the process of building cars much quicker and cheaper, so that it can be bought by the consumer at a reasonable price by means of producing so many of them, and so, the ‘Model-T’ was invented, which was an extremely successful
Many American now began to fight for better wages so they could participate in the purchasing of the consumer goods such as the Model T car. Ford was creating a new class of living for the United States not only were they compensating their employees better than most companies but he was lowering the price of cars so that American would be able to purchase them on their income. After the creation of the assembly line Ford could lower the price of his cars by over half from $700 in 1910 to $316 in 1916. The car could be purchased by the working class of America.
Today transportation has never been easier with the invention of the car or automobile. These 3000-4000 pounds of metal is the main methods of transportation for America. Whether it be by taxi, bus, or even by your own car you bought yourself going to your destination. However, none of this would be possible if it was not for Henry Ford in a free enterprise system. The free enterprise system allowed Henry Ford to create a product that allowed all of the lower class and upper class to afford an automobile.
However, automobiles like the Chevrolet, the Rambler and the Hudson Hornet were huge successes when it came to consumerism in the economy. Manufacturers in the automobile industry, would make small changes to every year’s model. These changes would persuade consumers to buy the new model and that they needed to update their cars every couple of years and ultimately expanded purchasing growth in the 50’s society.
Automobiles were affordable and were designed carefully. The majority of these cars were produced by the Ford Motor Company, led by Henry Ford, who designed a different model each year to satisfy the insatiable crowd. Many of the automotive innovations that we think of as being modern—like electric powered cars, four wheel drive, front wheel drive, hybrid fuel and electric cars—were introduced during the 1920s. The automobiles had various different colors in order to get the attention of people, especially woman, and through time, they evolved to become more comfortable to drive for men (Scott ,1). The automobiles were beneficial to the U.S because they expanded the area of habitat.
Henry Ford also developed his model T Ford during this time and sold 15 million by 1927. More and more “white collar jobs” such as law enforcement and business became popular during these times and steered them away from physical labour such as mining and farming, as America was now progressing towards an urban culture. Less manual labourers were needed during this time because the use of machinery flourished. Productivity did increase as a result and with this a lively consumer culture was created, with advertising becoming a crucial factor in promoting new products and developing the economy.
Imagine you get to work and you clock into to your job which pays twice the pay as all of the jobs your friends and Famliy have but when you get there you sit in a tiny station where all day long you do the same thing over and over agian. This job would be quite a degrading boring horrible job would it not? Now that you know that your job is horrible but you get twice the pay you need to know that you work for Ford Motor company and you will be twisting the wrench on all five screws on the front of the car about 50 times a day for the rest of your life. At least you weren 't doing it for less than 5 $ per day like everyone else.
The first production of the Model T was produced on August 12, 1908. On May 26, 1927, the 15 millionth Model T rolled off the assembly line at Ford's factory in Michigan. Today there are still fords being produced. This changed the Progressive Era, because the car became a demand and became powerful in the industrial world.
Although Henry Ford began the Ford Motor Company in 1903, it was not until 1908 that his business began to grow and become successful. In 1908 Ford first released the Model T automobile at a price of $825.00. He was able to offer the vehicle at such a low price because in the process of producing the Model T he also developed and perfected the moving assembly line. This reduced the assembly time by over fifty percent, which in turn reduced the price of the automobile. The Ford Motor Company has continued to grow and after over a century of being in business it is now worth around $199 billion.
Most people who like trucks admire them for the way they look or how they run on the road and other things trucks have. There are a variety of types of trucks such as Ford, Chevy, Nissan, Toyota, Dodges (Rams), GMC and maybe Hondas. There is people who talk about which truck is better by comparing them together and arguing about them. But we are going to compare Ford and Chevy. To start where and how did Ford brand begin?
Henry Ford then came out with water cooled engines and started to make the cars built with better materials. The age of the automobiles. All car builders had to use the idea of the assembly line for the manufacturing. Henry Ford paid workers $5 a day to manufacture on the automobile.
The majority of these were Cars and a sizable minority in cases like General Motors (2.89 million or nearly a third of their vehicles) and Ford (2.67 million nearly half of their vehicles) were Light Commercial Vehicles (SUVs, pickup trucks, etc.). The luxury of being in the U.S. allows these two to tap in to the U.S. citizen’s taste for the LCV and exploit it to their advantage. The rest of the competition quickly slide in to the category of 2 million or more vehicles manufactured per year (Honda, Renault, Suzuki, BMW, Nissan, etc.). Here Fiat Chrysler Automobiles again demonstrates the manufacturers targeting the U.S. market for LCVs derive nearly half of their units produced from them (2.35 million units manufactured). Likewise, Toyota, Hyundai, Honda, Nissan and Suzuki all make the majority of their sales out of cars, not LCVs as their main markets are in Asia where the majority of customers do not care for SUVs or pick-up