Henry Ford’s Influence On Society Essay, Research Paper

Henry Ford’s Influence on Society

In E.L. Doctorow’s, Ragtime, a classic novel set in the early years of the twentieth century, Henry Ford appears for only one chapter, but in that chapter it becomes clear that Doctorow saw him as a democratic industrialist. In that chapter, J.P. Morgan invites Ford to have lunch with him at his Manhattan mansion. In this meeting of the two industry giants, Morgan invites Ford to go on an expedition to Egypt with him. Ford declined because he believed that Morgan’s whole purpose for the trip had to do with reincarnation. Ford told Morgan that his belief of reincarnation came out of a book that he purchased for twenty-five cents, instead of a trip halfway around the world to find his beliefs. From this chapter we can conclude that Doctorow sees Ford as a simple man and someone who is concerned about not only himself but his workers as well.

Henry Ford was born on July 30, 1863 in Dearborn, Michigan. His father, William Ford, and his mother, Mary Litogot Ford, lived and worked on their family farm. Henry also had three brothers, John, William, and Robert, as well as two sisters, Margaret, and Jane. Henry was the oldest of all the kids. As Henry grew up he was assigned chores to do around the farm just like all his brothers and sisters. Henry came to the conclusion that he didn’t like farm life while he was still a young boy. He was more interested in mechanical things. He was always pulling things apart to see how they

worked. In 1879 Henry walked six miles to the Michigan Car Company and took a job. Although it was only for a short time, he now knew what he wanted to do. The following year he took another job where he was exposed to and began working with an internal-combustion engine. In 1882 he was hired by Westinghouse to service steam engines and continued this for approximately nine years. He then went to work for Edison Electric Company. This is where he began to develop and put together his first engine. He began putting together a one-cylinder engine and as soon as he got that working he moved on to building a two-cylinder engine. He began working on a horseless carriage. Upon completion of it he realized that it was too big to fit out of the doors of the shed. So without hesitation he picked up an axe and chopped out enough of the shed to get it out. He began driving his four-cylinder “car” around town and attracted the interest of a group of investors. As quickly as this company was founded it was killed due to Ford’s perfectionism.

In the years following Henry continued tinkering with different variations of his car. He was finding ways to make it go faster and be more reliable. During this time Ford was making his money by racing his car. He won his first race, which earned him an unbelievable amount of prestige. The backers who had earlier dropped Ford soon came back to him and The Henry Ford Company was born. In the years after the company was formed the Model A was produced. At this point Ford was gaining more and more support and financial backing.

At this point in history cars were still very expensive. Only the upper class was able to afford such a luxury. Ford wanted to build a car for the general public. It would have to be a car that was designed for everyday wear and tear. Meaning that it had both durable and have a long life expectancy. This car would also have to be affordable so that the general pubic would be able to buy one. Thus the Model T was born. The Model T was a very simple car. There weren’t too many accessories that were available with it. The colors that it was available in were either black or black. When the Model T was released it debuted for seven hundred and fifty dollars. This car not only changed American Society forever but also had a great affect on the rest of the world. If Henry Ford was able to produce a car for such a low price why couldn’t other companies do the same? At the time the Model T became the most successful vehicle ever produced in America. More than 15.5 million were manufactured during its nineteen-year run.

To accommodate the great demand for the Model T that Ford had to figure out a way to manufacture his cars at a faster pace. At the time when a car was being put together cars were mounted on cradles and pushed around to where the next part was to be put on. This was a very time consuming and complex because the workers had to remember how to do more than one thing at a time. To help speed up the process Ford envisioned a system where all the cars that were being put together were on a rope and pulled through the factory. This rope would not stop moving, however it would go at a slow enough pace where someone would have enough time to accomplish just one task. This is what that person would do all day long. He would not do anything else just that

one job. Ford’s thinking was, “The man who put in the bolt does not put on the nut; The man who puts on the nut does not tighten it.” Ford called this idea, “The Assembly Line.” Ford’s assembly line helped to increase production to twice what it was before. Thanks to the assembly line Ford was able to cut production time by nearly seventy-five percent and churn out a car every ninety-three minutes. At the time this was unheard of. One of the only problems with this was not as many people were needed as before. The labor force was drastically reduced from 14,336 to 12880 workers. Because of this the work that these workers performed was very demanding. For every thousand workers hired only about a hundred would stay. Overall the assembly line was probably Ford’s greatest contributions to society. It revolutionized the way that things are manufactured.

While the assembly line was probably Ford’s greatest contribution he did many other things for society as well. Another thing that he did was he increased the daily wage to five dollars per day. At the time the daily wage for a job like that was $2.34. In addition to the wage increase he also shaved an hour off the workday. Instead of working nine hours per day he cut it back to eight hours per day. Ford felt that happy worker would be more productive workers. Maybe he was hoping that with the extra money that he was paying them, they would turn around and purchase on of his cars. Of course this pay hike had its opponents because a lot of other business owners thought that why should people who don’t have a lot of education and training get paid so much for doing so little. The five-dollar a day policy caused a great deal of problems. There were men wondering the streets refusing to work for more than five dollars a day. People were

coming from all over the country to try and get a job from Ford causing a housing shortage. This caused the city to become unsanitary because there was trash pilling up in the streets, overcrowding inside of homes, and not many buildings had plumbing systems in those days. To help combat all this Ford formed a sociological department in his company. This department was in charge of going around to the employees homes and suggesting ways to save their money, telling them not to spit on the floors in their houses, teaching proper hygiene to the employees and their families, and discouraging them from drinking, smoking, and gambling. To me it appears that Ford really did care about how his employees and their overall health in general.

To aid in the upkeep and ease of owning a car Henry Ford campaigned to have more paved roads built. Ford thought that it was ridiculous that his cars had to drive along the same roads as the horse-drawn carriages were pulled along. These roads were all rutted out and made driving on them extremely difficult. His hard campaigning eventually led to an interstate-highway system being built. Today there are highway systems all over the nation. We can thank Ford for getting this trend started.

Another thing that Ford did to help make his cars more appealing to the public is, he pushed for gas stations to be built everywhere. This way people didn’t have to drive too far to fill up their brand new Model T’s. This too has played a major role on society because in this day and age if you can go ten miles without seeing a gas station it is pretty amazing.

Henry Ford was indeed a great industrialist, just as Doctorow had portrayed in his classic novel Ragtime. While he enjoyed making money he also in tune with his

employees’ needs. He was not the kind of person who was cold hearted, acting like he was above all of his employees and as if they weren’t people. Often times he had been seen down on the floor of the plant with his employees instead of up in his office all day long. Ford indeed did a lot for society. Next time you are in a car just stop and think to yourself who mad it possible for the everyday common man to be able to own a car.