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.
After the steam engine was created in the early 17th century, many people and companies tried to take that same technology and apply it to automobiles. Nobody was successful until a British inventor by the name of Richard Trevithick created a multi passenger automobile that ran on a power source that was driven by a steam-propelled piston at high pressure (Bellis). Up until the mid 1900’s cars were only produced by specifically skilled blacksmiths, and were very expensive. There were only about 4,000 cars produced from the 1890’s to mid 1900’s (Bellis).
On December 1st in 1913 Henry first installs the first moving assembly line of the mass production of an entire automobile.
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.
started up in 1903. Of course, it wasn’t all smooth sailing. George Baldwin Selden, an inventor, earned himself a patent for the automobile in 1895. This halted production of the Model A almost entirely. Ford eventually gained the support of other carmakers and eventually shut down the Selden Patent. Henry Ford faced many other challenges including greedy employees, failed model t prototypes and many more things. However, Ford also had his Triumphs in some of the things he's most famous for. First, Ford invented the assembly line. Before, one car would be assembled at a time bringing all the parts around to one place. Ford’s assembly line changed this. Now they could make and mass produce several cars at a time. Heres how it works: a bare chassis would roll down a conveyor. Along the way the engine, wheels, body, and a black paint job would be applied. Going along with the assembly line, Ford was also able to make a cheap, easy to fix,
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...
The birth of the automobile was truly something special. Once a far fetched dream is now what many people believe to be the back bone of the American economy. When people think about the automobile the name that comes to mind is most usually Henry Ford. Although he is not credited with the invention of the automobile, Henry Ford played a crucial role in the development of mass production. The automobile was first invented Europe in 1771 with a top speed of 2.3 miles per hour. A man by the name of Gottliech Daimler produced what was known as the milestone car in 1889, this vehicle traveled at 10 miles per hour (Brown, 105). Not more then a handful of these cars were produced over seas. Not many people had ever seen one, let alone had one. It wasn’t until Henry Ford invented the assembly line, that anyone knew what a car was. Henry Ford and the invention of the assembly line altered the American economy and revolutionized travel everywhere.
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.
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).
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...
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
Fordism continued the method of breaking tasks down to a simpler form used by Taylorism and involved greater focus on the production line by creating a series of steps into making a car which was repetitive for each worker with the core aim of achieving mass production. Fordism was different to Taylorism with regard to the deskilling of tasks and moving them into the assembly line as already mentioned made the workers tasks highly repetitive . This was met with criticism from many including Taylor who compared the assembly line workers to trained monkeys . Although this was not the first time the assembly line type practice was seen, the new organisational development and introduction of a conveyor belt was new which therefore put the pace at which the workers worked in the hands of factory management . This new change was not met with great pleasure from the American workforce, with absenteeism, deterioration of quality, the growth of trade unions just to name a few all causing Ford problems.
When he was 28 Ford took a job with Thomas Edison's Detroit Illuminating Company, where he became chief engineer. In his spare time he began to build his first car, the Quadricycle. It resembled two bicycles positioned side by side with bicycle-like wheels, a bicycle seat, and a barely visible engine frame. Some said it bore a resemblance to a baby carriage with a two-cylinder engine. In June 1896, Ford took an historic ride in his first automobile that was observed by many curious Detroit on-lookers. The Quadricycle broke down in a humiliating scene.
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.