TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENTS IN THE 1910S

Improved methods of production, communication, and health care opened the door to better lifestyles for many Americans between 1910 and 1919. In the northern half of the country, where industry and cities had been built up, people’s lives were especially prosperous and comfortable — at least for people who could afford to pay for services. Almost any middle-class or wealthy American could find a choice of products, from fruits and vegetables to telephones and automobiles, to quality silks and cottons. Good medical facilities had also been built in most cities. Private grade schools, high schools, and colleges stood alongside public facilities, giving many an educational choice for their children. The hustle and bustle of city life seemed to symbolize general prosperity.

Meanwhile, people in the southern half of the country were less likely to have convenient access to these technological and medical facilities, or many useful commercial opportunities, because the South, which relied on farming for much of its income, had developed more slowly. As a consequence, towns and cities tended to be farther apart from one another, there were less schools, and fewer people could afford the wide range of goods that were produced in the North to be transported South. As the decade passed, the disparity between life in the North and South would continue to grow.

In Detroit, by 1910, Frederick Taylor’s theories of scientific management had been enthusiastically approved by many of America’s industrialists. Manufacturers now hired time study supervisors to increase worker production rates by assessing and eliminating all unnecessary procedures and timewasting movements. In factories, mills, and mines, work became strictly monitored as workers were encouraged to use the most simple, repetitive movements to complete their tasks more efficiently. By doing so, their production rates and the business owners’ profits increased. On the downside, many businesses failed to pass their growing profits on to their workers through bonuses or higher pay. Managers abused the workforce, insisting on faster and faster production at the expense of worker morale and safety. Employees in some factories were fined for talking or if their production rates slipped below previous targets.

Assembly-line Improvements

No one was more captivated by the idea that scientific management could increase profits through productivity than automobile manufacturer Henry Ford. He brought Taylor, the "Father of Scientific Management," to his Detroit automobile plant for seminars and time studies. Ford analyzed every idea that Taylor had. Then he took scientific management one step further than the theorist had ever imagined. Where Taylor proclaimed that eliminating each unnecessary step in a worker’s task would speed the manufacturing process, Ford reasoned that moving the product, in his case the automobile, along a mechanized line would speed production even more. With the help of overhead cables and cranes, which were originally intended to hoist cable cars and trains over mountains, and through the ingenuity of replacing waist high shelving with a conveyor belt, Ford developed a moving assembly-line. Each worker along the assembly-line was responsible for performing one step in the process, rather than for the complete assembly of an entire automobile.

Next Ford developed a system of work that brought each worker’s task down to such a simple level that an unskilled worker could accomplish it. "Every piece in the shop moves," explained Henry Ford of his factory. "No workman has anything to do with moving or lifting anything. Save ten steps a day for 12,000 employees and you will have saved fifty miles of wasted motion and misspent energy."

Production increased from an annual rate of 10,660 cars in 1909 to 78,440 Model T’s in 1911. The cost of each car decreased from around $850 in 1908 to $440 by October 1913 and $345 by 1916. Ford believed that decreasing prices would increase profits. "I hold that it is better to sell a large number of cars at a reasonably small margin than to sell fewer cars at a large margin of profit," he explained. "I hold this because it enables a larger number of people to buy and enjoy the use of a car, and because it gives a larger number of men employment at good wages. Those are two aims I have in life." In 1914, Ford passed assembly-line profits on to workers, granting the unheard of wage of five dollars per day. Ford’s assembly-line set a precedent for the highest paying jobs and incentive pay while producing the cheapest cars.

Ford’s determination to meet the country’s automobile needs, and to pass profits on to his employees, meant he took an interest in constantly improving every aspect of his business. He could often be found in his company’s laboratories, tinkering alongside his engineers, or on the line experimenting with a particular assembly process.

His and other companies pioneered many improvements that lent to the automobile’s practicality as a family vehicle. Before the decade was out, the hand-cranked starter was replaced in most cars by an electric starter, which General Motors introduced in 1912, and parts could be replaced for a few cents. In 1919, mufflers cost twenty-four cents each, a fender, $2.50. To simplify owning an automobile, Henry M. Leland had developed interchangeable parts by 1908. Now Henry Ford made sure that automobile owners could make simple repairs with just a wrench, hammer, screwdriver, and heavy wire. Windshield wipers and rear view mirrors could also be purchased from suppliers other than Ford, since he felt these were unnecessary luxuries.

Ford’s obsession with the automobile and efficient manufacture had a darker side to it, too. His craving for perfection sometimes made him difficult to work for and, at times, made workers feel that his critical eyes were everywhere. It was true that his stern judgment could quickly cost an unwary employee his job. If Ford’s efficiency experts detected any workers wasting their time or effort, they were told to improve their performance immediately, or get out. Ford also developed a "Sociology Department" to bring efficiency into his employees’ homes. "Sociologists" interrogated families, neighbors, and friends to determine the moral fitness of employees. Those found lacking were told to improve or face dismissal.

Still Ford’s company became the symbol of American resourcefulness. Thousands of Americans pinned their dreams on Ford and on the many parts companies or machine shops that sprang up all over to service the expanding auto industry.

With the increased manufacture of automobiles, roads were improved in America’s cities, and greater numbers of vehicles on the roads made it necessary to impose safety rules on the drivers. Americans thus discovered new inventions to meet new needs. During the 1910s, Garrett Augustus Morgan developed the first traffic light for these new city roads, although it wasn’t patented until 1923. This African-American inventor also designed the first gas mask used by America’s firefighters. In 1916, the mask was used to rescue more than twenty workers trapped in a smoke-filled water tunnel in Cleveland, Ohio.

Whether they were designing auto parts or gas masks, the country’s inventive geniuses were loved by America’s workers because each new invention meant the creation of more assembly-line jobs.