He would make a market for his cars by producing them so cheaply that nearly every American could afford one. Ford could achieve both quality and a low price at scale because of the assembly line. In the same way that a single carcass was picked apart by men with specialized jobs as it moved along a line, mounted upon a hook, Ford arranged his new factory at Highland Park so that men with highly specialized assignments could build an automobile much faster than before.
The assembly line moved work to the men rather than forcing men to move to the work, thereby saving valuable time and energy. It also extended the concept of the division of labor to its logical extreme so that workers would only perform one function in a much larger assembly process all day, every day. The applicability of these principles to the manufacturing of just about everything is what made Ford such an important figure in the history of industrialization. Mass production became possible for all kinds of things that had once seemed far removed from the automobile.
Ford built Model Ts at three different facilities over the entire history of that vehicle. He improved his production methods over time which included introducing and improving upon the assembly line so that he could produce them more cheaply and efficiently.
Efficiency depended on speed, and speed depended upon the exact place in the factory where those machines were placed. Because Ford made only one car, he could employ single-purpose machine tools of extraordinarily high quality.
The company also used lots of other automated manufacturing equipment, like gravity slides and conveyors, to get parts of the car from one place to another in its increasingly large, increasingly mechanized factories. Because the assembly line moved the work to the men rather than the men to the work, the company could control the speed of the entire operation.
Like earlier manufacturers, Ford depended upon standardized, identical parts to produce more cars for less, but the assembly line also made it possible to conserve labor—not by mechanizing jobs that had once been done by hand, but by mechanizing work processes and paying employees just to feed and tend to those machines.
This was not fun work to do. Before Ford came along, cars were boutique goods that only rich people could afford to operate.
After Ford introduced the assembly line actually a series of assembly lines for every part of the car , labor productivity improved to such a degree that mass production became possible. Perhaps more important than mass production was mass consumption, since continual productivity improvements meant that Ford could lower the price of the Model T every year, while simultaneously making small but significant changes that steadily improved the quality of the car.
Mass production eliminated choice, since Ford produced no other car, but Ford built variations of the Model T, like the runabout with the same chassis, and owners retro-fitted their Model Ts for everything from camping to farming.
The increased number of automobiles on city streets further congested already congested downtown areas. Streetcars got blocked. Pedestrians died in gruesome traffic accidents.
One of the basic requirements of having so many new cars on the roads was to improve the quality and quantity of roads. Local city planners tended to attack such problems on a case-by-case basis, laying pavement on well-traveled roads and widening them when appropriate. New traffic rules, such as the first one-way streets, appeared in an effort to alleviate these kinds of problems.
Traffic control towers and traffic lights—the mechanical solution to a problem inspired by industrialization—also appeared for the first time during this era. Cities grew when industries grew during this era.
Since people had to live near where they worked and few people lived in skyscrapers , many builders built out into undeveloped areas.
If a city had annexed much of the land around it previous to these economic expansions like Detroit , those areas became parts of a larger city. Chicago was so confident of further growth during this period that it built streetcar lines into vacant fields.
To meet rising demand for housing, homebuilders applied industrial principles to building—using standardized parts that were themselves the result of mass production techniques. By the s, buying pre-cut mail order houses became big business. After , mechanization made factories even more productive thanks to technological improvements.
The electrical and chemical industries formed the vanguard for the blending of science and the useful arts during this era. By the s, engineers had been formally integrated into the management hierarchies of countless American industries. Reorganization of production merged with technological improvement had made mass production possible long before Ford developed the assembly line. By the end of that decade, it could produce , cigarettes in a day.
By the s, mass production had arrived in industries that produced goods that were much more expensive than cigarettes. Among the other manufacturers that used Fordist principles during the s were the makers of home appliances, like refrigerators and radios. General Electric, for example, built an eighteen million dollar assembly line for its Monitor Top refrigerator and sold a million refrigerators just four years after its introduction in Even craft-dominated industries like furniture making came to depend upon mass production to make their products more available to the masses.
People who moved from farms to cities desperately needed furniture for their new urban residences, but in industrial towns like Grand Rapids, Michigan, they could not afford pieces made by craftsman. New mass-produced models made with minimal carving and overlays, based on stylish patterns, found a market all over the country.
It helped that companies like Bassett, founded in Virginia in , discouraged their workers from forming unions, just like Ford did. An unorganized workforce made it easier for industrialists to impose changes in the production process without resistance from employees. The changeover from the Model T to the Model A, in , demonstrated the limits of industrialized mass production. The Model A was incredibly expensive, and Ford had to shut his main plant for months to retool the production line for his new models.
While the new car sold well initially, sales dropped precipitously as the Depression deepened. Urban building slowed precipitously during the Depression too. Since cities were the focal points of industrialization, urban citizens suffered disproportionately when production waned. Of course, when the United States sank into the economic downturn of the Great Depression, both urban and industrial growth decreased sharply.
It is difficult to cite previous scholarship on either industrialization or urbanization from precisely the — period because both these trends pre- and post-date this period. Equally importantly, both are so broad, in the sense that they encompass all kinds of industries and locations that they include a huge range of books and other sources. While none of the following suggestions are exact fits for these subjects during this time, they are all worth reading because they cast at least some light on industrialization and urbanization during this particular time period.
It covers a few very important industries in detail like automobile manufacturing , but it is at its best when dealing with the similarities in production technologies from industry to industry. My own Industrialization and the Transformation of American Life is a simplified introduction to these principles and a summary of their effects on many aspects of American history during this period, including urbanization.
A number of excellent studies of important industries during this period show how industrialization progressed in some detail. Rockefeller, Sr. Richard R. My own Refrigeration Nation is a close study of the American ice and refrigeration industries. Sam Bass Warner Jr. The best works of urban history published since then tend to deal with particular cities or with the relationship between cities and surrounding suburban communities.
Donald L. Building Suburbia by Dolores is a detailed work that covers a similar subject over the same time period. The turn towards social history among historians since the s has made studies of broad economic forces increasingly uncommon. Early labor history, for example, was often written by economists. Therefore, it showed a tendency towards looking at the effects of technological change upon workers.
Early sociologists who practiced during this period used to do field work in the cities where their universities were located. While a return to this kind of study seems unlikely, more attempts to study the broader economic forces that made social change happen would likely be appreciated by scholars working in multiple disciplines.
One important result of industrialization and immigration was the growth of cities, a process known as urbanization. Commonly, factories were located near urban areas. These businesses attracted immigrants and people moving from rural areas who were looking for employment. Cities grew at a rapid rate as a result. Unfortunately, urbanization was not always a positive thing. City services had a difficult time keeping up with the tremendous population growth.
Cities in the late s and early s often lacked central planning. Article Sources. Investopedia requires writers to use primary sources to support their work. These include white papers, government data, original reporting, and interviews with industry experts. We also reference original research from other reputable publishers where appropriate. You can learn more about the standards we follow in producing accurate, unbiased content in our editorial policy.
Compare Accounts. The offers that appear in this table are from partnerships from which Investopedia receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where listings appear. Investopedia does not include all offers available in the marketplace. Related Articles. Partner Links. How the Industrial Revolution Changed Business and Society The Industrial Revolution was a period of major innovation that started in Great Britain and spread around the world during the s and s.
What Is a Smokestack Industry? A smokestack industry is a traditional heavy manufacturing industry that tends to produce pollution in its process. Programs Development of the American Economy. Working Groups Urban Economics.
Alan J. Auerbach, the Robert D.
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