The Automobile
The automobile is one of the few inventions that has had a great impact on the world. The first automobile was invented by Karl Benz, from Germany, in 1885. However, the first Canadian automobile was built in 1867 by Henry Seth Taylor, and was regarded as a novelty. The automotive industry began in 1904 with Henry Ford’s establishment of the Ford Motor Company in Canada, Ltd. Canada later became the world’s second largest vehicle producer and a major exporter of automobiles and auto parts, between 1918 and 1923.
Henry Ford’s manufacturing method of mass production and invention of the assembly line resulted in the prosperity and growth of the automobile in the 1920s. Although the technology for the automobile existed in the 19th century, Ford used the idea of the assembly line for automobile manufacturing. In order to increase the worker’s productivity, he would
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In the early twentieth century, a prominent Michigan businessman fathered the American automobile industry. This innovative engineer and machinist revolutionized the world’s manufacturing techniques with the advent of the “moving assembly line” technique for mass production. Henry Ford’s innovations will forever change transportation and the American industry. With his acquired wealth and power, Ford turned his head towards politics. In 1918 Ford became the leading candidate for a Michigan senate seat; however he was unable to achieve this goal.
As James Flink points out in The Automobile Age, the village store and the local banks were the businesses most vulnerable to the new competition (47). Robert E. Wood, former vice president of Sears, explains how businesses moved to the suburbs, "When the automobile reached the masses, it changed this condition [the funneling of consumers into the town centre] and made shopping mobile. In the great cities Sears located its stores well outside the main shopping districts, on cheap land, usually on arterial highways, with ample parking space (Wollen 13)." Thus city centers came to be seen as sites of congestion, whereas the surrounding areas were regarded as accessible and convenient. The rapid proliferation of shopping complexes outside of the city center in the 1950s left down town a crime-ridden wasteland of vacated stores. City centers no longer featured traditional shops; instead they contained gas stations, parking lots, and inns whose focus was on the travelers and their cars (Wollen 13).
The impact of the automobile between 1900 through 1945 was immense. It paved the way for a future dependency on the automobile. To paint a better picture, imagine life without an automobile. Everyday life would be dull, cumbersome, and tedious. An individual's mobility would be very limited. Basically, the life without an automobile could not be fathomed. The importance of the automobile is often taken for granite. Society may not know what appreciate the impact of the automobile and effects it has created. The impact of the automobile had both positive and negative effects on America between 1900 through 1945. Automobile provided an outlet for individuals and spread the freedom of travel among all classes of people. It also helped to introduce rural dwellers to the aspects of urban life and vice versa. One of the negative effects was that automobiles helped to put of big decline in the use of railroads. Over the course of the paper, I will try to expose the huge impact of the automobile an early twentieth century life.
In the 1920’s the United States economy was booming, and a famous man by the man of Henry Ford came along and had an industry changing idea. He set up the first production line style for producing automobiles. Each assembly line worker had one or two specific tasks to complete on the cars that came through. The process began with a skeleton on the car, and as it went down the line from worker to worker it slowly gained more and more pieces finishing the automobile completely...
This radical idea of the automobile permeated throughout America with most, if not all credit renowned to Henry Ford. Observed as a technological mastermind, Ford commenced experiments involving machinery from the time he was adolescent to launching his career working at the Edison Illuminating Company. He examined internal combustion engines and gasoline buggy ideas eventually resulting in removing himself from Edison’s company and his introduction in the emerging automobile industry. Following in 1903, he established the Ford Motor Company, which expeditiously became a leader in the automotive industry and would gain extensive wealth within only a few decades. While other manufacturers strove to produce automobiles to be extravagant and luxurious predominantly for the wealthy, he immensely focused on efficient mass production of durable, affordable vehicles for the expanding middle-class market.
Ford's Assembly Line Assembly Line The assembly line has changed the world as drastically as it has been changed by the world since it began. It brought people together to work as a group. toward all achieving the same goal. Henry Ford was only aiming to bring cars into the homes of the average citizen.
The assembly line that Henry Ford built was probably the first automated assembly line. It was certainly Ford's first assembly line was one of the most sophisticated and successful examples ever. So Henry Ford wanted to build a car that everybody could afford not just the rich
Another element that was seen in the 1950’s were the tail-fins present on most Cadillacs. The first Cadillac that had the tail fin was introdu...
The solution is the assembly line. With the assembly line, the time to create one car dropped from 12 hours to 90 minutes. The price of the automobile also fell greatly, which further increased the demand. The automobile industry inspired other industries to form, such as the steel, rubber, petroleum, machine tools, and road building industries. But life wasn't just peaches and cream in the 1920's.
Henry Ford's assembly line in Detroit was the largest one in the country. When Ford first started making cars, the only car he made was a black Model-T. Almost everybody in the United States had a car. Three-out-of-four families owned one or more cars. With the assembly line they made a lot more cars in one day than they did before. Instead of payin...
Have you ever wondered which decade in the 1900s where cars were at its highest point of production and what they looked like in that decade? To answer the question, the 60s was the best time for the production of muscle cars. In the 60s, the time came when cars started to look great and drive perfectly. The cars in the 60s was the most popular era of time when cars evolved. Chevrolet had the best cars then.
In a report made by the U.S. Department of Commerce from 1920 to 1930 prices of workers in the production slowly began to rise which because the automated car line caused workers to need more skill. They were also doing the same repeated job hours on end every day they went to work. This was started by Henry Ford when he started to pay his workers more for the production line jobs which was adopted by more factories employing the same automated system. This created higher wages giving people the ability to buy more consumer goods which caused companies to gain more profits and produce more
In 1916 the Ford Model T wasn’t the first car in America it was the first car of the American people forging the beginning of a transportation revolution. Progressing into the 1920s and 1930s cars got a lot better at being cars with higher top speeds, more refined design, and safer construction. With these advancements cars were rapidly becoming tools in more Americans lives as they got better. When the United States became involved in World War II automotive development was shifted into military vehicle development to design and produce the all terrain vehicles tanks and other machines needed in the war effort. After WWII American automotive companies went back to building consumer vehicles fairly similar similar to the prewar models until
Ford was able to make a reliable and inexpensive automobile primarily because of his introduction of the innovative moving assembly line into the process of industrial manufacturing. The assembly line is a system for carrying an item that is being manufactured past a series of stationary workers who each assemble a particular portion of the finished product.
The automobile has become an important part in our nations economy. In fact such an important part that is has called for many changes through out its history. One of the main changes is the body. In the 1950's the body was made mostly of steel. This was okay if you like bulky, heavy, gas guzzling cars. The main reason why steel was so widely used is that the steel industry was so huge and steel was so cheep that it was the logical thing to use. However with all the advances in plastics it did not make sense to use steel when a lighter more durable substitute became readily available and much cheaper. Steel is still used though today because of its strength and protection to the passengers.