1920 Timeline of Henry Ford’s transportation innovation
Henry Ford was born in Springwells Township, Wayne County, Michigan, on July 30, 1863. Henry Ford created the Ford motors with the partnership of 12 others, he owned 25.5% of the stock in the new organization. In 1919, Henry and his family bought the interest of all minority stockholders for $105,820,894 and became the sole owners of the Company. In the 1920’s there were three major car manufacturers Ford, General motors and Chrysler; they were also the major employers of factory jobs.
However, while technology improved car production also improved tremendously with improved technology such as conveyor belts, assembly lines and the spread of electricity which by far revolutionized the industry. These advancements meant that production was improving at a greater rate than never before, due to this it eventually led to mass production. For example, car prices went from being $900+ in the 1920 to $250+ in 1929. This was also one of Henry Ford’s ideas to produce mass production because he wanted to produce affordable cars for the public. Ford was highly successful and created thousands of jobs for hard working Americans. His River Rouge factory in Detroit, Michigan was by far the largest factory in the world. The workers earned $5 per day, which was double the normal rate in any factory employers. As Eric Foner states, “Ford paid the assembly line workers $5 a day when prevailing wages were about $2.50. he also reduced working hours to 8.” By 1929, Americans owned 23 million cars. The best known was the Ford Model T car. By the time the Model T was withdrawn from production in 1927, its price had been reduced to $290. Ford’s mass production proficentices were quickly copied by other American vehicle manufacturers. With more cars being produced that meant that more roads had to be built, and highways and bridges were being built for cars. Furthemore, due to many cars being sold it connected many Americans with each other. Women were starting to leave their homes now because module T was easy to drive. Accessing other places in America was a lot easier which led to more infrastructure; restaurants, stores, and gas stations. This car made America as we know it today, to this day the affordable model T was Ford’s greatest impact on many American’s.
According to history.org in Ford later career there was a lot of controversial moments. Ford’s political views earned him widespread criticism over the years, beginning with his campaign against U.S. involvement in World War I. He made a failed bid for a U.S. Senate seat in 1918, narrowly losing in a campaign marked by personal attacks from his opponent. According to history.org “In the Dearborn Independent, a local newspaper he bought in 1918, Ford published a number of anti-Semitic writings that were collected and published as a four volume set called The International Jew. Though he later renounced the writings and sold the paper, he expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler and Germany, and in 1938 accepted the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the Nazi regime’s highest medal for a foreigner.”
Ford’s model T was very pleasing, however he had a bigger goal set. Ford invented his first commercial plane nicknamed the “Tin Goose,” a reference to the Model T’s nickname as the “Tin Lizzie.” The Tin Goose was one of the first airplanes used by America’s early commercial airlines. Just as he put the world on wheels with the Model T, Henry Ford hoped to give it wings with a small, affordable airplane. Henry built three to five prototype planes. Ford later abandoned the project after an unforeseen accident that took place near Melbourne, Florida, in 1928 killing his test pilot Harry Brooks.
Citations
https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/henry-ford
https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/model-t
https://corporate.ford.com/about/history/company-timeline.html
