Ford, Henry (part II)

“I will build a motor car for the great multitude,” Ford proclaimed in announcing the birth of the Model T in October 1908. In the 19 years of the Model T's existence, he sold 15,500,000 of the cars in the United States, almost 1,000,000 more in Canada, and 250,000 in Great Britain, a production total amounting to half the auto output of the world.

The motor age arrived owing mostly to Ford's vision of the car as the ordinary man's utility rather than as the rich man's luxury. Once only the rich had travelled freely around the country; now millions could go wherever they pleased. The Model T was the chief instrument of one of the greatest and most rapid changes in the lives of the common people in history, and it effected this change in less than two decades.

Farmers were no longer isolated on remote farms. The horse disappeared so rapidly that the transfer of acreage from hay to other crops caused an agricultural revolution. The automobile became the main prop of the American economy and a stimulant to urbanization—cities spread outward, creating suburbs and housing developments—and to the building of the finest highway system in the world.

The remarkable birth rate of Model T's was made possible by the most advanced production technology yet conceived. After much experimentation by Ford and his engineers, the system that had evolved by 1913–14 in Ford's new plant in Highland Park, Michigan, was able to deliver parts, subassemblies, and assemblies (themselves built on subsidiary assembly lines) with precise timing to a constantly moving main assembly line, where a complete chassis was turned out every 93 minutes, an enormous improvement over the 728 minutes formerly required. The minute subdivision of labour and the coordination of a multitude of operations produced huge gains in productivity.

In 1914 the Ford Motor Company announced that it would henceforth pay eligible workers a minimum wage of $5 a day (compared to an average of $2.34 for the industry) and would reduce the work day from nine hours to eight, thereby converting the factory to a three-shift day. Overnight Ford became a worldwide celebrity. People either praised him as a great humanitarian or excoriated him as a mad socialist. Ford said humanitarianism had nothing to do with it. Previously profit had been based on paying wages as low as workers would take and pricing cars as high as the traffic would bear. Ford, on the other hand, stressed low pricing (the Model T cost $950 in 1908 and $290 in 1927) in order to capture the widest possible market and then met the price by volume and efficiency. Ford's success in making the automobile a basic necessity turned out to be but a prelude to a more widespread revolution.

The development of mass-production techniques, which enabled the company eventually to turn out a Model T every 24 seconds; the frequent reductions in the price of the car made possible by economies of scale; and the payment of a living wage that raised workers above subsistence and made them potential customers for, among other things, automobiles—these innovations changed the very structure of society.

II. Look through the text again and answer the following questions:

1. Why did Ford want to “build a motor car for the great multitude”? What do you think?

2. Why did the automobile become the main prop of the American economy?

3. What did promote the remarkable birth rate of Model T’s?

4. What was the Ford’s vision of the car?

5. Why did people praise Ford as a great humanitarian?

6. Why do you think automobiles change the structure of society?

III. Match the words with their definitions and make up your own sentences with these words:

1. luxury a) the act or process of growing;

2. production b) the total of two or more quantities, sum;

3. gain c) the quality of practical use, usefulness;

4. development d) a person who buys smth.;

5. amount e) a famous person;

6. celebrity f) the state or condition of being reduced;

7. utility g) located far away, distant;

8. remote e) the creation or manufacture of smth.;

9. customer f) earn or profit;

10. reduction j) enjoyment of rich and sumptuous living;

IV. Find additional information about Henry Ford and his first model of a car. While looking for information you are free to use the internet sites given below as well as any other online resources.

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