Essay 23-B: The Invention Of The Mass-Produced Motor Vehicle And Henry Ford

Essay Read by Constituting America Founder, Actress Janine Turner

“I will build a motor car for the great multitude…constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise…so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one-and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God’s great open spaces.” Henry Ford 

When Henry Ford and eleven investors incorporated Ford Motor Company on June 16, 1903, he had a clear vision of the types of automobiles he wanted to produce—light, durable and inexpensive. This was a departure from the hundreds of other burgeoning automobile companies trying to establish themselves at the time. For most of the world saw the new horseless carriage as an expensive toy for the rich. In the early 20th century, there were hundreds of car companies trying to find their niche in the developing auto industry and most would come and go within months of starting. Henry Ford knew that too well, as his first two car companies came and went between 1901 and 1903. 

Ford Motor Company started as a small venture with around ten employees in a small shop in Detroit, Michigan with $28,000 in cash, and struggled to stay afloat in the first few months. Investors watched wearily as that cash balance dwindled to $223.65, before the company made its first sale of a Ford Model A to a Chicago dentist. That first sale didn’t propel the company immediately; it did show that the company had a model people were interested in. Over the next 15 months, the small organization was able to produce 1,700 Ford Model As from its small wagon shop.

Between 1903 and 1908, Henry Ford and his engineers used the first 19 letters of the alphabet to designate their creations, beginning in 1903 with the first Model A. Several of the car models were experimental only and never reached the public. Of the eight early models that went into production, the most successful was Model N – a small, light, four-cylinder machine that sold for $500. A $2,500 six-cylinder luxury car, the Model K, sold poorly.

As Ford moved through its “alphabet cars” to the Model S, Henry began working in secret on a new model he believed would revolutionize the automobile industry—the Model T. This was the model that Henry had been hoping to show that he had the right formula to put the world on wheels. It was a small, lightweight model with a simple four-cylinder engine. Its durability came from using identical/interchangeable parts that could be replicated repeatedly and consistently. With the introduction of Model T in October 1908, the world would never be the same. 

        As the demand for the Model T kept growing, the young company turned its attention to improving its manufacturing processes. The moving assembly line was Ford Motor Company’s single greatest contribution to automotive manufacturing. First implemented at the Highland Park plant in Michigan in 1913, the new technique allowed individual workers to stay in one place and perform the same task repeatedly on multiple vehicles that passed by them.
      The line proved tremendously efficient, helping the company to far surpass the production levels of its competitors and making the vehicles more affordable, and the company passed those savings on to its customers. Nineteen years after Model T’s debut, fifteen million vehicles were built, and the price of cars went from $825 in 1908 to $260 for the same model in 1927. There were so many Model T Fords on the road that the “Tin Lizzie” (as it became known) was a cultural phenomenon and Ford held 50% of the market for vehicle sales.

The advent of the automotive moving assembly created a new problem for the booming Ford Motor Company—employee retention. Typically, manufacturing jobs at the time worked 12-hour days, six days a week. This became particularly monotonous for employees working on assembly lines, doing the same tasks repeatedly. So, Henry Ford announced in 1914 that he was going to begin to pay laborers $5 a day for eight hours of work, doubling the average pay that workers made at the time. Workers began to flood Ford plants in search of good-paying jobs, which developed the working middle class. 

In 1925, Ford Motor Company launched a print advertising campaign titled, “Opening the Highways to all Mankind.” It featured a painting depicting a young family on top of hill next to their Ford automobile and in the distance was a highway with cars and electrical poles with plots of land beyond. In the clouds was a depiction of the Ford factory where Henry’s moving assembly line had democratized mobility for the masses. Henry Ford did not invent the automobile, but he did take a “toy for the rich” and developed opportunities for everyone to move freely across the land.

Jamie Myler is a historian and archivist from Ann Arbor, Michigan. He has been the Research Archivist at Ford Motor Company Archives for over 25 years. He earned a Bachelor of Science and Master’s degrees from Eastern Michigan University and Certificate of Archives Management at Wayne State University.

The Ford Motor Company Archives was established in 1951 for the 50th anniversary of the company and is one of the early corporate archives started in the US.

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