Henry Ford's Path To Perfect The Assembly Line

Henry Ford is a household name across the United States, and if they don’t know who the man himself if they definitely know what he was a part. Ford was the first man to perfect the assembly line and also the creator of the Ford Motor Company. Most people, whenever they hear the name Henry Ford, believe that Henry Ford produced the first cars. However, this is in fact not true. Henry ford was a businessman on the path to perfect the automobile and how it was manufactured.

Henry Ford was born on June 20, 1863 in Dearborn Michigan (McGuire pg.1). Whenever Ford was born, he was not born into a rich family. He grew up in a family with 7 other siblings and grew up in school until the age of 16. Author William McGuire states, “early on showed a remarkable

Before the moving assembly line had been perfected prices were extremely high and unobtainable for the average family. Although Ford was helping improve life outside of his business, workers didn’t necessarily like the assembly line. The author of the passage, Henry Ford and Fordism, states, “After implementing the assembly line, Ford saw a high turnover in workers who found production monotonous or disliked the new, fast-moving machinery, and this turnover disrupted production.” This led to workers either quitting or following in others footsteps and going on strike. Ford knew he would have to do something to keep his workers there so he decided to up his wages. The average pay rate for people at other automotive industries was $2/hr for an 8-hour work day, Ford however, paid $5/hr. Although Ford paid his employees higher than the average employer did this came with rules. If his employees expected to be paid this price then they were expected to maintain clean and healthy lifestyles. This meant that the employees couldn’t be caught using tobacco products or be caught drinking alcohol (Henry Ford and Fordism). Unlike other business at the time, not just automakers, Ford also gave equal pay to both white and black Americans (U.S. History). After WW1 broke out in 1914 this was a new style of war for everybody. With the use of machine guns and tanks this was a war

This led to an entirely new way of life. When other competitors saw how good Ford was doing, they realized that they too could be successful in the auto industry and this led to more vehicles on the road. With so many citizens wanting to buy cars this caused a rise in demand. With this new rise in demand car companies began spreading all over America and 1 in every 5 people owned a car (Henry Ford and Fordism). Of course, as time goes on and more and more cars begin to get produced this means that there is now a need for more roads. This benefitted the economy in many ways, one of the most obvious ways is the fact that as more roads were being built more workers were needed to build these roads. With people now being on the roads more and being out and about these cars would wear down the tires and they would begin to need new tires. The article, Henry Ford and Fordism states, “The growing auto industry also sparked the construction of hundreds of thousands of miles of roads, the production of rubber for tires, and the refining of gasoline to fuel the cars.” This goes to show how much he was able to influence other manufacturing companies due to the automobile industry. Not only was Henry Ford impacting other businesses financially he also paved a way for the mass production on all types on items. When Henry Ford perfected the moving assembly line, he basically at that moment