Henry Ford Impact On Society

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Henry Ford is commonly associated as the man who invented both the automobile and the assembly line, however, the actual inventors of these devices are Karl Benz and Ransom E. Olds, respectively. Nonetheless, Ford can be attributed with the modifications to the production of the car and the assembly line that made them successful. Unsatisfied with a life of farming, Henry Ford became an apprentice to a mechanic and his career as an engineer only grew from that point on. In the 1940’s, despite the difficult times the United States of America was facing due to the lasting effects of World War II, Henry Ford was able to implement the system of Fordism in mass production. Fordism is the name given to the economic system that was established in …show more content…
The 1920’s went through an expansion in the economy, it was “booming”, and Ford played a large role in this. He believed that workers should earn enough of a wage that would allow them to purchase the products they helped in producing, so he gave his workers a higher compensation. In turn, families had a higher income and purchased more goods, which profited earned companies a higher profit and lead them to expand, which opened up more jobs. When the Model T was first introduced to the market, it was sold for $1,200; by the end of its production, it was sold for around $300. This is because Ford implemented moving assembly lines with stationary workers, meaning workers perform the same task rather than perform multiple ones, allowing them to specialize in their work. This decreased production time and allowed for the mass production of cars. In the 1920’s, Ford’s way of business improved the standard of living for many Americans; it allowed them to enjoy life more before the crash of the stock market in 1929 lead the nation into the Great Depression. For over a decade, Henry Ford was able to improve the economy and peoples’ lives because he did not abuse his workers like other capitalists and introduced new ways of …show more content…
It is clear that the outcome of his career was successful, however, his overall journey was met with some difficulties and hardships. For instance, in 1896 Ford was able to produce the Quadricycle while working with the Edison Illuminating Company, a carriage. This carriage was not fit for the competitive atmosphere that made up the automobile industry at the time. His second attempt was a prototype produced under the Detroit Automobile Company. However, his stockholders did not appreciate the amount of time, money, and difficulty that was needed to produce the prototype, so they revoked their funding and Ford was back to square one. In his third attempt, with the help of a previous investor, William H. Murphy, the Henry Ford Company was initiated. Murphy, a business man who understood nothing about engineering, interfered too much and eventually, the interference became unbearable and Ford left the company. All respect and trust for Ford in the automobile industry was lost due to both of his failures. No one was willing to give him a third chance due to the amount of capital that was being invested. Ford realized that his failures were not caused by his creations, but rather, they were caused by the pressure from others’ insistence to complete them in an unreasonable amount of time. Ford decided to create his own form of management and system of production in order

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